Fablescapes Review

Fablescapes is an interesting and creative application consisting of two motifs, “Pirate's Adventures” as well as “Knights and Wizards." Being a story-builder, this app allows the player to tap and drag a wide range of characters and objects all over these landscapes to create different scenes. Nicely-done themed music accompanies each of these themes as well.

I am impressed with the quality shown here; the landscapes as well as the characters and object choices look excellent, reminding me of the style used for “Dragon’s Lair,” and I like how most of these elements are interactive, tapping to see what different options and poses there are for each of these selections. I appreciate that these characters are also animated so one can do things like choose characters to face each other and duel if you want to. It is also very cool that you can fill the page with an army of the same character if you choose, as well as re-size any of these characters or objects, making the possibilities endless.

I give the developers credit for including their Youtube video, which demonstrates this game in the body of the app, and it does a good job of giving one creative ideas. I think kids who enjoy the creative play of Playmobile or action figures may enjoy this app when out and about. Parents, please note that this app has a warning of cartoon violence and horror/fear themes, but there is no overt violence here, only what the player’s imagination may bring.

Personally, I did not find that I was able to come up with as many great and creative ideas for these landscapes as shown in the Youtube video. I do wish there was a way to add voiceovers or sound effects to the characters or text to one’s stories, or to save the scenes made for another time, but I think the right child or adult would have a lot of fun with this app as the production value is undeniably quite high with a lot of variation to choose from.