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Crazy Gears App Review

App Info

Price: $2.99

Overview

Help kids build their logical thinking skills and their knowledge of physics as they solve the increasingly challenging puzzles in Crazy Gears. This app presents kids with a series of puzzles that have them arrange wheels, gears, rods, chains, racks and hooks, and pulleys to solve puzzles. The app doesn’t provide kids with a lot of instructions or help as they go. Instead, it promotes trial and error and requires kids to rely on their own skills to complete each challenge and move to the next level.

Features include:

Multiple levels
Progress-tracking
Add more player profiles
Learning handbook

Quality

When kids open the app, they’re presented with brief instructions and a giant play button. From there, they’re taken immediately into the game. Each level of the game contains a series of gears and other materials that kids must arrange to pull up the next screen. On the first level, they simply see a spinning wheel and a chain, but the number of objects increases as kids play. The game doesn’t offer a lot of other instructions or help for kids, but it does come with fun sound effects, such as the motorized sound of a spinning wheel and the jingling of the chain. The pieces also move largely as if they existed in real life. For example, gears won’t turn if they’re not lined up correctly and a chain can get stuck if an object is moved in its way.

Education

As they play the game, kids learn a lot about how gears and related objects work together. They interact with simple wheels, chains, racks and hooks, rods, and pulleys to solve each of the challenges. At each level, the challenge becomes a little more difficult. The game offers very few instructions to help kids figure out what they need to do, so they have to rely on their logical thinking skills to get through the different levels. In the protected parent section, parents will find a description of each level the child has reached, as well as a parent handbook. These two tools will help parents get kids unstuck when they just can’t seem to get past a level. However, parents should encourage kids to do most of the work on their own, asking questions or offering small suggestions to help them think past the problems they encounter.

Entertainment

Kids will have fun trying to complete all 61 of the challenges. When they get through them all, parents can reset their level and have them start again. As kids continue to play, the levels become more challenging. Sometimes they just have to figure out how to connect the different parts. Other times they have to figure out where to move the parts on the screen or even figure out which parts are necessary for completing the task. The game offers just enough of a challenge to keep kids working to find solutions to still be fun. However, kids who get stuck on a level may become increasingly frustrated if a parent isn’t around to help them figure it out.

Value

The app is priced extremely well, especially considering it contains so many levels. Parents can also register for a free account through Seven Academy and create profiles for multiple kids, making it a great option for those with multiple children or students who want to play the app.

Child Friendliness

Hidden in the top left-hand corner of the app is the small silhouette of a parent and child. It’s so small most kids won’t even notice it, but if they do they’ll have to tap twice and solve a multiplication problem to gain access. In this area, parents can track their child’s progress, find out how to set up multiple user accounts, and learn more about the app and its developer, Seven Academy.