Almost 3 years ago, we received a phone call at one am from a police officer. He asked us if we had a little red haired girl. My heart immediately sank into my feet. Addison, my oldest daughter with autism, had left the house in the middle of the night.  My wife and I panicked. We jumped straight out of the bed and went to Addy’s room.  When we got to her room, we had found her door lock and door alarm dismantled on the floor.  Next, we ran to the door to meet the police. In our driveway was our worst fear, the lights of four police cars an ambulance, and a fire truck.

Since Addison was little, she was often prone to wandering. We had taken every precaution available to prevent that from happening. We had window alarms, locks on the doors; we even had a motion light installed in our hallway. That night; none of those precautions helped.

When we met the policemen, he explained to us that a neighbor down the street had gotten up to let their dogs out and saw Addy walking down the road. They knew something was “wrong” with her and that she shouldn’t be out. They tried to get Addy to stop and come inside but she panicked and took off running.

When the police found Addy, they assumed that she was either sick or that she had gotten into some medication that was causing her odd behaviors.  Kids with autism often have trouble communicating. Autism is a neurological disorder that effects 1 in 50 kids. Kids with autism may have trouble talking, looking people in the eye, and can get upset by loud noises or bright lights. Because of Addison’s autism she is mostly non-verbal. At that time she had less than ten words that she could use appropriately. She wasn’t telling the police anything because she couldn’t.

One of the officers noticed that Addison had an iPhone in her hand. She was walking down the street playing a game on her IOS device. He was able to convince her to let him hold it. He scrolled through the contacts and began calling numbers until he found us.  He told me that Addison was safe. Before he could give her back to us, he had to come and make sure that the house was safe.  One of the EMTs knew Addison. His mom was an assistant in Addison’s special needs class. He informed the police that she had autism. They called Addison’s doctors at UMC to confirm that she had autism. The UMC doctors knew Addison well and recommended that she be returned to us as soon as possible.

Sadly, kids with autism wander all the time. We were lucky and blessed that Addison came back to us. Since this story she has wandered two more times.  Each time she was seeking out water. Each time we were lucky enough to find her. She has not wandered in over a year. She is about to turn eleven now. Her favorite activities include swimming and playing on her iPad.
My wife and I wanted to find the positive in this story and we found it in a big way.  Since Addison took her iOS device with her that night we knew that she was fond of it. When you have a child with autism take an interest in something, as a parent,  you have to run with it. We started working one on one with Addison each night on her iPad to help her learn to use the device to communicate.  Now she uses her iPad to show us things she wants, or places she would like to go. She uses it to practice handwriting and even counting. However, it’s not just used for work. I could guide her through an app but I started to watch and wonder what would she play when I wasn’t working with her.  I started to watch and see what Addison would play on her own.  She would often pull out her iPad and immediately open Toca Boca’s Toca Hair Salon. She enjoyed cutting the characters hair and drying it with the dryer. I noticed that the apps are easy for her to just open, and then begin playing. She loves cooking in Toca Kitchen and making music with Toca Band.  The TOCA BOCA apps even started to carry over into what both of my kids with autism could do on their own.  One afternoon my son and Addison had setup up their own Tea Party on the dining room table. As a parent we are happy that we have a found a way to engage our kids with iPads. We are also grateful for apps like the ones from Toca Boca that entertain and teach our kids at the same time.

Addison Playing Toca Boca Christmas Hair Salon ( ONE OF HER FAVORITES) on her iPad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiB3J4Rb178

About the author:

Toby Price is a special needs dad and Assistant Principal at Richland Upper Elementary in Richland Mississippi. He has been married for 12 years to his wife Leah.  He has 3 wonderful kids Addison, McKade, and Marley Kate.

He can be found online at about.me/jedipadmaster
You can follow him on twitter @jedipadmaster

Our most longed for launch finally got off the ground this past Thursday. The follow-up to the immensely popular Toca Hair Salon – completely re-made with new characters, new accessories, new features and new tools – is now out. Introducing: Toca Hair Salon 2.

Ever since we made the prequel, we’ve had loads of requests for a curling iron. A completely reasonable request given the context of the toy of course, but not as easy to solve as maybe we had hoped. The way we had made the hair created problems for hair curling, and even if we tried it a few times, it just didn’t come out right. So we went back to the drawing board and decided to make a completely new version from scratch. That is what you see today. A much more fluid, detailed and precise hair cutting experience. It’s hard to explain – you should just try it. You’ll make hair styles that you never thought were possible. May I suggest starting with some curls perhaps?

