It’s easy to fret about the amount of time your children spend on their tablets. In this age of moronic screaming YouTubers and ad-funded free-to-play shovelware, an iPad can look a lot like a portal into a universe of brain-rotting garbage.
But there’s no need to fret – you just need to find the good stuff. Take Stampy the Wizard. This lovingly crafted interactive story app is not only engaging and educational, but it has the wholesome air of Nick Park animation too.
At the title suggests, Stampy is a Wizard. As Stampy’s name suggests, he is grumpy.
Stampy the Wizard is magic
The story begins with Stampy getting woken up by a noisy bird. Stampy decides to punish the troublesome bird with magic, but his wand is nowhere to be found. You join him as he visits various locations in his village, stamps his feet, accidentally sets off magical incidents, and generally fails to get even with his avian tormentor.
Every character and scene in Stampy the Wizard has been painstakingly created with plasticine, and it’s all interactive. You need to help Stampy get dressed, spot his wand for him, and solve a number of jigsaw puzzles to keep the story moving along.
You can also make him do his angry stamp, though this is just cruel as it always backfires on poor old Stampy. Meanwhile, tapping on various bits of the images reveals hidden secrets.
Looking good
Stampy the Wizard doesn’t just look good – it sounds good too, with a quaint, bouncy tune and polished narration for kids who can’t yet read the text.
The app is aimed at children ages three to seven, with different modes suiting different ability levels. There’s Read and Play, where your kids get to do all the fun interactive stuff, Read to Me, where the narrator reads the story out, and Read by Myself, which lets you inject a bit of education into your screen time.
You can download Stampy the Wizard on Google Play (and the App Store) right now.
