Pepi Wonder World

Pepi Wonder World puts a toybox of colourful characters, worlds, and objects in your mobile device. Together they form the keys to a world of discovery and imagination for your young child.

Pretending, imagining, and creating are important aspects of a child's play. Children are building many skills as they do all of these things.  When pretend characters meet, children are thinking about social relationships and ways to behave. Thinking up new situations and experiences for their toys exercises children's ability to think of new concepts and ideas. 

All sorts of physical toys can be employed to prompt a rich play experience but this is not always practical. Pepi Wonder World provides a vivid and fun pretend-play toy box that can be accessed within the convenience of a mobile device.

There is no real structure to Pepi Wonder World. This is not a criticism as its intention is to let children build meaning into what they encounter. There are a wide variety of characters across the various worlds to whom children can allocate personalities and stories. 

Alongside the people, animals and mythical creatures, many props are scattered around for manipulation. Sometimes these can be combined to produce an effect - such as a hammer and a block of stone, in this case, making a statue.  Food and drinks can be fed to creatures, and machines and gizmos activated and the result observed. This is a really nice mechanic as it encourages exploration and offers the reward of discovery but does not force children to take a certain approach.  If there is one thing that could be usefully added to the app, it would be a few objects in the form of numbers and letters so that early numeracy and literacy skills could become part of the experience.

The freedom to stop, think, and explore also makes Pepi Wonder World an ideal shared experience for parents and children. Your guidance can lead your child into combining fun and learning. You can count, identify colours, name objects and combine all of this into the formulation of a story crafted by you and your child together.

The artwork in this app is superb. Not only is it consistent in style and extremely attractive to look at, but its animation is smooth and full of extra little details. Together with the sound and music, it all comes together to form a wonderful backdrop for your child's imagination.

There are multiple worlds in the app which will help keep it fresh and interesting for your child as each location might inspire a new line of thought.  Rather nicely, there are no restrictions on bringing items from one world to another so favourite characters can be kept while new worlds are explored.

A big advantage of a digital toy box is its low maintenance. After many sessions of playing and exploring, characters and objects might be scattered all across the worlds. But tidying up is not a chore in Pepi Wonder World as the player can tap a single button and everything will go back to its correct place immediately.

The app reviewed here is the full version after in-app purchases have been added. On iOS and Android devices, the app is available in a trial form which offers plenty to do while you work out if the full version is for you. On Android, there is a slightly different route that can be taken which involves child-friendly advertisements. In both cases, getting hold of the trial app and seeing how well it sparks your child's creative play will let you know how you wish to continue. 

Pepi Wonder World has plenty within it to inspire children so it has every chance of becoming a firm favourite.