This toy was made by the following, fantastic team:

Emil Berner – Art Director

Erik Olsson – Play Smith

Molly Ränge – Project Manager

Mårten Brüggemann – Play Designer

Emil Ovemar – Producer

We hope that you’ll have loads of fun with this new toy, and we’re looking forward to seeing all your creativity on #tocatailor and Tocatailor.com! Now rush off to the App Store and get it straight away!

Our team for this digital toy was:

Amanda Rösler – Playsmith
Emil Ovemar – Producer
Erik Wahlgren – Play Designer
Mathilda Engman – Art Director

What we wanted to do was give ourselves the possibility to:

• Learn from our own apps. What works and what doesn’t? Which characters are popular? How often are people playing? Questions like that. This way we can learn more about the apps and use that knowledge to make even better ones. It is completely anonymized and we don’t collect any email adresses or other personal information by doing so.
• Understand which parts of our advertising that work. If we spend $10 on five different advertising networks and 10 people download the app, we still can’t see which of the five advertising networks that actually made that happen. This means we waste a lot of money on ads that don’t work. And we all know how we feel about ads that aren’t relevant.
• Offer more ways to communicate. We have many Facebook fans, followers on Twitter and subscribers to our newsletter. Still we have many parents saying that they didn’t know that we had released a new app. So we’re trying to add more ways of communicating so that you can choose whatever way suits you best.

In order to try to address the abovementioned issues, we’re making a few changes. In simple terms, the following things will change and will be visible in new apps and future updates:

• We have changed the user experience of Toca News. The Toca News icon is our way of highlighting our other toys and is located in the lower right corner of each app’s menu screen. It is now harder for your kids to access content outside the app. If you don’t want it at all, you can always turn it off in the Settings app on your device – just like before.
• We have updated our privacy policy with the help of Privo. Privo is a service recognized by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to help companies within kids media to get their privacy policies right. We’re thankful that they’ve helped us with this process.
• We have added the possibility to learn a little more about how our apps and our advertising works. The data is completely anonymized and in accordance with the privacy policy above. If you do not wish to participate, you can opt out at any time by clicking here and here from your devices.
• We have added the option of receiving push notifications from us. In our survey, many of you said that you would appreciate receiving information from us in this way. Push notifications are of course completely voluntary. And even if you said yes at first, you can always turn it off again by going to your Settings app, and then choosing Notifications. There you can turn notifications on and off for every app on your device.

If you have any thoughts, questions or concerns – please send me an email or write a comment below. Your feedback is important to us!

That is it for this time! We’re continuously trying to find new ways to talk with you and new cool ways to make better apps. We’ll keep you posted as we go along!

/Björn Jeffery, CEO

We released Toca Tailor on Thursday and have already had an amazing reception. Our hashtag #tocatailor on Instagram is filling up with fun images, and we’ve just launched our first weekly theme – Halloween of course! If you need more inspiration, check out this video below:

Nothing more to wait for – join the design team and get Toca Tailor in the App Store now!

The team for this digital toy was:

Play Designer: Erik Wahlgren
Art Director: Mathilda Engman
Playsmiths: Amanda Rösler & Eric Alm
Producer: Emil Ovemar

Don’t miss your chance to get one of our top apps!

Toca Hair Salon, one of our top-selling digital toys, is a great way to let your kids run their very own hair salon! In this easy-to-use, creative app, you get to cut, color and style six different customers, using your fingers – and, of course, your imagination. Right now we’re giving away Toca Hair Salon for FREE, so if you haven’t got it yet, here’s your chance! Don’t wait too long, though – the offer is valid October 18-25, 2012.

Download Toca Hair Salon here!

Toca Tailor will be available on App Store on October 25th.

