Anywhere you look on social media and in news outlets, you will see that there are plenty of complaints about young children being given access to mobile games and that they shouldn’t be playing video games. People say that they should be outside all the time or developing practical skills.
While in some respects I agree with this, sometimes these kinds of statements couldn’t be further from the truth. Some people have made it their mission to develop child-friendly and educational gaming apps which further a child’s development and gives them the means to start developing vital ICT skills, which are needed in today’s technological driven society.
Each week, I would like to introduce you to one of these apps in the hopes that it helps remove the stigma that all video games are bad for young children. To start us off, I would like to introduce you to Kapu Forest.
This charming and very well-presented app comes from a studio in Helsinki, Finland, called Kapu Toys. Kapu Forest is set in a northern European woodland with creatures that young children would recognize and have fun interacting with. It is free-form, allowing children to play whichever level they want to play, in any order they want. There are no clocks, no timers, and no scores, which give the app a very relaxed feel to it.
“The main aim for the Kapu Forest is of course to entertain the kids, but we also want them to get excited about nature and be the instrument that creates the urge for them to go outside and discover the real adventures in the forests.”
–Tuomas Vanamo, Founder of Kapu Toys
The app consists of 12 mini games, all based around a certain creature. The games are designed to help children with memory, shape recognition, and hand-eye coordination.
One of my favorite mini games is the one where you play with Beaver. He needs to finish building his dam, but he is missing some pieces of wood. Each missing piece is a different shape, and the child must select the right shaped piece which is flowing down the river and drag it into place to the correct spot on the dam.
Kapu Forest has a whole host of features such as:
- High-quality graphics and colorful animations inspired by the art of French illustrator and author, Alain Grée
- Exclusively composed Jazz-inspired score which creates a relaxing environment
- Child-friendly interface
- Intuitive controls for kids regardless of the age
From a parental point of view, Kapu Forest has other features which are reassuring. For instance, it keeps track on how long your child has been playing on the app and allows you to set a limit. Once the limit has been reached, the game shuts down. There are also no in-game ads and it requires no micro-transactions, which means that there are no accidental purchases or the risk of disturbing ads.
Kapu Forest is completely free on Android devices, but is $1.99 for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. Kapu Toys is responsible for many other educational and skill development games. Check out their website and Facebook page for more information on all their products.
