Security Blanket: Lego Harry Potter for iPad

Well, I had intended, in advance of our family's recent vacation in western Ontario (where, I was warned by my in-laws, Internet service might be spotty at best), to bank a number of posts to be automatically posted while I was gone. But amid the frenetic planning that always precedes family vacations, those intentions fell by the wayside, and the result has been a long gap between posts, even by my fairly laid-back standards.

So I'm going to be posting a little more frequently than usual for what remains of July, to try to make up for that (as well as to get my total posts for the month in the column on the right to a slightly less embarrassing number). I'll plunge into the new stuff—of which there's plenty to catch up on—a little later this week, but today I'd like to simply express my gratitude to a video game.

You see, thanks to the joint efforts of our original major airline (which canceled our 6 a.m. flight at about 11 p.m. the night before, well after we'd gone to bed in preparation for a very early trip to the airport, and thus too late to notify us in time to prevent us from getting up at 3 a.m.) and the other major airline we were then transferred to (which, after several hours of weather-related delays, boarded us onto a plane that, as the pilots discovered while taxiing to the runway, had a mechanical problem that required another couple of hours to fix, and apparently had no other planes on hand that could be substituted for it), we spent a bit over 10 hours in the Minneapolis airport before finally taking off in a functioning aircraft. (I leave the major carriers nameless because, let's face it, these days it could have happened—does happen, routinely—on any of them.)

All of which, with a seven-year-old and a three-year-old in tow, could have been a complete nightmare—but for my iPad and the LEGO Harry Potter game I'd loaded onto it a while back, for just such occasions. It kept our older son mesmerized for most of those hours, and our younger one (mostly just watching!) for a decent number of them as well. It was still not exactly a fun day, of course, for any of us, but it could have—and not that long ago would have—been far worse. And for that, makers of Lego Harry Potter (ooh, I see the second game in the series has come to iOS now as well!), we cannot thank you enough.

[Image courtesy of TT Games]

Posted with Blogsy

Security Blanket: Audiobooks for Your Kids

The categories of kids' entertainment (as of all entertainment, I guess) are blurring these days. I've covered audiobooks before, and I've covered the amazing variety of out-of-copyright (and thus free or extremely inexpensive) online books, and I've covered iPhone/iPad apps. Now there's a product that combines all three: Audiobooks for Your Kids, an $0.99 app that provides audio versions of public-domain classics, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to The Secret Garden to The Jungle Book.

All are read by volunteers from around the country (via the LibriVox project—if you find yourself so motivated, you can join in and do one yourself!), and while none of them will be mistaken for Patrick Stewart, the ones I’ve heard so far are all perfectly solid. And especially for parents traveling this summer, the price (the aforementioned 99 cents for everything, all 30 books, with more promised) and the accessibility (anywhere you have a consistent enough 3G signal for moderate streaming) can't be beat.

[Image from the 1895 edition of The Jungle Book (in the public domain) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

Roundup: iPad Games

I've owned an iPad for almost a year now, and I'm a complete convert: I use it to read books and magazines, to watch movies, and to research and write these very posts. But I've been reluctant to let my kids get their grubby little paws on it, mostly, I think, out of bad emotions like selfishness ("It's my precious...") and fear ("Omigod, what if they break it?). Beyond teasing them with occasional looks at the stunning Star Walk app—which uses the device's GPS to give you a full, accurate view of the night sky that you can hold up to identify stars, planets, and even satellites, and may represent the best three dollars I’ve ever spent—I've kept the iPad firmly out of their reach.

Which means that beyind being a cruel parent, I know next to nothing about the burgeoning world of iPad games for kids. I have resolved to change, on both fronts, but each passing day makes the prospect of entering that world more daunting, as another umpteen games hit the market. How on earth does a moderately late adapter figure out which are the good ones and which ones are crap?

Luckily, I have a trump card: Ian Smith, CEO of Freeverse Software, which makes many a fine app of its own, is an old and dear friend. Even more luckily, Ian has two boys of his own, and far less selfishness and fear than I do. (Or maybe he just has more than one iPad?)

Anyway, Ian was gracious enough to give me not only some excellent kids' game recommendations for the iPad, but a few security tips for the wary parent on putting one's precious into child hands.