Enjoying Toca Band? For those of you who just can’t get enough of Stikk Figga and the rest of the bunch, we’ve put together some fun stuff – shall we call it bonus material? – to print out and get busy with:

Collectors’ cards
Cut them out and carry the band around in your pocket! Play tip: print out two copies and you have your own Toca Boca memory game!
Download here: Collectors cards printout (pdf)

Colouring pages
Does Wao Miao look better in green? Or stripes? Time to get out those crayons and find out!
Download here: Colouring pages (pdf)

Toca Band poster
Every great band has to have a cool poster – and Toca Band is no exception!
Download here: Poster (click to open, then right-click to save image to your computer)

Toca Band characters
Here they are – all 16 of them!
Download here: Characters (click to open, then right-click to save image to your computer)

Toca Band is now rocking App Store! In this musical app, our lovable rapper Stikk Figga and the rest of the 16-man band can be placed on differents areas of the stage in order to create endless combinations of rhythms, beats and tunes.

You can also play each character in solo mode. Downtempo or upbeat, rock or opera – it’s all up to you how you want Toca Band’s hit song to sound! Get it today at App Store – just $1.99.

Want to see more? Check out the game play trailer here.

Like the song? Get it (and the cool remix!) on iTunes and Spotify.

Credits
Play Designer: Jens Peter de Pedro
Art Director: Arvid Tappert & Emil Berner
Playsmiths: Jack Nutting, Erik Olsson & Andrey Zhukov
Producer: Emil Ovemar
Music: Håkan Lidbo
Animation: Martin Nyberg & Johan Sonestedt

Why should I upgrade?
Besides being able to install Toca Band, your device will be more compatible with existing and future software. If you choose to activate iCloud, you can perform future updates and sync files without connecting to a computer – a wifi connection is all you need. Also, future updates will be much simpler and quicker, as you won’t need to connect your device to a computer anymore.

Can’t I just wait until iOS 6 is released on September 19?
Absolutely. However, until iOS 6 has been out for a few days, we can’t provide you with any instructions on how to update from iOS 4. If you want to be able to use Toca Band right away without having to worry about iOS 6 upgrade issues, we recommend that you upgrade to iOS 5 now.

HOW TO UPGRADE TO IOS 5
The actual upgrade process is usually very simple, but takes a little time, so make sure you’re not in a hurry. Follow these instructions if you’re using a computer that you’ve already synced your device with before:

1) IMPORTANT! Before upgrading: back up your device! This is an absolute must if you don’t want important information (contacts, text messages, game data) to be lost after upgrading. Here’s how to back up:
a) Connect your iOS device to a computer with the latest version of iTunes installed.
b) Select your iOS device in iTunes under Devices.
c) Right-click (or Control-click) the device and select Back Up.

To upgrade:
2) Now locate your device in the left panel of iTunes and click on it. This will open up the Settings Panel on the right.
3) Click on the “Check for updates” button and choose “Download and Update”. iTunes will now automatically download the new iOS 5 software, upgrade your device and restore the data automatically. This will probably take some time – do NOT disconnect your device during the upgrade process. Just follow the instructions when prompted.
4) Once your device is successfully updated, it will restart. After that, you can safely eject it from iTunes.

If you’re using a computer that you’ve never synced your device with before:
Please follow these instructions on Apple’s support page.

E-mail your suggestion together with your postal address to alison@tocaboca.com, with “Naming contest” in the subject line, latest Monday September 17th. The winning name will be presented here and on our Facebook page on the 19th. The winner will also receive a little Toca Boca goodiebag – so don’t forget to give us your postal address! If you’re under 16, please include your parents’ names and e-mail addresses.

Contest period: September 11-17, 2012. The winning name will be chosen by members of the Toca Boca staff, and presented on www.tocaboca.com and Toca Boca’s Facebook page on September 19, 2012. The winner will also be notified by e-mail. The decision of the judges is final and binding. Toca Boca reserves the right to use the winning character name in promotion material related to Toca Boca and Toca Band, including the Toca Band app description on App Store.

Edit: We’ve received so many good entries that we’ll need a little more time. We’ll be announcing the winner on Friday September 21st!

Our new musical toy, featuring 16 fun band members, will be rocking App Store on Thursday, September 20th, at $1.99. Check out the official game play trailer here! It’s wicked!

I just wanted to send you an email to let you know how wonderful your apps have been for my three-year-old autistic son, Riley. Riley is the kind of autistic child who naturally has an incredible memory for facts: he could fully read at 18 months, now knows the shape and location of every country on earth, all the flags, bones in the body, etc.

Despite all this, he could not play. He did not understand the idea of a toy – any toy without obvious educational value. If you handed him a train, he would bang it or put it in his mouth, even at age two. If you handed him a doll, same thing.

