Childfriendly interactive crayon scene for kids aged 5 or less

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Hi everyone,

it started as a project for my daughter (at the age of about 2). She loved two apps I had on my old iPad - it was an animated/interactive scene. Just tap somewhere and see what happens.

On my way to find more apps like that, I had a hard time, so I decided to try to make one myself.

So, this is it. I did some research, found Monogame, found Spriter, and the great SpriterDotNet implementation from loodakrawa. Altogether, it’s a pleasure to with all those.
And although I am not a great artist, I tried my best.

As my daughter liked the result much, I decided to publish the app now for Android and even iOS lately.
I am really amazed by the ease a game can be ported nowadays.

In case you want to have a look (all animations and sound-triggers were done using Spriter), here are the links to the screencast-movie and store-links:

Youtube:

Google PlayStore

Apple AppStore

Please consider: the game aims kids aged 4 or less.
So don’t expect fancy achievements or other goals.
I didn’t even implement any menu, options, or text to read. Kids at that age usually can’t read yet.

Also, I didn’t add any in-App-Purchases or advertising. I really dislike that myself and rather pay for an app.
But also I was shocked, that other apps targeting kids claim to be free and are full of that stuff.

So, no wonder that nobody really finds my app in the stores - everybody just scans the “for free”-stuff.
But that’s ok. It was fun making it anyway.

In case you’re interested, have a look.
I’m pleased if I was able to make someone happy.

You all have a great day! And thanks for the great and so easly portable Monogame and as well as the great community! The forum helped a lot whenever I had trouble.

Heiko

PS: Happy to ready what you think.

PPS: Also available at Amazon AppStore… but as my forum user is new I am limited to two links per post only.

7 Likes
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Nice content loading status bar ^_^y

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Thank you!

I’m glad that you find the loading bar nice. Fortunately I can say, I put just as much love in designing it like in everything else. :joy:

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Thats very cool… i like how its got stuff everywere and when you come back the dude is out of the tent ect.

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Awesome! It’s really sweet that you made this for your daughter! :smile: What did she think of it?

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She loves it. Fortunately.

As she is young still, she keeps touching the same things over and over again, laughs, and then tries to repeat the sound or “vocals”. Very cute to watch her.

However, the counter in the upper right corner ist meant for the parents. So they know, there is still something left to discover… my daughter does not care about it. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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See, you don’t need full HD 4x graphics for gaming, as long as the target audience are happy, then that is all that matters. Great little app to keep them happy, and now she likes it so much look over your code and see how easy it would be just to “mod” it and drop in new images, animations etc for a v2 for her. You can come up with loads of locations and things to see and do. Forest trail with animals, birds, and other things in the bushes. Or maybe a Keep It Tidy app where they click to pick up litter as well…

You say you’re not good at drawing… doesn’t matter, your child will love this, and if you make a little money on the side, even better.

I found this application recently that looks really good at creating sprite animation frames, not sure what you used for the animation / paint application. Having watched a couple of tutorials on the below I was quite impressed for such a low cost product!

https://pyxeledit.com/

Well done!

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True.

Actually the art was made by hand. So, I used crayons on papier. Then I scanned the drawings. Little rework and cropping were done using paint.net

And as mentioned: Animations were done with Spriter. Really fun to work with that as well.

I’ll have a look at the tool you mentioned. And I love your ideas! Picking up litter. Awesome. :grin: :evergreen_tree: