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Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

 
Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review
Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review
Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

 
At a Glance...
 

Formats: iPad 2nd Generation and up only.
 
Genre: , , , , ,
 
Year:
 
Publisher:
 
Developer:
 
Final Score
8.5
8.5/ 10


User Rating
no ratings yet

 

We liked?


  • Lots of activities for kids
  • Cool augmented reality camera games

Not so much?


  • Not compatible with earliest iPad model
  • Some apps may require reading


Final Fiendish Findings?

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions is a fantastic educational application filled with a ton of content for children who are interested to learn about lions and the African grasslands.

1
Posted December 10, 2012 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions is the first iOS application based on the popular children’s magazine Ranger Rick, and is developed by the folks at the National Wildlife Federation.

Players will join Ricky Racoon and Lars the Lion, as they go on an adventure — erm, excuse me — “appventure” through the grasslands of Africa.  Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions is part interactive storybook app and part multi-genre’d game.

The application is separated into three different categories: Play, Explore, and Create.  If you idle for awhile on the menu, both Ricky and Lars will make suggestions as to what you can do next.

While nearly every activity categories are accessible through the Explore mode, players can go straight to their favorite activity by choosing between the Play and Create modes.

Play includes a variety of edutainment-style games aimed toward children, including a jigsaw puzzle, a sound-matching game, and a couple of hidden items.

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

In Explore mode, players can learn about lions and the grasslands of Africa in an interactive tour, by following lion tracks.  At each stop kids will have the option to play a variety of Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lion’s mini-games.

“What’s Wrong with this Picture?” is a hidden object style game where the player must find objects do not belong in the grasslands.  For the most part, this game is pretty easy, and the answers are pretty obvious.  Young players should breeze through it.  When my 5-year-old son and I sat down with this, at first, we were only able to find 5 of the 6 items.  Obviously, a rocket ship does not belong in the skies of the grasslands.

Interestingly, the 6th and easiest “gimmie” in this game is Ricky Raccoon himself.  I thought it was pretty funny considering he’s the “host” and sorta, kinda does need to be there.  But, technically raccoons are hanging out in the grasslands.  Once all of the items are found, players are ranked by the number of taps they made, as well as how long it took them to find all of the oddities.

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

While exploring you’ll also watch video clips all the while learn about lions.  One of the coolest “games” was the photo safari, that uses the iPad’s accelerometer to give the illusion that you’re standing in middle of Africa, taking photos of cute little lion cubs.  It sort of felt like an augmented reality first-person shooter that requires you to turn and aim the iPad device, as if you really were a photographer in Africa.  If you’re a bit nervous about your kids picking up your iPad, this may be one game you want to supervise them.

Create mode includes the goofy animal builder game (pictured below) where you can create the perfect abomination of nature by assembling a beast using the body parts of other African animals.  Players can play a Mad Libs style game, by filling in selected keywords using a word bank.  You can also tap the text box to enter you own words. For research purposes, with this being a children’s application, I used some colorful four-letter words to see if there was a bad language filter.  Unfortunately all of the adult language went through without any problem.  (And made for a story that made me chuckle like a teenager.)  Maybe I just need to grow up?

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions (iOS) Review

The hide-and-seek minigame also uses the iPad’s accelerometer to view the world in a 2D-layered/3D perspective, as you help a mother lioness find her missing cubs.

If you’re looking for fun and educational games for your kids to play on the iPad, Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions is a really nice application.  It’s filled with a lot of fun activities and mini-games.  Some activities may require reading, like the Mad Libs type game, but even my 5-year-old found enough to keep him busy, even though he’s just now learning to read.

Ranger Rick Jr. Appventures: Lions is available only for the iPad.  It is not compatible with the iPhone or iPod Touch, nor will it run on a first-generation iPad.


Troy Benedict

 


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