Initially, we bought him apps that were academically oriented (such as geography and math quiz games), because he enjoyed them. But what we really wanted was for him to learn how to play like other children and be creative. No matter how we tried to show him how to play, he did not understand anything that did not involve the same answer every time. So, for example, he could not understand how to play with trains, answer a question about his favorite animal, pretend to feed a doll, or color.

Your apps gave him an environment that was just the right mix of open yet predictable play, so that he could explore the sorts of things other little boys and girls love. And because there is no real language in your apps, it gives us a chance to talk about what is going on, instead of him simply memorizing the lines characters say.

Best of all, he has transferred these play skills to the real world! During his play therapy, he now enjoys pretending to buy and cook food, pretending to paint his dolls’ hair and, most recently, play with a train set. He can tell us all about who is getting on and off the train, what his favorite hair color is, and what he likes to cook.

I realize you aren’t specifically making apps for the autism community, so I thought you might not even realize the kind of positive impact you have in this regard.
We look forward to many new Toca Boca apps in the future and wish your company all the best.

Sincerely,

Rachel Kremen
Highland Park, New Jersey
http://www.rachelkremen.com

Thanks for sharing, Rachel!

Summer is here and we’re celebrating big time!

Starting today, and every third day until July 30th, 2012 we’re going to give you 50% off one of our digital toys. That’s right…we’ll be offering a new deal every third day, so if you catch all the apps we’re discounting, you’ll wind up with six fun apps for your children at a great price! Make sure to check out our Facebook page regularly to see which apps are on sale.

We’re starting off with Helicopter Taxi, which you can download for $0.99 instead of $1.99 until Sunday July 15, 23.59 CET. Already own it? Use App Store’s “Gift This App” feature to give it to a friend!

Hi Jens Peter Please tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a half Spaniard, half Swede, married to an American. Father of two girls. I’m the Play Designer behind Toca Hair Salon, Helicopter Taxi, Toca Kitchen, Paint My Wings, and now Toca Train. Many years ago, I was a student of Child Development and a graphic designer. A lot of people call me JP for short.

What is Toca Train and what can you do with it?
Toca Train is sort of like a train play set. You can drive the train around a track and pick up passengers and goods.

What inspired you to develop Toca Train, How did the idea for Toca Train come about?
Independently people had been bugging our CEO about trains. Their kids loved trains and why didn’t we do something with trains. So the question landed in our game design team. I started thinking about what it could be that makes kids love trains so much. I encountered a blog that an autistic woman had written to explain to regular folks how autistic people think. She described their thinking and at the end, to summarize her point, she said their thinking is sort of like the movement of a train, and that perhaps that is why autistic people love trains so much. I thought that was very interesting because I believe all of us have a bit of autistic thinking at times, that we all need to be in this mind state occasionally, to some degree. So I started thinking of the train and the mind moving together through a landscape and that was the seed for what became Toca Train, a stress free game about a train that always moves forward and that you can control and follow from every different angel.

What has been the hardest obstacle you have had to overcome in the development process?
Our team was rather new to the technology that we used to make the game three-dimensional. So there was a lot of learning on the go. Some lessons where tougher than others! Also, getting the interface for controlling the train right took a few tries.

And how long was the process from the original idea to the release of the toy?
It was about 6 months, perhaps 5 months of intense work.

Besides cute and adorable characters, the driver in Toca Train is particularly arousing our interest. Can you introduce him to us briefly?
His name is Kenta Karlsson. We don’t know if he is half Japanese or not, because Kenta is also a Swedish nickname for Kent. Originally his granddaughter was going to be riding with him on the coal wagon, but we had to cut her out due to time restrains in the project. I think Kenta misses her.

And finally, what are your plans for the future? Will there be any updates?
There will surely be updates. We’d like to make the world and the characters to feel even more alive. Kenta needs not only his granddaughter but he also needs to be relived from his job on occasion. We are thinking his wife should be able to drive the train too. We think they met in train driving school in the fall of 1898. It would also be fun to add bifurcations and open up new places where the train could go in the world. Perhaps there could be people cheering and waving to Kenta or his wife as the go. We’re going to see what reactions we get from our fans too, so please send us your suggestions! Thanks again for your time, JP!

