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Help Zachy the Robot locate various minerals, dinosaurs and other natural wonders in this very extensive, interactive and challenging educational app produced with help from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History!

Available on the App Store

[appimg 599395459]

Available on the App Store


If you’re looking for an educational game application for your 3+ year old that provides a great deal of content to explore through and learn more about, than “Zachy the Robot: Quest for the Museum Treasures” may be right up your alley.

This massive app (which will take up over 700 MB on you iPad by the way) will take you and your child around the globe to over 25 locations in search of geological wonders. More specifically, minerals, dinosaurs and fossils. Zachy and his cohorts are searching for these treasures in order to fill up exhibits at the new “Robocity” museum and they need your child’s help to do so!

When first launching this app, the user creates a character by selecting from various robot avatars and selecting a gender. The user is also asked to select their age from a menu which only provides the options of 3-6, however, this menu can be skipped without selecting an age and the user can still proceed with playing the game. Once the character is ready and loaded, the user is taken to the museum and presented with the decision of what they would like to go out searching for first: minerals, dinosaurs (yeah!) or fossils. Once the decision is made, a clever scientist will assist them through the various games in order to claim the find for the museum. The user is able to keep track of their various discoveries in three inventory screens and monitor their progress through the game.

      Features include:

      • The Carnegie Museum of Natural History was involved in app production
      • Explore over 25 locations around the world during game play
      • Extensive database of educational content regarding geology
      • Beautiful graphics and music

The quality of this app is quite high as can be seen when interacting with the characters and the game play. It’s obvious that the app developers, GenevaMars, have put a great deal of effort and sweat into the design and implementation of this application and I’m not only talking about the great, cartoon-like animations. The musical soundtrack in “Zachy the Robot: Quest for the Museum Treasures” is all original and designed to reflect the musical flavor of the area the user is currently engaging in.

This application is more of a game than strictly being an educational or e-book style app, so as a result, there is a great deal of interactivity involved during use. There’s many opportunities for the young player to tap on the robots and drag items around, etc., etc., and there was no lag in the app or crashing during my testing of it. The character voices are very clear and easy to understand and the text is also crisp and quite legible.

 

The main learning in this app involves geology, more specifically, the user learns about natural minerals, fossils and dinosaurs including how these items are found, mined and displayed in a museum. As the user collects the various items throughout the gameplay, they are stored in their specific inventory screens and the user can then tap on each item to learn more about them. The app developers refer to this as the “Robopedia”. Very clever.

Also, as mentioned previously, the child is cued to select their age (from 3-6) when creating their character for the game. This age selection adjusts the difficulty level experienced by the child during gameplay. With that said though, as I was playing through various sections of the game, I couldn’t help but think that the content would be a tad over-the-head of 3-6 year old kids, so this is really an app best played with a child, rather than leaving them alone to play it on their own.

As the Carnegie Museum of Natural History was involved in the development of this app, and the content included in it, it does give the app a sense of clout and trustworthiness that the information and content included in it is accurate.

 

There is no doubt that “Zachy the Robot: Quest for the Museum Treasures” is an entertaining app to play through. The games involved are quite interactive and visually appealing and the music is actually a pleasure to listen to.

As the game includes 25+ locations to explore and learn about, there is no shortage of content included in the app. Your child is not likely to become bored or complete all the content in one session of game play, so it’s likely to keep them coming back for more. Even if they do get tired of searching for dinosaurs and fossils and move onto something else, you can be sure that there will be unexplored content available to them when they do revisit Zachy’s world. In other words, yes, it’s fun!

 

This app is priced at $3.99 and has been designed for the iPad only. It may be at a higher price point for this type of game, but for the amount of content included in the app, it’s worth the four bucks without a doubt. There are no in-app-purchases required to unlock different areas of the application, so once you’ve paid the $3.99 you are able to play all 25+ locations of game play.

The app is really a game and an educational app combined into one as you’re getting the interactive activities and all the added content for learning in the “Robopedia” so the value is definitely there. Especially if your young one is showing an interest in dinosaurs and fossils.

The app is best used with an adult and child together, rather than the child solely using it on their own. It’s not as child-friendly as some other apps designed for this age group in that some of the games and content might be a bit confusing for them initially. Having a parent there to explain and participate in some of the game play is probably a more ideal situation.

There are no external links or social media icons that a child may stumble into and there are no in-app-purchases to be bought in error.

 

Available on the App Store