Ollie Presents: Finding the Right App for Your Kids

Kids 3 +

Budge World: This is a great starting point for your kids. The app contains over 100 accessible and engaging activities covering everything from creativity to education including counting, reading and coding. It's also home to a wide variety of awesome brands so that your kids can feel right at home with their favorite characters. It's essentially a one stop shop filled with fun, aimed at preschoolers.

Caillou Search and Count: Hidden object games are one of my guilty pleasures and this app, featuring Caillou, is a great introduction to that relaxing style of gameplay. With no time pressure you child can search for fun objects throughout a wide variety of scenes and learn to count at the same time!

Kids 4 +

Thomas Minis: An amazing train set builder that's perfect for pre-school engineers. Build a set from scratch or follow along with one of our easy to use blueprints. Each set has a ton of cool features like boosts, rollercoaster sections and crazy jumps!

Transformers Rescue Bots: Hero Adventures: It's time to Roll Out! Help Chase, Heatwave, Boulder and Blade save Griffin Rock from a series of epic and exciting disasters. Each bot has their own type of mission that showcases their strengths, but teamwork is needed to win the day. Simple controls and a lot of variety is on offer here. We also have the more action-oriented Transformer Rescue Bots: Disaster Dash that will challenge your kids' reflexes!

Hello Kitty Nail Salon: A great app to encourage creativity and inspire your kids' inner artist. With a wide range of colors, shapes, stickers and styles to choose from, no set of nails need ever be the same. Great app to mess around and take your time with.

Miss Hollywood: Vacation: One of the line of available Miss Hollywood games, this app sees our hero setting off for sunny climes and, with the help of her friends, helping to rebuild a hotel through winning a series of different contests. It's the ultimate rags to riches story with a tropical twist!

Kids 5 +

Strawberry Shortcake Bake Shop / Sweet Shop: Two different apps here to satisfy your sweet tooth! These are very simple but extremely engaging creativity apps where kids can have fun making the desserts of their dreams! Simple step-by-step activities with a huge array of decoration options. You can even try the recipes at home! If your kids are up for a challenge they can also check out the faster paced Ice Cream Island where they'll help Strawberry and friends spread sunshine by running some very busy ice cream stands.

My Little Pony: Harmony Quest: A perfect game for little adventurers. The ponies have a big problem on their hooves and need to journey throughout Equestria to stop the evil Queen Chrysalis! This is a fast and fun chase game with light puzzle solving and reaction-based activities along the way. For a more action-packed platform game, you can check out My Little Pony: Rainbow Runners.

The Smurfs Games: Featuring six different sports including Archery, Basketball and Ski Jumping, as well as a ton of unlockable characters, this is a score centered action game that's keep your kids competing for the gold medal!

Kids 7 +

EverRun: Legend of the Horse Guardians: Our latest original title is a level based "runner" game featuring magical horses. Race through epic landscapes and collect the petals of the Everbloom tree in order to bring it back to life. The game features a wide variety of horse Guardians, each of which can be customized and upgraded, and each comes with its own stable for your kids to decorate. The fast-paced nature of the game means that it's aimed at slightly older kids, and even adults come along for the ride!

So, there you have it. These are some of my favorite Budge titles, and hopefully by showcasing some of them, they'll become some of your favorites too. Now at least you'll have an idea of which ones would be most suitable for your kids. Whatever you choose, we hope you and your children have fun as much fun playing them as we had making them.

Ollie Sykes is the Creative Director here at Budge Studios and is also a father of two little gamers. He’s been making video game magic for over 20 years and also teaches game design at a local university.