I’m a big fan of Oceanhouse Media, and I recently got to play It’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, an April release that they did in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute. This is a simple story about a t-rex looking for lunch among the smaller dinosaurs and then being bested by the only thing more powerful than it: a volcano.
Even though the arc of the app is wrapped in a nice beginning-middle-end story package, there is a lot of information here about how dinosaurs lived and hunted. The Oceanhouse platform, which I talked about in my review of Horton Hears a Who, includes an engine that reads the story (with auto-play and read alone modes also available) and hot spots that present kids with the names of whatever they touch. This is especially helpful when it comes to kids learning the names of individual dinosaurs, though the hot spot opportunities aren’t many, since multiple spreads often feature the same beasts.
The Tyrannosaurus’ quest for lunch gets dramatic as she attacks a dinosaur in a crevice and breaks a tooth, and there are some great gnashing and roaring sound effects. I could’ve used more of those! Only with the added sounds did the T-Rex really seem as fierce as described. (The kill, when T-Rex finally gets her lunch, also happened off-screen, which I understand completely, for the sake of the younger kids, but which could’ve been more fiercely done.) I would’ve also loved some animation other than the scrolling and zooming action that comes standard on Oceanhouse apps. That’s one area where they could make great strides and make their apps more satisfying.
The endnote, which is so important, since this is an educational app, fell a little short of expectations. It describes a lot of size ratios: 32 human teeth stacked equal one 8-inch t-rex tooth! However, the picture remains the same throughout the endnote. How cool would it have been to see a t-rex pictured next to a two-story building to drive home the point about its height? Some more creative visual thinking would’ve really made a visceral impact.
This is a great app for dino-curious kids and science minds and even taught me a thing or two about this favorite dinosaur predator. I’m hoping that Oceanhouse Media will continue adding to their library and also maybe expanding their platform for more animation/interaction opportunities as their business grows. They’re certainly one of my favorite app companies right now.
It’s Tyrannosaurus Rex is available from the iTunes App Store for $2.99. It was one of the Top 5 app releases for April 2011.
