Our kids here at iLounge have long been fans of Toca Boca’s lineup of apps, and the prolific game developer has returned with its latest entry, Toca Life: After School ($3), a new entry that expands the Toca Life universe letting kids explore a variety of different after-school activities, including a skate park, an art workshop, a dance studio, and a sports court.
The game includes unique activities and mini-games appropriate for each of the different areas, and 27 characters that kids can interact with as they wander throughout the various locations. For example, in the skatepark, players can choose their favourite skateboard and skate down the quarter pipe, create and print artwork in the workshop, mix their own beats in the dance studio and mix their own beats, or get athletic down on the sports court. As with Toca Boca’s other titles, Toca Life: After School creates an open-ended world for kids to explore at their own pace, letting them just wander around the game environment and have fun trying different things. There are no scores, no rules, and no scripted scenarios.
Toca Life: After School includes a number of rooms beyond the basic four zones, allowing you to visit a food truck, for example, or hang out in a lounge area, freshen up after a dance marathon, spray paint a graffiti wall, and more, and there are also a number of hidden characters, skateboards, and graffiti pets that can be discovered to add additional challenges. Refreshingly, Toca Life: After School is also a one-time purchase with no ads or in-app purchases; something that’s great for kids’ games but is sadly becoming all too rare on the App Store these days.
While we’re not convinced it’s the best Toca Boca title we’ve seen, Toca Life: After School still provides an immersive game play experience that should appeal to kids in the 6-9 age range; our eight-year-old “play-tester” enjoyed it, and rated it four stars — she liked all of the characters, but felt that they could have been more animated and interactive, and that there wasn’t enough to do in some of the rooms. All in all, though, kids who are fans of the Toca Life series won’t be disappointed with Toca Life: After School, and it’s also a good start for kids new to the Toca Life series.