For all the Toca Train fans!
Can’t get enough of Toca Train? Now, we’re thrilled to be able to give you some extra bonus material of Toca Train. And the best part of this collection is that it will be available for absolutely free. Watch this extended Toca Train trailer showing the train in action, something extra for all the little train lovers!

Toca Train map of the landscape!

Meet all the cute characters in Toca Train, check out their names!

You can download these wallpapers on your iPhone, iPad or Desktop, see them all below! To download the wallpaper, click on the wallpaper you want below. Once you get the image in your browser, simply right click on it and save it. Enjoy!

Toca Train wallpaper for your Desktop!

Toca Train wallpaper for your iPad!

Toca Train wallpaper for your iPhone!

We hope you’ll enjoy! Get onboard and start driving the train straight away.

Best,
Jenny

There is a certain something about trains. The sound, the design, how they feel when you’re riding on them through a pretty landscape. But the most fun must be to be the train driver yourself. This is the feeling that we tried to capture in our latest app, Toca Train.

In this toy, your kids are in full control and drive the train around a beautiful island. Along the way you can pick up and drop off both passengers and cargo, blow the horn or just appreciate the calming ride in the train. Only your kids imagination sets the limitations. Just a like a toy train set.

We’re very happy to release Toca Train to the world today. Get onboard and start riding the train straight away.

The team behind Toca Train is:

Jens Peter de Pedro – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Graphic Designer
Andrey Zhukov – Playsmith
Eric Alm – Playsmith
Lisa Jonsson – Sound Designer
Håkan Lidbo – Music
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Mother’s Day is coming up in many parts of the world on Sunday May 13 and what better way to celebrate it than by playing new Toca Boca toys with your kids? Therefore, we have two offers: Toca Doctor and Toca Doctor HD (for iPad) are both absolutely FREE until Sunday May 13, 11:59 pm CET. And from now on Toca Tea Party (iPad only) is $1.99 instead of $2.99 (33% off)! Hurry over to the App Store!

Oh, and did you know that we have a thing going on with Tattly – an amazing temporary tattoo webshop for kids and grown-ups – this month? Use the discount code “TOCABOCAMAY” to get a 10% discount when you purchase tattoos from Tattly. You’ll get a complementary FREE Toca Boca tattoo with each purchase.

So, what else is happening?

Our office assistant Lina is still looking for the perfect Toca Boca office (here is a recent mini interview with Lina). She is also planning a summer surprize party; partly because I’m going on maternity leave on May 25. Fun times!

The project team members are fully focused on finishing our new digital toys. Mathilda is “between apartments” and is therefore working from her parents’ house in Varberg (southwestern Sweden). We miss her and her lovely little pug – Maki – tremendously!

Emil, Eric and Andrey are rather close to completing their project. Here is a treat for our blog readers: a sneak peek of the environment in the app. Can you guess what kind of app it is?

Our new team member and VP of Communication and Marketing, Jenny, has been busy setting up project plans. Her laptop is full of complex, yet colorful, Excel sheets that will make our lives much easier. In addition, Jenny has redesigned our newsletter to make it more fun and straightforward. Sign up here if you want to be first to learn about upcoming updates and sales.

Björn is ending his extensive conference tour in America (Sandbox Summit i Boston, Digital Kids Conference in LA, Mamabear in Mountain View) with InPlay i Toronto and Dust or Magic in Monterey. If you’re going – feel free to reach out (@bjornjeffery on Twitter). Björn loves meeting new people in the industry and is very nice! As depicted in this epic photo.

Have a great Mother’s Day weekend everyone!

Love,

Paulina

Oh, and we have two new animators – Johan and Martin – in the house. Temporarily. They will help us animate our new characters and are doing a really great job bringing them all to life.

Our CEO Björn was here on a quick visit last week. He lives in San Francisco but visits Sweden every now and then. After spending most of his time in meetings, Björn now seems to have a fairly good idea of what the future of Toca Boca will look like. It is all very exciting! Björn is now back in the US. He was last seen at the Sandbox Summit at MIT, handing out Toca Boca gear and networking with cool and interesting people.

