About a month ago, we reviewed Toontastic, which is a cartoon app that lets you make your own animated short films. The entertaining children's app is a great way to make mini movies using your own voice and direction. Toontastic Jr. Pirates for iPad is a taste of the full-featured app, but it comes with something that Toontastic doesn't- real time collaborative cartoon making.
That's right, users can connect with each other from within the app and actually create a comic together. You know those cards where you can record a greeting and send it to Grandma? Well, it's like that, but way more awesome. It goes both ways and you don't have to wait for the mail to come.
The app is slightly different than Toontastic. Users choose a pre-designed beginning, middle and end instead of creating one from scratch. For each section of the short, there is an animation clip that will play and then you can add your own extra parts.
Once the premade animation finishes, you'll hear the narrator say, "And then what happened?" This is your cue to begin another section of the story. Touch the characters and start talking for them. They will swing their arms and legs and switch direction, depending on where you move them. The app is recording the entire time, so be sure to add dialogue to the movement.
Once you've added your own scenes to all three sections, your movie is complete and you can save it in the movie library. Unlike Toontastic, you can't share these shorts with the rest of the community.
What makes this app so special is the collaborative creation aspect. It's like coloring with your nephew that is 500 miles away, or playing with your grandkids before they go to bed when you live in another state. This app is great for bringing families together to share in creativity and imagination.
What I liked: I especially like the StoryShare feature. It makes this app unique and not just a partial version of Toontastic
What I didn't like: Just like Toontastic, the characters don't switch direction properly. You also can't exit out of the movie editing mode unless you are in the music editing section.
To buy or not to buy: If you have little ones and family that doesn't live nearby, you should buy this app for your household, plus send it as a gift to family members so that they can play together no matter how far apart they are.
- Name: Toontastic Jr. Pirates for iPad
- Version Reviewed: 1.0.
- Category: Education
- Developer: Launchpad toys
- Price: $1.99
- Score:
