You can do whatever you like with your Barbie dolls so why shouldn’t we support that in a digital toy?” You should be able to muck around and do weird things. Children are not afraid to use technology, they don’t wait for instructions, they just start seeing what they can do.

“Kids were playing games, and there were CD-roms, but nobody was taking kids’ imaginative behaviours and need for freeform play into a digital space. He found inspiration in watching the way they incorporated devices into their play, using FaceTime to play hide and seek, or incorporating a phone screen into a Lego cinema. “Nobody was making anything interactive and interesting based on how kids play with technology,” says co-founder Emil Ovemar, whose children were three and five at the time.

Toca Boca was founded eight years ago, when iPhones and iPads were only just beginning to be a part of family life. Feeding lemons to an unimpressed cat, for example.įor today’s parents, finding apps for kids that are safe, imaginative and free from exploitative mechanics is more important and more difficult than ever. Play researcher and playtesting lead Chris Lindgren tells me with a smile that she sees a lot of kids go out of their way to make something disgusting to provoke a funny reaction. At Toca Boca’s Stockholm studio, which is festooned with real retro and modern toys from all corners of the world, I sit in on a playtest where a small girl creates a mad tower of rice and vegetables. You can play around with ingredients to create perfect little nigiri and serve them to appreciative characters, or stack plates with wild creations, or serve up an entire raw fish just to see the reaction. The latest in the range, Toca Kitchen Sushi, arrives in the App Store and on Google Play today, and is aimed at 6-to 9-year-olds. But put a Toca Boca game in front of a young child and they just start experimenting and finding their own fun. To an adult, these digital toys seem weird: we’re so conditioned to goal-oriented activities, in games as in real life, that the absence of direction is confusing. Toca Train lets children drive a colourful train around a track, picking up passengers and cargo Toca Store has them setting up a little shop and handing out change Toca Hair Salon involves giving characters wacky haircuts. Costing a few quid each, they are relaxed, well-designed and visually appealing, have no goals, scores or adverts, and present an imaginative little virtual sandbox for kids to play in. As a parent of a toddler, they are my go-to digital toys.

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