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DinoSawUs.com works by bringing its players into a colorful world inhabited by even more colorful looking dinosaurs.  Just think how different the world would be if these interesting creatures were still around!  While we will never know what dinosaurs would really be like, it’s pretty fun to play around and imagine.  The game starts with the creation of your own dinosaur character and login name or as the game calls it your “secret-identity”.  You start off as a free non-member with 5 credits, which doesn’t really give you too many options initially if you’re looking to buy something for your dino.  There are a whole bunch of games that you can play for free as a non-member and areas for you to explore.  The locations in the game range from the town-hall to the diner to the museum to of course the volcano site.

DinoSawUs Museum

The museum section had a really great educational factor to it.  There is a part titled “General Knowledge” and this section included information on volcanoes, digging up dinos, fossil finding, and pronunciation.  Each location has its own games and activities within the game which keep any repetition to a minimum.  The main toolbar for the game contains links for your own personal aspects of the game.  These are located on the bottom right of the screen and include “Gunge, Friends, Party, My Stuff, Chat, Postcards, and Travel”.  Chat is a preloaded assortment of conversational words that can be used to communicate with other players through your character.  This is nice because it takes away any possible concern over inappropriate contact on this socially interactive site.  Another cool part on that toolbar specifically is the travel section which brings you to a larger map and allows you to jump right to any place in the DinoSawUs world.

Rocket-Bolt Game

There were quite a few mini-games offered throughout the game.  Just to name a select few of the games, there was a Rocket-Bolt game were you have to maneuver your dino character equipped with a jet-pack through a variety of maze type levels.  In each level you collect balloons for points as well as added bonuses of health and avoid other objects trying to stop you.  This game gets harder as you progress upward through the levels  and requires some definite thinking and logic skills to figure out how to fly to success.  Some additional games include a Rock-Band type game, a color memory game, a Burger Restaurant game, a hangman game, and a word search.  The color memory game was pretty fun and reminds me of the electronic handheld game “Simon” that I played as a child.

This site did have quite a bit more available to players who became members.  The membership does require a payment and they have three options available, a monthly payment of $5.95, a 6 month term payment of $24.95 or a yearly payment of $39.95.  The additional features after becoming a member include stuff like special cars and costumes for your dino, the ability to buy exclusive dinos, and the use of the “Party” option on the toolbar.  Your child will definitely want the paid version but the free version gives you enough experience to know whether or not the game is one your child will want to return and play.

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Whizz Ball comes with many options and for the beginner and children under 10 — I highly recommend clicking on the “How To Play” and watching the tutorial.  My son who is 10 took quickly to this game and began with “Build Your Own Puzzle”.  This is also a good way (especially for older kids) to explore learning how the pieces interact with each other.

When you “Click to Play” you are brought to a page where many kids have submitted their own puzzles to be solved.  The goal of this game is to get the ball that begins by being dropped down the tube through the puzzle to the red bulls eye target. There are puzzles for all levels of skill play and kids also rate the puzzles.  You can search for the kind of puzzle you would like to do through difficulty, date, author, title, popularity or randomly.  My son loves the author way to search so he and his friends can keep up to date on their latest puzzle creations. I love that you can play this game by just entering a screen name and no additional sign up is necessary.  There are some ads but all that I saw were for shows and games on the Discovery Channel.

When you are in Puzzle Creator mode it is easy to save, load or share your puzzles with others.  There is no end to the types of puzzles you can create. The pieces are very fun and the innovative.  Here is a picture of a simple puzzle I made.  My son’s are much more complicated and he is having fun inventing them and seeing JUST how complicated he can make them.

Whizz Ball is just one example of the quality educational games you can find on Discovery Kids.  It is a wonderful site to explore for all ages.  Please take the time to check out Whizz Ball, Discovery Kids Games and all Discovery Kids has to offer.

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Genesis

Genesis is an awesome game much like Auditorium, which  I recently reviewed. A puzzle game with music and beautiful graphics that increases in difficulty. Point the beams of light towards the planets to light up the sky, get the music flowing and have the light flow to all to solve the level.

Twisty Text

A fun game where you make as many words as you can out of the 6 letters given to you in 2 1/2 minutes.  Guess the 6 letter word to advance to the next level.  Click the Twist button to rearrange the letters.  Challenge yourself and try and get all the words.  My FAVORITE part about this game is the controls. You can drag and drop the letters and you can underline the word with your finger. COOL use of the ITouch/IPhone technology.

Crack The Code

Crack the Code is a version of the old classic game Mastermind.  Guess the order the colors are in.  You get hints each step of the way.  A black peg means you have the right color in the right place.  A white peg means you have the right color but it is not in the correct spot.  How long will it take you to Crack the Code?

Tap Word

A boggle-like game.  Drag to form words or tap consecutive letters before the time runs out. This game comes with LOTS of options. You can  set the timer for 1-5 minutes, change the board size to either 4×4 or 5×5 or change the minimum word size allowed. At the end you get a complete list of the words that were possible.

Boxed In

Boxed in has received millions of downloads.  This is a logic based puzzle game where you guide the robot with your finger.  The robot needs to push boxes in the correct order to solve the puzzle.  The game play gets increasingly difficult, adding force-fields you need to deactivate by pushing floor switches down with the boxes.  I recommend if you get stuck either going to another level or stepping away and coming back to it. This game is tons of fun and requires lots of thinking and planning.

These are just a sample of the wonderful educational games available for the many Mac products like the IPod, ITouch and IPhone. Most of the full versions of these games are $.99 which makes them a huge bargain. For my son’s birthday it was nice to be able to get him an ITunes gift card so he could decide which games, movies, music and/or videos he wanted to spend his money on. Email me if you have any other games or apps you would like me to review.  Remember they have to be non violent and I LOVE educational games. Thank you! Have fun!

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