Richard Scarry’s Busytown HD Review

Richard Scarry’s Busytown Hd is a new app for iPad that brings the classic and beloved BusyTown series to devices, as a version also exists for iPhone as well. Here various scenes found among the pages of the BusyTown books have been turned into a eye-spy game, allowing the player to search these scenes, all of which will be familiar places, like a playground, grocery or kitchen for specific objects, such as a sea-saw, plums, or tea kettle.

I fondly remember these books, more so the basic style of illustrations created by Richard Scarry, as his anthropomorphic animals dressed in human clothing and partaking in the daily life of people delighted me greatly as a child.

I am happy to see the same illustrations presented here within this app, as this app begins with one choosing an animal character, as one scrolls horozontally back and forth among four animal choices, with the selection at hand being the large image in center screen. Tap here to select, or tap the arrow at the bottom right hand corner. After the basic animal is selected, choose a name, the bottom half of this character's wardrobe (including both skirt and pants choices), and then the top half of the outfit, be it a blouse, jacket, or raincoat. Shoes and accessories are also available, all with the same method of selection.

Once complete, this character is found bottom left of the next page that allows for scene selection with the same horizontal scrolling introduced earlier. Once a scene is chosen, another animal asks for help looking for a certain object in this specific space, but it is unfortunate that the original character created is not involved within the actual eye-spy game of looking for the specific item.

Having said this, my son does enjoy looking for the object in question. It is nice that the images used for these motifs include familiar areas of one’s house such as bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, as well as a grocery, playground, or firehouse, and it is nice that one can tap around the page having various objects labeled with both words and text. However, I do not care for how after one finds a single item, such as plums from the grocery, one can’t stay in this area to explore further in order to look for more related items. Instead, one is brought back to make another scene selection, and constantly making these choices seems to really slow down gameplay for me. My son did not seem to mind this as much, oftentimes changing locations after each eye-spy mini-game is complete.

I appreciate how these scenes are borrowed from the pages of Richard Scarry’s Best WORD BOOK Ever as well as Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town, an aspect that will make adult fans smile, but my son was disappointed that in the bedroom one only is asked to find Goldbug, a character made popular in the book Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, as he can be found hiding among these pages of this book as well as every location within this app. Although this is a beloved detail from a classic book and fun to spot in the other areas of this application, my son wanted more variation in this bedroom as he enjoys the more detailed locations of the grocery and kitchen the best, as do I. I understand that the bedroom pictured here is heavily styled after the bedroom in "Best WORD BOOK Ever" which is not as detailed as other rooms or locations, but as I look at this page, there are items that could be taken advantage of instead of only looking for Goldbug - a classic element that does not translate to the bedroom well because here, finding Goldbug is too easy and redundant for our taste, and I wonder if this being the only eye-spy object for the bedroom is a glitch or an intentional choice.

Having said this, the classic images used are nice to look at. My son has enjoyed moments within this app, and it may be of interest, especially to fans of this prolific children’s writer.