Cricket Kids: Christmas Presents

Cricket Kids: Christmas Presents allows children to experience the vicarious thrill of opening Christmas presents alongside the crickets seen in SlimCricket's other apps, Cricket Kids: Opposites and Cricket Kids: School Day.

The concept of this app is simple, as these characters tear into presents that children are allowed to interact with – such as playing a Simon-styled repetitious game on a classic musical toddler toy, riding on a toboggan down a snow-covered hill in an arcade-themed section, working on a shape-themed puzzle, or exploring a paint-by-numbers marker activity. I am fond of how varied these toys are from educational moments, such as a memory game and pattern recognition seen here as stringing beads onto a lanyard, to kinetic activities such as a snowman-themed whack-a-mole game and winding up a car to propel it along a track.

Children will enjoy watching these characters unwrapping their presents with abandon, reminding me of a faster and more furious unboxing video that both children as well as adults will enjoy, as well as other interactive moments each highlighted with a blue dot that will lead children to each of these hotspots – be it lighting a fire or seeing what is in the hung Christmas stockings.

Young users will also benefit from easily choosing a favorite section of this app with ease from the menu of toys to play with – a very nice inclusion to be sure, but I wish one could change the photo snapped of the user early within this app, seen framed when opening presents. I am at a loss as to how to do this – a disappointment as this photo is seen prominently within this app and would be a nice element to switch out at will with other snapshots.

In the future, I would like to see ads for the developer’s other apps hidden within a parents’ section, as these ads tend to alienate adults in general – something to think about as SlimCricket as well as other companies develop apps in the future.