GoKids Apps: Save Paris! Review

GoKids Apps: Save Paris! is a wonderful kids application that combines gameplay with extensive information about Paris. This makes a fantastic app for children who may travel to Paris as there is a lot of useful travel information provided in this app, but it will surely be enjoyed by kids with no travel plans. It is highly educational and a lot of fun, especially for families as up to four people can have individual game information saved at once.

I am really pleased by the delivery of this interesting facts. The concept of saving Paris from invading aliens in genius, and this app is quite engaging, even for me as an adult. This game starts out with the player being informed that aliens are invading Paris, and it is his job to keep this from happening. There are 10 secret agent missions full of well-chosen information about Paris, as well as a mini travel guide making this a very rich learning experience.

I love the look of this game; it is stylized and colorful. The developer has hit the right note with these aliens, as they are crafted to look a little bit menacing, but with a lot of humor mixed in. I enjoy reading about their horrible plans for Paris, the story line drawing me in like no other educational app has. The music choice is also very good, with a modern beat that creates some suspense and is very fun to listen to by both kids as well as parents.

I love the alien invasion concept of this app, as each secret mission contains a dossier of slides that one studies to prepare himself to battle the Gloopy aliens. Even as an adult, I found this delivery to be very effective, making me feel important and relied upon to study these slides in order to save Paris. Kids will focus and study hard without knowing that this is work, a great way to have children learn.

The gameplay used here to test the information studied is a classic “memory” style game where the player turns over cards looking to match questions and their corresponding answers. Time may run out if too many answers are answered wrong, and then the Gloopy aliens will take over Paris. A fun “wack-a-mole” type game is also included that all ages will have fun with as well.

This “memory” style of game is a very good choice to test the player's memory of facts learned, but I wish this game, as well as the other "memory" style apps which keep score or is timed, would let the players see the cards flipped over for a few seconds in the interest of trying to memorize their positions, in some ways this may make these games easier, but would really working one's ability to concentrate as well. I am also not a huge fan of the first flip of a card being counted as a mistake, as sometimes I lose in a mission, not because of my lack of knowledge or the ability to remember the location of specific cards, but because I have not yet found what I am looking for and I pile up a lot of wrong answers. Another way to handle this in general would be not to count the first flip of a card against the player.

This issue aside, I think that this is a wonderful, fun, and highly educational app that kids will love and parents will be very pleased with its in-depth content. The information provided is thoughtfully chosen and would be a big help if one were traveling to Paris any time soon, or just learning about a foreign land. I love the inclusion of such phrases as “do not enter,” appreciating the real world uses, but it would be nice if these French expressions, landmarks and such could be tapped to be heard, because being able to recognize these words printed is very different from being able to recognize them if heard. I have enjoyed this app a great deal and have learned a lot. I look forward to the other travel apps being developed by this developer. This one is awesome.