Our office assistant Lina is still looking for an amazing new office for the growing Toca Boca team. So far, none has been good enough. Lina also took the time to arrange a really fun ice cream event last Friday. We all got to try the new ice cream flavors of the season and rated them. The more chocolate the better seemed to be the general concent. Yum! Poor Eric (one of our developers) unfortunately missed the whole thing since he had to save his new bathtub. The delivery guys threatened to leave it out on the street. :)

Our Producer Emil has been busy thinking about cool Toca Boca merchandise (a little web shop is coming later this year). Here are some prototypes for future stickers and badges. Looks very promising, doesn’t it? Once the prototypes are ready, our graphic designer Emil B will work his magic on them to make them even more amazing.

So, what have I (Paulina) been up to? Well, apart from being very, very pregnant (baby due in seven weeks), I’ve been busy preparing new campaigns and collaborations. I’ll tell you more about the soon. On Saturday, I will moderate a panel discussion about community management in startups at Startup Day 2012 here in Stockholm. The conference will be broadcasted online, so check it out if you’re interested!

That’s all for now. Have a great time in the sun/rain/snow!

Best,

Paulina

Yours truly – Paulina – has been busy preparing the annual World Autism Awareness Day on Monday, April 2. Toca Store was free for a day to celebrate the day, and the amazing Shannon Rosa wrote an equally amazing guest post here in our blog about her autistic son Leo and his love of iPads, apps and Toca Boca. We participated in Technology in Special Education’s Appy App Party; check out the Toca Boca promo code contest here. We were also part of Muslim Friendly Apps‘ and iHelp SN Kids’ App Parties. The events were all huge successes. Thanks Shannon, Siva, Emma and Lisa for great collaborations! In addition, I have handed out loads of promo codes to our apps with the help of the iMums, Pappas Appar, App-o-Mama, and Nicki (One of the Boys).

Björn, our CEO, who just moved to San Francisco to set up a new Toca Boca office, came back to visit us this week. (We’ve all missed him so!) We still haven’t seen him though, since he has been extremely busy meeting people, planning the future of Toca Boca, and making awfully important decisions. It all looks very promising!

Emil O, our producer and co-founder, has also been a busy bee providing feedback to all three teams, interviewing new potential Toca Boca employees, preparing the release of our latest digital toy Toca Kitchen Monsters, giving presentations, and doing great interviews.

What about our Office Manager Lina? She is looking for a new Stockholm office for the Toca Boca team. The team is growing and in need of office space that matches our level of creativity and lust for life. :) Other things: sent lots of emails, coordinated our new translators, arranged a great After Work last Friday, and bought Easter eggs filled with candy (a Swedish tradition) to the whole team! Thanks, Lina!

And the rest of the team? They are still working hard on finishing our three super secret digital toys. Coding and animating prototypes, discussing different solutions, reviewing, redesigning, demoing, testing the prototypes on kids, reviewing even more and so forth and so on… Lots of fun!

And what is coming up next? The release of a FREE special edition of Toca Kitchen – Toca Kitchen Monsters – of course! The app is released today, April 5. I recommend all adults and parents to read the “Letter from the play designer”, which can be reached via the “For Parents” link on the start page of the app. In the letter, the play designer, Jens Peter (JP) describes the ideas behind the digital toy and ways in which the toy can be used by both kids and parents. We are also arranging a fantastic monster naming contest next week, April 8-13. Join/like our Facebook Page to learn more (on Monday, April 8).

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Paulina

My son Leo, like most kids, glows with an awesomeness that takes many forms: he’s a fierce bicycle rider, a fish-like swimmer, a walking happiness explosion, and an iPad fiend. He’s also autistic, which for him means speaking is difficult (though he hears just fine), learning is unpredictable, reading is hard, other people can be confusing, and even independent play can be overwhelming.

Having an iPad helps Leo through many challenges. It’s changed his life, and I don’t write that casually. The touch-based interface makes interacting with the tablet computer an intuitive process, as well as very, very accessible. Leo dives into his iPad without hesitation, noticing instantly if new apps have been installed, questing, learning, having a blast. And all on his own! Without needing anyone to show him what to do! I rarely have to instruct him how to use apps on the iPad, though I do gently guide if he needs it, and keep an eye on how he’s using his iDevice (Safari and YouTube and Google, oh my).

But it’s not just the iPad that makes a difference, for Leo it’s the apps — their content, their design, their interactive animations and sounds motivate Leo to engage, engage, engage, learn learn learn, play play play. The best apps for Leo have simple, elegantly designed, easy-to-use, structured interfaces that make learning enticing, and play extra-fun — yet are predictable enough that Leo can get familiar with them instantly while still providing enough creative bandwidth to sidestep boredom.

