Ever since we first exposed our pre-schooler to the wonders of an iPad on a long distance flight, we have been hopping around from app to app as his interests dictated. We have been through the library of Toca apps, tested out Chuggington and Thomas, and run the gauntlet with Dr Seuss. I, by which of course I mean my pre-schooler, ahem, now has a new favorite. The first US release of a Peppa Pig app from P2 games, Happy Mrs. Chicken.
If you are not familiar with Peppa Pig, get ready to let a cute little addiction into your life. Peppa lives with her family: mummy pig, daddy pig and George pig. She loves jumping in muddy puddles, has a barnyard assortment of friends, and her Granny and Grandpa pig live just over the hill. The show focuses on everyday things that happen to children, albeit to animal children.
One of the things that always tickled me about the show, was a computer game that the children and adults seemed to be equally addicted to. The fictional version of Angry Birds, Happy Mrs. Chicken, is a simple game in which you click the screen and a chicken lays an egg. That's it. The object of the game is to lay as many eggs as possible. I was probably far more excited than I should have been to discover that Happy Mrs. Chicken, as it appears on the show, was one of the games you get as part of the app. The name of the app should have been a giveaway, but I expected them to have adapted the simple fictional game for the app.
There are six games included in this app, all using the same graphics and themes as the TV show, and all simple enough for very little hands. Of course, as with any kids app, one of the "games" is a sticker book, and you are rewarded with stickers as you complete different levels of each game. In Happy Mrs. Chicken, you simply tap the screen and the chicken lays an egg. You can lay up to fifty eggs at a time. When they hatch, the chicks walk off the screen and you can continue laying eggs. I would be interested to hear what the most eggs laid in this app is. We haven't found a ceiling yet. Here's some of what you can find:
- There are a series of mazes for you to navigate. As you tap the screen, you leave a trail of chicken feed for your chicken to follow. There are six mazes in total.
- In Muddy Puddles, you race against Suzie Sheep to see who can jump in the most amount of mud. You can choose to play as Peppa, or as George, in which case you are racing Richard Rabbit. There is also a beat the clock option.
- There are three different levels of Jigsaw Puzzle available–four piece, nine piece or sixteen piece–and four different pictures. The picture appears faintly on the screen for you to do the puzzle with, I was not a big fan of the scroll bar running along the top of the screen from which you select your pieces.
- The sticker book feature does what every other sticker book on a pre-school app does, in this case you have eight pages to choose from and, I must say, an exceptionally wide variety of stickers.
Far and away my favorite game on the app was Chicken Coop__.__ In this game you watch as brown and yellow eggs hatch into brown or yellow chickens. You then have to sort them into the color appropriate coop. There are several options available in this game depending on your child's level of dexterity or interest. You can simply sort yellow chickens into a yellow coop, you can sort brown and yellow chickens into their corresponding coops, or you can play either version as a race against the clock. I thoroughly enjoyed playing this with my son, he preferred jumping in muddy puddles with George and Richard!
It's a simple app, the games are easy to comprehend and have the same simple graphics as the cartoon. Each game presents enough options to keep interest but not so many as to make it confusing or overwhelming. The recommended age group is 2-6 and I'd have to agree with that. At any point you can reset the score and/or the stickers and start again. You can also turn the music off in the game itself, but I love the music provided by Pit Stop Productions and so won't be turning them off, no matter how much my husband may beg me too! In the credits, you can find the first names of all the children that play tested this app. The app is compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Nokia E7, N8, C7 and C6-01 devices and Android operating system 2.1 and above and is available at iTunes for $2.99. When Happy Mrs. Chicken debuted in the UK in 2010, it reached number one on iTunes in a single day, it has been in the top five childrens games ever since. I can see why.
I was given a copy of this app for review purposes.
