App Talk episode 3: Toca Town #AudioMo

App Name: Toca Town

Developer: Toca Boca

Platform and Price: iOS (Universal) £1.99

App overview: Toca Town is a virtual town for your child to explore. You can interact with any of the 21 different characters in any of 6 different locations – park, shop, police station, house, apartment and restaurant.

What we like about it: What we like most about this app is the open-ended nature of the play. The app doesn’t prescribe what your child should do in any of the scenarios – your child is free to explore and play as they wish. The quality of the app is excellent – lovely animations and artwork. We particularly like the cooking that your child can do in teh restaurant kitchen – there are many raw ingredients to be found, and simply dragging them on top of each other combines them to make new dishes.

What could be better: Honestly it’s hard to find anything that could be better. If I was to be super picky I’d say I’d like to see more details added. The cooking within the restaurant is great, but then in other scenarios you can have the characters drink a cup of coffee, but I couldn’t then figure out how to refill the cup, despite the presence of a coffee machine.

What parents need to know: This app is recommended in the App Store as best for ages 5 and under. There are no in-app purchases or adverts, with the exception of a small ad on the home screen for another Toca Boca app (this can be switched off in the app settings if required). There is a parents area within the app; to gain access you need to enter a year of birth to confirm you are a grown up. Even if kids manage to gain access to this area they couldn’t do any damage – they would just find some more information about the app, in particular guidance for parents on how to play with your child in the app.

Our Verdict: This is another winner from Toca Boca.

Download link: Toca Town on the iTunes App Store (affiliate link)

Disclosure: All information and prices are correct at time of publication, but please check before buying as things can change on the App Store. The download link within this post contains my affiliate code – any purchase made after clicking will be the same price to you but will also result in a small commission payment to me. All money made in this way goes towards the upkeep costs of this site. I was provided with a free copy of Toca Town for review purposes.