Numberlys doesn’t have the usual influences you’d expect to see in a kid-app. The original King Kong film. The Marx Brothers. The 1939 New York World’s Fair. And most of all, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – a marvellous movie, but not one we think many four year-olds are watching for fun.

We wholeheartedly approve, though. Numberlys is a beautiful app, revolving around a bunch of little characters who create the alphabet. It sits somewhere between an animated film and a game: it’s not really a book-app, although it does tell a story.

There is clever but sparing use of colour to help your children realise what to do, and bags of creativity and craft that has gone into the app’s creation.

Will kids be engaged by a mostly-monochrome app when most of the culture they consume – whether TV, magazines, books or other apps – is vividly colourful? That we don’t know, but we hope Numberlys does well. The app costs £3.99, and is a Universal app for iPhone and iPad.

And once you’re done with it, developer Moonbot Studios’ previous app, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, is an essential download too.