Toca Nature is a lovely looking iOS game which launched a few months ago, and it's about creating and fostering a little world with your fingertips -- watch:
Here's the basics of play:
Shape nature and watch it develop. Plant trees and grow a forest. Raise a mountain and enjoy the view. Collect berries, mushrooms or nuts, and feed the different animals. Learn who eats what and discover how much it takes to winkle a bear out. Walk through different landscapes and become friends with a fox. Capture the moment of woodpeckers zigzagging between trees, and watch the day turn into night.
Haven't played it yet but Toca Boca, the studio that developed the game, is quite acclaimed for its sandbox games for kids. I interviewed Toca's CEO Björn Jeffery a few years ago, who told me about their design philosophy:
"Our basic philosophy is that the UI shouldn't be in the way of the experiences that we're trying to create - and preferably, it should also support and encourage different types of user behavior. Since our products don't have any winning or losing, this is especially important. We want to lead them into the experiences in a good way, and then step out and let the kids do whatever they want to." Great to see they're applying that philosophy to ever deeper and more ambitious games.
Via Nylon Pinkney, who knows quite a bit about virtual art.
Update, 1:15pm: Turns out Iris also wrote about this game last November; great minds, etc.
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This looks great! Thanks for covering it ... guess I have some app shopping to do.
Posted by: Kim Anubis | Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 10:27 AM