Yeah, so I work for this cool group of labels which releases cool music. For the last two weeks I have spent my entire working days whistling the theme tune to ‘Olly the Little White Van’ – and this is all thanks to a new app which we’ve been testing out.
Olly the Little White Van is currently available at iTunes for free – so firstly, go and get it before it costs something – I’m a firm believer in trying things out when they’re offered for free. It’s a nice simple game and while the theme tune might end up stuck in your head for the forseeable future, it’s proved to be one that H keeps playing and doesn’t need too much supervision.
A big bonus is there’s no buttons which send her off to the internet to buy things that she shouldn’t – there’s a link to Facebook and Twitter pages that are hidden away in the information section – so it is possible to click outside of the programme but no more than that.
There’s two games. ‘Delivery Race’ involves you directing Olly around the roads to pick up packages in Bumpton – one which I started playing dragging the car (this can be done, and easily) before I realised you could also tap where you want the car to go. H picked this up straight away and had no difficulties and had a sense of pride when she did each level.
The second game ‘Fix It’ has three of Olly’s friends who have broken down, and you need to help fix them – a simple drag and drop the car part into the right bit. H did struggle a bit with this one, but it’s not difficult – I think it’s something that will come as she’s older (she’s nearly 3).
Overall the game is quite short, and very straightforward. It doesn’t have any bonuses for completing levels (like, say the City of Friends app), but that’s not a problem – it just means you’ve finished quickly. On the plus side this works if you want to limit the time your child plays on apps, as they’re not on for a long time.
We like it – although I wish I could get the theme out of my head!!
We played the game on the iPad – the app is compatible with the iPod, iPhone and iPad as long as they’re running iOS 4.0 and later.
Olly the Little White Van airs weekdays on CiTV at 9.45am and 1pm. Did I mention that Justin Fletcher is the voice of Olly?
