Animal Sounds, Photos and Info

The application is downloaded with no fuss and takes up an above average space of 360.7MB on the iPad, which is not a surprise really when you consider the high definition animal pictures and their authentic sound file. 

 

The opening screen of the app has bright colours and simple landscape graphics with floating clouds. An icon for “Other Animals” has a parental lock with instructions to keep your finger on the picture for at least four seconds. This done, the new screen gives the parent the option of examining two extension packs “Blue” and “Green” each containing a further 30 animals the pictures of which are displayed on the screen so that you can decide which, if not both, sets of packs to be purchased.

 

The main icon is an animated plain red cockerel which calls out to you when you start the game. The main screen background is the same as the previous screen and remains the same to add to consistency and aid concentration on the centre stage, high definition graphic of the first animal, which in my case was the very large and handsome light grey coated dog. The child can click on the dog to activate the relevant authentic sound of the animal and a short animation of the creature moving. The child can then move onto the next animal by swiping either left or right. To the bottom left of the screen is displayed the name of the animal. The top left of the screen is the home button an iconized picture of the cockerel. The top right of the screen has an iconized menu button which provides a scroll down list of each animal included with the name of the animal and a small graphic of the creature; the animals with a green or blue padlock veiled over them are animals that can be purchased in the previously mentioned ‘add on’ packs. Clicking on the menu choice of the creature brings up the animal in the main screen, replacing the existing one.

 

To the bottom right of the main screen are three further icons the first of which is the contextual information of each animal displayed at the time. This information has three further high definition photographs of the animal in different settings and poses. The generic titles of each section of information are as follows. The Common Name: fairly self explanatory, the Scientific name: which is generally in Latin, the Family, which is again in Latin, the Order: in my case (“Walrus”) it is ‘carniverous’, the class: like me a mammal, the Feature: which includes the length and weight, and finally the Distribution: which is the geographic locations where the creature is resident.

 

The second icon on the bottom right of the main screen is the quiz, this brings up a selection of animal pictures at the top of the screen and the child can scroll across to see them all. The bottom half of the screen lists the instructions, where the user has to touch the large sound icon which then emits an authentic animal sound and choose the correct animal from the list above and drag it to the required box. Don’t worry, help is at hand and the ‘eye’ icon reveals the name of the animal to at least help you. When the child gets it right they are scored out of three stars and the audience claps and the animal does a bow.

 

The third icon on the bottom right of the screen is the the puzzle and the picture is directly related to the animal on the main screen at the time. The child has a choice as to the level of difficulty, I chose the simple one, which was not at all simple! But you can choose up to twenty-five pieces. When the child finishes the generic stars are awarded and the audience claps.

 

Overall the app tries hard, sometimes however the old adage “less is more” comes to mind, there just seems to be too much going on and the app can seem laborious, the game reward system is outdated and not useful. The quiz suffers from the gesture recogniser conflict between swiping and dragging thus can be frustrating for children anxious to get it right. Certainly the app is a useful reference tool and well worth using for this alone.