Having played umpteen hours of SimCity in my teenage years, I can tell you that (pretend) town-planning can be brilliant fun. Now Pango Build City wants to prove it to the kids of 2016.

Admittedly, this isn’t a fully-fledged SimCity-style strategy game. Instead it’s a playful app for 3-8 year-old children that gets them building their own pixel-perfect cities on an Android, iPhone or iPad device.

“Start by building a track with roads and rails. Next organise a city with its walls, buildings and trees. All you have to do is explore the fascinating city you’ve imagined,” explains its app store listing.

“Thanks to you, Pango and his friends will take turns as the firefighter, grocer, postman or doctor. They travel by train or car, visit big monuments like the Eiffel Tower and return home to sleep in the evening.”

What I like about Pango Build City is that it’s not intimidating for young children starting out: they can choose one of the 13 cities already built within the app, and mess about with them before trying one from scratch.

I also like the fact that this isn’t just about buildings and roads: the characters make it a bit more friendly for children. It could also help them develop their storytelling skills, as they make up what Pango and friends are doing.

Kids will also love to show you the cities they’ve built, and we suspect they’ll also want you to join in by building your own – even if they take over five minutes in (a speciality of my two sons when getting us to play Minecraft!)

Pango Build City costs £2.29 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and £1.99 for Android from the Google Play store.