First, his “pro tips for parents—both pretty important to safe kid iPad gaming,” as he says:

1. Click on Settings. The third setting is “Notifications”; turn them off for all the games your kids download and then annoy you with. This will prevent “Your Smurfs are hungry!” from popping up on your screen in the middle of that important Keynote presentation at the office.

2. Also in Settings, under “General,” then “Restrictions”: Turn off “In-app purchases” to avoid unwanted headaches. Ian again: “My son dropped a decent amount of cash on Zombie Farm before I did this. Apple did refund it, but why not just sidestep the issue entirely?”

Now, the fun part: the games:

Top pick: Let's Create! Pottery ($2.99, or $4.99 for the HD version). Half-game, half zen activity, and lots of fun, this app lets you pinch and touch a spinning pottery wheel to create your own. “It’s amazing. Get it and let your kids have at it. And your spouse. And yourself.”

Other good choices: Battleheart (a mild fantasy game, with combat; $2.99), Pocket Frogs (in which you breed, well, frogs—surprisingly addictive, and free!), and Puzzle Planet (just what it sounds like: jigsaw puzzles, with an iPad twist; also free!).

Ian’s kids’ faves: Solomon's Keep (think Harry Potter mixed with D&D, in a simple app; $0.99), LEGO Harry Potter (the real thing, except in LEGOs—four movies’ worth of plot and levels, all incredibly habit-forming; $4.99), Cut the Rope (a very clever and original puzzle game; $0.99), and of course Freeverse’s own Parachute Ninja (a flying adventure/story-driven game; $0.99).

Obligatory edu-pick: Math Ninja ($1.99). Kids hone their math skills while defending a tree house against a villainous tomato and its army. “Actually, pretty fun!”

Getting-in-deep pick: Battle for Wesnoth. “An open-source Warlords-type game. Tons of content, enough to keep them going for days on end, if not the greatest user interface.”

[Let’s Create: Pottery image courtesy of Infinite Dreams, Inc.]

Old School: Kids' Classics (Free!) for iPad

The holiday season is upon us, and with it every parent's favorite pastime, family travel. Every generation thinks it has the worst of things, but ever-longer airport lines and the latest guessing games in the TSA circus are making the temptation for ours to lay claim to the title pretty strong. So more than ever, it never hurts to be loaded for bear several times over when it comes to keeping the kids occupied through all that waiting. On the other hand, extra books to pack are…not exactly welcome.

But for parents with iPads, there's a solution to this dilemma, assuming they plan to bring the gadget along for the trip. (If you're anything like me, you've refused to be parted from yours since you acquired it, so that shouldn't be a problem.) Best of all, it's free—ignoring the high cost of the iPad itself, of course, but if you do have one already....

I've mentioned before that tons of classic children's literature, like pretty much all classic out-of-copyright books, has long been available free of charge online, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, which has spent many years painstakingly transcribing them for public use. The only problem was that the PDFs you could grab off the website weren't formatted in a terribly friendly-to-read way.

Enter the iPad and its (free) iBooks app. In the app's store, under the "Classics" entry in the Categories tab, you'll find a library's worth of classic titles (scroll down for the "free" section), including lots of stuff for kids of any age: Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island. The Secret Garden. If it's more than a century old, it's probably here.

When you download a title, it shows up on your iBooks shelf just as any new, purchased book would—formatted in the font of your choice, with adjustable print size, and easy to read in portrait or landscape view. There's an occasional layout hiccup with illustrations (sometimes the captions bump the regular text in slightly odd ways), but all in all, the books look great in this format. And they're all ready to hand over to your ten-year-old during that layover, or to use as bedtime reading at Grandma's house.

And those who haven't encountered these classics with their kids before may be surprised at how well they hold up—there really is a reason they've lasted this long, after all. (And as corny as it sounds, there's something about reading A Christmas Carol to your kids on Christmas Eve. That Dickens fella could write a little.)

Plus, if you're feeling your literary oats yourself (or, horror of horrors, you exhaust your existing airport reading), you can download Pride and Prejudice once the kids are safely asleep—or, if you're really ambitious, War and Peace! All free!


(I know that similar wonders are achievable on the Kindle, Nook, etc., but since I don't have those particular gadgets, I can't answer for the quality of the text on those. Anyone know offhand if they, too, give you the free books with the same formatting quality as the ones you'd purchase for those tablets?)

[Cover image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]