Crayola DJ ($5) — Generally associated with visually creative apps, Crayola’s brand goes in a different direction with this new music-making DJ app which lets kids experiment with different sounds and beats to make their own music and play it for a virtual crowd. The app provides almost 100 exclusive tracks created by professional DJs, organized into five different musical styles including Hip Hop, Pop, and Dance. Kids can mix multiple tracks simultaneously on a pair of virtual DJ turntables to create their own custom mixes. Targeted at kids aged 6-10, Crayola DJ is intended to target the middle ground between overly complicated DJ apps that are beyond most kids, and super-simplistic apps that are more appropriate for toddlers. In addition to the touch-sensitive dual turntables, kids can play with SFX buttons, a crossfader, and a tempo slider to alter the pitch, change the beat, and add crazy sound effects. Once mixes have been put together, aspiring young DJs can perform them in front of a virtual crowd and earn points during the show for creative scratching and change-ups made on the fly.
A two-player mode provides the ability to battle it out with a friend, and mixes can be saved for replay or sharing with friends and family.
Heroki ($8) — This new action-adventure game by Sega puts you into a whimsical fantasy world in the role of Heroki, a young hero who must save the sky village of Levant by recovering the stolen Emerix from the clutches of the evil Dr. N. Forchin and his minion Vapor. Different from traditional platformers, players must fly Heroki through the skies, mastering the wind, freewill moves, and carrying and throwing objects, as he moves through a beautifully rendered 3D environment of sky-islands, jungles, seas, and deserts. A colorful cast of characters appears through the game that Heroki must befriend to help him on his quest and aid in mastering new skills and power-ups.
The game is cute and fully of whimsy, and promises hours of gameplay with not only the main plot but a healthy number of side-quests to keep you going.
Wonster Words (free) — This educational app for young children provides a fun way for kids to learn spelling and phonics, allowing kids to immerse themselves in a world of cute exercises on ABCs, Sight Words, and Word Families. The app is designed to specifically focus on kids who already know their alphabet and are moving on to phonics, while providing game mechanics that are appropriate to the learners’ ages, such as interactive spelling puzzles and letter hide-and-seek. Cute animations of lovable “wonster” characters are provided with the completion of each goal, which also serve to reinforce the meaning of the words that the child has just learned. The free version of the app provides about 15 free words and new “words of the day” daily, with parent-gated in-app purchases available to add more words.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved ($5) — If it seems like Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions was released for iOS only a month ago, that’s because it was, but astonishingly, Activision has already released the game’s first major update.
