Bottom line: Safari Tales is the latest offering from Kuato, the same developer that brought us Dino Tales. This time Safari Tales brings your kids on an African adventure seen through the eyes of five adorable baby animals. Guiding you on the escapades is Darwin the meerkat, ready to answer any questions that you might have. At the end of each quest, young users get to help craft a story about their adventure.
If you’d like to purchase Safari Tales ($3.99 iPad/iPhone/Android), please use the handy links below so they’ll know who sent you.
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No ads, No in-app purchases, External links in protected parent area
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We begin our fantastic adventure with a baby elephant who is ready to explore. Using a directional control pad that shows up when you touch the bottom right of the screen, you can guide the little elephant through the African savannah on a search for friends and fun. There are signs that direct our little elephant friend to the homes of the other baby animals. Along the way there are stickers to collect and sights to see, and there are big games and activities when you get to each baby animal’s home.
There are currently five different baby animals to play and learn with. You begin with Eshe the Elephant and along the way you can find Asha the Rhino, Rudo the Crocodile, Camara the Lion, and Zane the Leopard. As we explore we learn that each of these animals live in different conditions and eat different things. If your little one has any questions, they can just tap on the little meerkat icon and our friend Darwin will pop up along with his handy word wheel that your child can use to develop questions about each situation. Do crocodiles drink milk? What mammal is strongest? How do you (Darwin) know everything? He has answers for it all. (If you’re wondering how he knows everything, it’s because he reads books. Love it.)
As our baby animals explore together, we have to make sure that they stay fed, watered, and rested. We learn which are meat eaters and which are not. We also see that baby animals love to play and they have plenty of chances because there are obstacles like huge slides and roller coasters for them to enjoy. What an adventure! Your child can also collect stickers along the way to keep in their sticker book to help remember their explorations!
As each play session is complete, your child can help write their own Safari Tale to share with others. Depending on the reading level, kids have different amount of input and control to allow them to customize each story. Then they can have lots of fun reading the stories aloud to friends and family.
There are tons of other little details that help round this app out. After finding each baby animal, you can change its name if you choose to, giving the app a more personal touch. Parents can also set up an account in the controls so that they are notified each time their child creates a new tale. Your child can decorate their little animals in all different colors and patterns. They can make the animals do tricks. So many little details that all start to come together and make a really nice app.
What I like:
- This is really a beautiful app. The animals are cute and realistic (in an animated sort of way.) The scenery and artwork are some of the best that I’ve come across in quite some time.
- There is a LOT to do in this app and very little chance that your child will get bored with it anytime soon. Seriously, the amount of content in this app is impressive
What I like less:
- My kids and I found the directional controls a bit difficult to get used to. I thought they were a little tedious and would have preferred something like directional arrows to tap or to simply be able to touch and drag a character in the direction that you want him to go. Our control did get better with repeated play, but I still think it would be great to have a different control option.
- I really think this game would benefit from being able to set up multiple users. My kids are five and nine and it was necessary to delete one to set the game up for the other child’s reading level.
Normally I would balk at a $3.99 price tag, expecting something really top-notch for that price, but this app has the content to justify the price. Overall, it’s a really nicely made app with a great balance of play and learning games. I’m giving it a strong 4.5 stars, making it one of our Top Picks!
*****
Kelli’s kids discovered that you can ask Darwin about picking his nose…and apparently that is hilarious.
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