Dr. Panda Town

$2.99, iPad, iPhone, Android

Teaches: language, creativity, representational play

CTR Rating: 90%

CTR Review

With a design similar to the Toca Life series, this is a dollhouse-style experience that lets you freely move around six rooms of the house (a kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, back yard and attic). Each room is full of well selected items that do what you want them to do. You can cook a full mean in the kitchen, and feed 12 Dr. Panda characters. While the animal inspired characters look like they represent different ethnic groups, the range of diversity is not as good as the Toca Town series. The free app comes with 1/3 of the content unlocked. In other words, you see a house, a park and a store, but only the house is open. The other two areas are shown to children with a lock. We suggest using this app to help children understand the concept of the IAP, because it is something they will undoubtedly encounter. Thankfully the age gate is well designed, which will keep children away from accidental purchases. And if they do succeed in begging to see what's behind the locked gate, the $2.99 is certainly not much of a risk. The other two areas are shown with locks and an age gate. The cost for the additional two units ("the Park and the Supermarket Bundle" is reasonable -- $2.99). See also Dr. Panda School and the Toca Life series. Note that there are no voice recording features.