Preschool app developer Toca Boca is bringing their 30th app to the app store on December 17. Toca Blocks aims to help kids use their imagination in a virtual building blocks canvas.
The blocks themselves in Toca Blocks come in a wide variety of colors and textures, but there’s a lot more to them. Dragging the blocks onto each other can create brand new types of blocks with their own characteristics. Some will even transform into items like trees and chairs. The goal of the app is to help kids see things from different ways.
“Construction play isn’t only about creating something beautiful, it’s about how you get there. When you create something, the materials you use get new meaning: a blanket becomes the ceiling of my playhouse, a chair becomes a stepping stone in the lava pit that’s erupted from the floor,” said play designer Mårten Brüggemann in an official release. “Using your imagination naturally brings out an evolving ruleset from which you can use to create and play within. With Toca Blocks, we give kids a digital environment that enables this aspect of play.”
Besides the blocks, the app will also include three inhabitants that can move through the environments you create, in a sense playing with special figurines, or even playing through an area you create. You can start with either a blank canvas or from some pre-designed worlds. Every time you discover something new, it’s added to your inventory for to you use again.
But one of the things I’m most excited to try are the secret doors. Apparently there will be secret doors that will lead to other worlds. My daughter is already excited for this one, so keep an eye out for it on December 17. It will cost $3.99.
