Top 5: iPhone Games for Kids

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Editor

“Mom, can I play on your phone?” <insert imp­ish grin>

It’s become a mantra, every time we get in the car… or get in a line… or sit down at a restau­rant. Some­times I think my daugh­ter spends more time on my phone than I do (well, not really).

And appar­ently, I’m not alone. A recent sur­vey [1] found that 59 per­cent of iPhone moms let their chil­dren use their phones. Forty-one per­cent down­load games specif­i­cally for their chil­dren. Thirty-two per­cent let their kids use con­tent on their phone, and 20 per­cent down­load edu­ca­tional con­tent for their kids.

It’s really only a mat­ter of time before I get sick of her using MY phone all the time and suc­cumb to her con­stant requests to have her own iPhone or iTouch or iPad (or some Android vari­ant). And I’m not alone in that either, as one in 10 kids under age 10 have their own smart­phone already (source: Daily Record [2] , 2011).

Of course, since I work in tech­nol­ogy and I’ve been doing quite a lot of mobile audi­ence research and app bench­mark­ing lately, I get to share won­drous “I love my job” moments while play­ing on my iPhone WITH her on an increas­ingly reg­u­lar basis. At least twice in the last month, I have been able to share insights with Lokion clients based on the iPhone game apps that my daugh­ter loves. There are so many good iPhone game apps for kids (Lokion­ites have con­cepted, designed or devel­oped almost a dozen). Here are HER cur­rent Top Five:

1. Where’s My Water? [3] , by Dis­ney (free or $0.99)
   She loves the “end­less” lev­els (160+) in this chal­leng­ing physics-based puz­zler where you help Swampy the Alli­ga­tor dodge algae, toxic ooze, trig­gers and traps in the sew­ers under the city so you can guide water to his shower.
2. Stick­man Skater [4] , by Trac­tion Games (free or $0.99)
   What could be cooler than a stick-figure skater dude doing fancy tricks (1000+ com­bi­na­tions pos­si­ble). Clever use of accelerom­e­ter, 24+ lev­els, a 2-player option and a leader­board keep lit­tle com­peti­tors’ interest.
3. Dr. NanoX [5] , by Mis­sion Crit­i­cal Stu­dios (free or $0.99)
   Like the Incred­i­ble Jour­ney, shrink down to explore real­is­tic 3D inter­nal biol­ogy ter­rain with your fly­ing jet­pack. Blast dan­ger­ous nan­otech bots, mutant crea­tures and mon­ster par­a­sites with unusual sci­en­tific instru­ments (ex: Grap­pler Gun, Love Doc­tor Shrinker Gun, the Irra­di­a­tor) and a sub­ma­rine blaster.
4. Sim­ple Physics [6] , by Andrew Gar­ri­son ($0.99)
   Design com­plex struc­tures for every­thing from tree houses to fer­ris wheels on a bud­get, then test to see if they are strong enough sup­port the chal­lenge. See in slow-motion how strain is dis­trib­uted across your design so you can fix prob­lem areas. And when all else fails, squeal when you smash / explode your design to smithereens.
5. Sto­ryKit [7] , by ICDL Foun­da­tion and National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (free)
   Make use of the lit­tle gaps in life to cre­ate elec­tronic sto­ry­books with text, draw­ing, pho­tos and sound. Prac­tice lay­out. Add, reorder or delete pages. Upload and email to share a pri­vate link. No account nec­es­sary. Lit­tle authors unleashed!

Smart­phones are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing learn­ing and reshap­ing our qual­ity time. Plus they’re kind of fun. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less! So, set your Game Time Limit [8] ($0.99) and let Lokion help you imag­ine the next hit app.

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Links

1. ^{^} Smartphone Shopping study (mashable.com)
2. ^{^} Daily Record (www.dailyrecord.co.uk)
3. ^{^} Where’s My Water? (itunes.apple.com)
4. ^{^} Stick­man Skater (itunes.apple.com)
5. ^{^} Dr. NanoX (itunes.apple.com)
6. ^{^} Sim­ple Physics (itunes.apple.com)
7. ^{^} Sto­ryKit (itunes.apple.com)
8. ^{^} Game Time Limit (itunes.apple.com)

source: www.lokion.com