Argh, matey! Oh, I know Talk Like a Pirate Day has come and gone, but this fantastic app from Kidoodle Apps will have you and your kids celebrating all year. It was created by two parents who wanted their son to have fun playing with the latest tech gadgets while using his imagination at the same time. They sent me a copy of their new app for review, and once my kids finally let me take a look, I could see why they were having so much fun.
Designed for the iPad, each page of this doodle book presents a portion of a picture, like a pair of pirate boots and a sword, or a partially drawn parrot. It’s up to your child to finish it off making it as realistic or completely crazy as their heart desires. A turn of the page is accompanied by a piratey voice-over and a bit of animation that interacts with your child’s picture. My daughter couldn’t stop giggling when the bacon she’d drawn on an empty plate was noisily gobbled up by a particularly hungry pirate.
After your child has finished a page they can save it and even email it to you, so your inbox will be filled with the best artwork a parent can ever receive. And once they’ve gone through the book, they can go back and redo pages as often as they like creating new and better variations of their personal adventure. That empty plate I mentioned earlier has been filled with bacon, Oreos, cupcakes and ladybugs, just to name a few. Yes, I said ladybugs. It’s all about their imaginations so things are certain to get wonderfully wacky.
Currently, there are 15 pages to Pirate Scribblebeard’s Treasure with plans for more in the future, but once you purchase the app for just $2.99 you’ll be able to get new pages for no charge. If you’ve got an iPad or iPad2 and a child who likes to draw, check out this app and be ready to swab the decks, hoist the main and have some piratey fun!
