World of Safari 123 Review

World of Safari 123 is an educational app that encourages math practice as one earns the ability to add animals to a safari landscape, customizing it further with objects such as flowers, rocks or a jeep. There are 15 animals to ultimately add, and it is fun to be able to change the color of these aniamls.

It is interesting how this app is designed to keeps track of the time of day that one is playing with this game, the color of the sky corresponding in turn. One can also shake the device or tap a button to changes the sky background, going from darkness at night and a full moon to a bright day with the sun in the sky as well as a few sunset choices, each nice to look at. These skies, combined with the ability to also change the color and texture of the safari's grass from green to yellow, including choices in between create many varied possibilities for your personal safari.

Tilt the device or scroll with a finger left or right, making the landscape move in either direction as you look for your animals, and do tap an animal to see what happens. One also has the option of taking photos of the decorated landscapes. Continued math activities earns more animals and objects to personalize the space. All of these choices are thought out nicely and add something to this app's gameplay in general.

There are five levels involving counting, adding and subtracting as this app which is geared to preschool and kindergarten children, and it is nice that my my three year old is able to answer the earlier sections. I really enjoy the African beat that this app’s music has, but it would be nice to have control over the congratulatory sound effects one hears after answers these questions, as their encouraging cheers can be loud and may be distracting for some.

I like the choice of math questions used here, and I appreciate that a hint button is available for when a child feels stuck, a nice touch. I think the acquisition of these animals is a good way to encourage children to practice their math skills, but my only issue is that the animals and other details seem small-looking on the screen, at least on the iPhone version of this game, as it is available for both iPhone as well as iPad. This may be a concern for only those in middle age, but I get the sensation of needing to put on my glasses when looking at this app, even when I am wearing my glasses. However, I have heard no complaints about the size of things from my son.

I understand that the smallness of these details in the landscape is in part done to create a lot of space as one can add up to 15 animals roaming around the screen at once, plus many decorative choices as well, but for me, it is very hard to see the details in each animal - something that I typically enjoy from animal apps, but this is probably less of an issue in the iPad version.