TinyHands Raccoon Treehouse

The first thing that strikes you about this app is the design. A lot of time and effort has gone into it to and even the best children’s picture book illustrator would be envious of what has been created. The design has been matched perfectly to the age range of the child and picture book quality of the app makes it immediately accessible to preschool and early school age children.

On opening the app you are welcomed by the Raccoon from the apps name in front of the tree house (again from the apps name). There are even a couple of different interactive features that you can enjoy before you even start playing the app fully. For instance one of the raccoons is hiding in the leaves of the tree and can found by clicking on the paw or tail poking out. Another raccoon is flying in front of the tree with some balloons. By clicking on these the balloons pop one by one and the raccoon descends out of view before coming back up again with new balloons. It is small features like this that adds to the overall success of the app.

On the front page there is also a couple of different setting options such as turning the sound on/off and the same with the sound effects. Both the music and sounds effects are again well matched and although the music is looped it is tame enough to not get too monotonous (although I can see this app being played over and over again so this option may well be welcomed by many parents!) As well as these settings options on the front page there is also a parent’s zone which can be accessed. This allows the user to contact the developer if they wish, or visit other apps by the developer or the option to purchase an unlock to all the levels on the app.

If the user wishes to explore and access all the levels then they will need to purchase all the levels as this is just the free to download option. To get all the levels it costs £2.49 and this gives access to a further 9 levels on top of the 3 that comes free with this version.

Once the user has clicked on the play button the screen moves down the tree house to the different levels which are represented as familiar, different rooms in a house. The three levels that the user gets in this version are the laundry room, garden and bedroom. Each room has a different activity to complete and these activities are based on simple concepts matched perfectly for this age range. These concepts range from sorting shapes to organising and recognising colours and organising objects by size. The excellent design follows all the way through and so does the ease of use. There is no description of what is needed to complete each task however by not attempting the puzzle a visual clue appears to show the correct way to complete the level.

Within each of the levels are a number of different tasks of the same thing to complete. In this free version each of the rooms has three tasks to complete. For example in the bedroom the user is asked to put together a toy that has 4 missing pieces. This is achieved by moving the pieces to the right place. When the first toy has been complete there is 2 further toys to ‘mend’. 

Younger children will find the puzzles easy to take part in as there is by no means a screen full of different things needed to do. By simply clicking, holding and dragging the user can successfully complete all the levels. This is clearly been thought about by the developer and the user doesn’t find themselves inundated with so many different things to do that they become distracted from the main purpose of the app.

Even though this is the free version and only has 3 levels available there is certainly lots of fun to be had with these but a preview also whets your appetite for what is included in the other levels. Another small but clever feature is when a locked room is clicked upon a simple sum appears which must be answered correctly before the option to purchase the full app appears. If you get the answer wrong you can’t access the page to purchase the full app, although by clicking on the locked app again you get another sum and another opportunity. 

It is small things like this that makes this a highly successful app and the reason why it has received an EAS certification of 5 stars.

You can download TinyHands Raccoon Treehouse on your iOS devices from the Apple App Store.