Kids' App of the Week: The Monsters by Tinybop

Warren Buckleitner
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Beauty meets the beast in this artistic monster decoration experience. As with other Tinybop apps, you start by creating a profile for each child, which is a one-time process. Next you start mixing and matching body types, arms, legs, heads, eyes and noses… as well as sounds that you can record, fur textures and colors. This app makes it extremely easy to make something extremely strange… easily and quickly. You learn that it is easy to stretch the arms or legs, and that parts can be popped off and modified in many ways.

If we have a criticism, it could be that most of the creative ideas in this app don’t come from you. The illustrations are the result of an obviously very talented artist Tianhua Mao. But as a mix-and-match experience (“like Mr. Potato Head on steroids”) this app offers a lot of possibilities. When you layer on the ability to “program” sounds that you can make or the ability to pose your creator for a photo, you start to see that this app is a lot more than a simple Mr. Potato Head — and feed it a snack.

We also like how easy it is to take your creature back to the drawing board for modification. Despite a bit of dead air when you’re stuck between the choice screens, this is a wonderful aesthetic experience, with plenty of monster parts and coloring options to keep things fresh. This is the third app in the Digital Toys series, following The Robot Factory and The Everything Machine.

The Monsters by Tinybop
For iPad or iPhone
$2.99
Ages: 6+

Warren Buckleitner, Ph.D., is editor of CTREX (Children’s Technology Review Exchange), a professional subscription-only database for teachers, parents and librarians. Have a look at www.ctrex.us.