Crate Shuffle App Review

WARNING: this app review is entirely made up.

Recently, I was picked to road test the new I.B.F.Fs app ‘Crate Shuffle’ by MediaWorks Enterprises, Inc.. The app in general is aimed at kids aged 9-12 years old and encourages matching and sorting skills, a subject most common for preschool children to learn. It was done in the style of old British educational games for the computer, such as Noddy: Let’s Get Ready For School and Pingu: Barrel Of Fun. I’ve played these games when I was a kid, and they have been engraved in the back of my mind. I tried playing with them on Grandma’s old computer before, but they didn’t have any sound. I also had a Noddy DVD game, which is based on the Let’s Get Ready For School CD rom. In America, it’s known as Playtime In Toyland. Anyway, the graphics are pin sharp and the voice acting is superb, especially Tyger Drew Honey, who voices Luke in the Scream Street series and on the app, and Claire Skinner as Six.

The cutscenes, featuring Luke, Resus, Cleo, Six and Sybil trapped in crates, are done in the style of the stop-motion animation used in the original Scream Street series, and it is based on one of the activities from the Petrifying Puzzle Book, available soon in bookstores. The plot is difficult to follow for little ones, but for big kids, it is easy: Sybil, Luke, Resus, Cleo and Six are all held captive and taken overseas, and they are bored out of their wits. Sybil decides that the only way for them to be freed is to round up all the other monster kids that are taken overseas with them. Players have to match the monster kid with their shadow inside the crate, each monster being fairly different whether a werewolf, a mummy, a vampire or a simple multi-coloured fuzzy one. Once you’ve located all the kids, you have to tilt the iPad so that the crates can fall into the sea. The last cutscene, which shows the gang reuniting with their parents on the beach, is sure to bring a tear to your eye. I was in incredible amounts of tears by the time this showed up.

I tried the app, and it proved to be a stimulating experience for the mind, something you can do when you’re bored. It is autism-friendly, simple to play, and is available on the CBBC website too. I hear they’re airing new episodes of Shaun The Sheep, but I prefer the original to the new ones. I would recommend you check it out on various iPad stalls before you continue onto playing it on the CBBC website. The game is totally ad-free and it’s definitely free to download. Free of in-app purchases? You got it. Series 2 of Scream Street? NO WAY!

Scream Street: The Petrifying Puzzle Book will be available in bookstores and on Amazon from the 6th of October.