Good Dog Tobi

  • Editor Rating

  • Rated 4.5 stars
  • Highly Recommended
$$0.99

  • Good Dog Tobi
  • Reviewed by:
  • Published on:
  • Last modified: November 19, 2019
  • Quality
    Editor: 80%
  • Education
    Editor: 80%
  • Entertainment
    Editor: 90%
  • Value
    Editor: 100%
  • Child Friendly
    Editor: 100%

Review Summary:

Good Dog Tobi is a fun app that will help young children learn readiness skills with a collection of over sixty mini-games that are entertaining and fun to play.

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App Info

Price: [app 1147450132] {price}
AppStore User Rating: {stars}[/app]

Download on the App Store

Overview

Good Dog Tobi is an app designed for toddlers and preschoolers that features invitations to children to follow directions and complete tasks as “Tobi.” Mini-games include matching exercises, fine motor tasks, and more, and Tobi is rewarded for successful completion of five games with exciting snacks.

Features include:

  • Over 60 mini-games
  • Play without using data
  • Colorful graphics
  • Silly sound effects
  • Intuitive interface

Quality

Good Dog Tobi is a high quality app that will entice young children to practice important skills. Developers did a fine job of designing Tobi and his friends to be engaging and friendly. The app would benefit from a parents’ area that explains the importance of the tasks and their relation to academic skills, as well as a quick tutorial to help parents understand (and be able to explain) the various games to the kids, because some are not as intuitive as they might be. This app did “hang up” a few times as I was playing, and I had to let the timer run out for the task before it regained control. This might get frustrating if it happens too often for children, because running out of time leads to a “fail” message that could make some kids feel a bit bad.

Education

Good Dog Tobi offers a fair selection of readiness tasks that will help toddlers and preschoolers gain vital skills as they get ready for more challenging tasks in the future.  There are over sixty different games that seem to present in random order, so children will be able to play for quite a while before seeing much repetition.

Some of the mini games that I saw included dot-to-dot activities, matching exercises, and pop-the-balloon games. There were also hide and seek games where a target was hidden under a cup, then the cups were mixed up, and “sweeping” and “mowing” exercises where kids needed to drag a device to all parts of the screen. In other words, there’s a good variety of games and enough of them so it does not seem repetitious.  One downside is that the activities are timed, and failing to meet the time constraint results in a “FAIL” message. It would probably be enough to simply not collect the token for the exercise; some kids might feel quite discouraged if they see that message very often.

Every five games, Tobi the dog collects a snack for his “good work.”  This is a cute reward system, but some parents may be a bit concerned that Tobi is being rewarded with food for his performance, and particularly that much of the food he receives is “junk food” like cookies, pies, ice cream and cakes.  He does have some cute reactions to his snacks, such as turning red when he eats hot peppers and shivering when he eats ice cream.  He does occasionally burp and even fart, then look cutely guilty, which also may put some parents off.

Entertainment

Good Dog Tobi is a fun app that young children are likely to enjoy. With over 60 minigames, children can play for quite a while without seeing much repetition, and even though I played for nearly half an hour, I saw very few repeats.  Kids will also be fascinated with Tobi’s snacks and his reactions to them; he shivers and gets covered in ice when he eats cold snacks, for example, and his eyes turn into hearts when he eats something he really likes.

Value

Good Dog Tobi costs ninety-nine cents on the App Store, and it is quite likely to occupy your toddlers and preschoolers with constructive learning activities for many hours.  The app teaches many valuable skills and it’s fun to play.

Child Friendliness

This app is very child friendly.

  • NO external links
  • NO social media
  • NO 3rd party ads
  • NO in-app purchase

Good Dog Tobi is a fun app that will help young children learn readiness skills with a collection of over sixty mini-games that are entertaining and fun to play.

$$0.99
Editor rating
Rated 4.5 stars