Musical Planets - A quiz game

Upon opening the application, the user is shown a beautiful home page with excellent graphics. There are several options here. The user can select pre-installed players or create a new player. The ‘learn’ option goes through to a parental control panel which in turn goes through to another app by the developer. This free app provides a story book that also educates users regarding different questions asked in the quiz app sections. The ‘settings’ option allows the user to turn the music on or off, turn the sound effects on or off and increase/decrease the question interval time.

Once the user has entered the players name and adjusted the settings the ‘Play game’ can be pressed. Each question is based on the solar system with each planet represented by a cartoon icon. Once the correct answer is chosen the app will continue to give you further information. We did find that the cartoons of the planets were quite childish however some of the information supplied with the answer was quite in-depth. If the user opts for the incorrect answer the app will reveal the correct answer. After several rounds of testing we did find that some of the questions were repeated close to each other and the level of question did not cater for differentiation as the rounds continued. We did however enjoy the music, special effects and the graphics, especially the blinking planet eyes. The user could consider changing the question answer intervals in the home screen to cater for differentiation. There is a ‘home’ icon in the top right to return to this.

Once the user has got through level 10 the app will reward you with a certificate. It would be useful for the app to have a ‘print feature’ for the certificate as it does add the date and user’s name. This would be a good reward for completing the knowledge of the solar system. The app also has a 'mid-way' safety feature where the app will save the users progress once they have reached that level.

Overall this app is somewhat limited and the target market is a little unclear. The information does have some educational value and students will enjoy playing the app however this will be short lived. We would recommend that the app is used as a starter or plenary for the topic ‘The solar system’.