It’s no secret that Toca Boca makes open-ended digital toys that Leo loves, and it’s not surprising, either: they provide exactly the kind of well-designed iPad experiences he seeks out and obsesses over. They have funky-cool graphics and characters to draw Leo in, plus they’re designed for an international audience — which means minimal text. Which means Leo’s pre-reader status is not an issue. Which means, again, that he can use the toys independently! That’s a huge achievement for my boy.

Toca Boca’s digital toy apps apps are unique in that they’re not really geared towards academics or pure play, but a mesmerizing third space: pretend play. Leo was never interested in pretend play before he started playing with these apps, but now he is having daily tea parties, birthday parties, giving hair cuts and colors, playing doctor pretending to cook meals, and playing house. All things he used to care less about, outside his iPad. It’s fun to see him get silly and creative: giving a dog a rainbow-colored mohawk, frying up a fish and feeding it to an appreciative cat. It’s even more gratifying to see the Toca cues translate to real world actions like Leo setting and clearing the table — completing said chores with much less fuss than his sisters, I might add.

Social opportunities are another lovely benefit of Toca Boca’s toys. Other kids don’t always know how to play with Leo, and he doesn’t always know how to play with them, but I’ve yet to meet a kid who didn’t want to play with Toca Boca toys. When Leo is playing with them, other kids will approach him and ask if they can join in, which is tremendous — especially when it’s his seven-year-old sister India. Leo is learning to get past his social anxiety and not only let other kids play with him, but learning to tolerate turn taking. I know I’m not the only autism parent who lies awake at night, thinking up strategies for encouraging my autistic child to interact socially, so watching these social connections happen spontaneously is heart-warming. Especially since Leo seems to enjoy them, too.

Possibly my favorite aspect of the digital toys that Toca Boca makes is how they encourage Leo to play independently. My enthusiasm for his solo play may seem silly to some parents, but it’s a huge deal for a kid who loathes spontaneity and free-form scenarios. The toys provide the basic structure and predictability Leo craves while still providing plenty of opportunities to create. Witness the 30+ different hairstyles he created in Toca Hair Salon, all on his own. He. Is. Having. Fun.

The toys also help keep Leo occupied during one of the banes of childhood existence — being forced to go accompany his mother on endless errands. The erranding can’t be helped, but at least Leo now has a way to keep himself occupied most of the time, and even when the lights go dim as during his sister’s ophthalmology appointments. Too bad I can’t go back in time and hand my childhood self an iPad before going carpet shopping or to the dry cleaner with my own mother.

Leo’s not the only Toca Boca fan in the house, by the way. His little sister India is a vocal and unabashed enthusiast, and has a lot to say about why she likes the toys, too, particularly Toca Hair Salon:

I really just want Leo to be happy. I want all three of my kids to be happy. Finding apps that make them happy makes me happy. And when those apps also make it easier for my autistic son to share, learn, socialize, and play? Then I feel perfectly justified in slapping on a pair of rose-colored sunglasses, and declaring the world a better place.

/Shannon Des Roches Rosa

More about Shannon:

I am more than a parent, but with three kids — one of whom has autism — the current playlist has parenting on heavy rotation. I am a kick-ass writer and editor, and have been blogging fearlessly and compassionately about parenting and autism since 2003, at www.Squidalicious.com. I’m also a co-founder and editor at the Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism.

For more app tips by Shannon, follow these links:

•  http://supportforspecialneeds.com/2011/05/23/shannon-des-roches-rosas-ipad-app-list-for-special-needs/
•  http://www.squidalicious.com/2011/10/making-great-apps-for-kids-with-autism.html
• http://www.squidalicious.com/2011/07/developing-apps-that-avoid-special.html
• http://www.squidalicious.com/2011/01/ipad-apps-for-autism-spreadsheet-of.html

The multi-tiered evaluation process is as true to its integrity today as it was when Parents’ Choice Foundation was established almost thirty years ago. The Parents’ Choice Awards Committees evaluation process offers objectivity, respect, and expertise – and all with a sense of humor. Learning is fun – and we want kids to know that.

The Parents’ Choice Awards evaluation process is a lengthy and confidential one. We don’t offer “feedback” to producers or manufacturers because we don’t work for them. We work for parents, caregivers, librarians and educators.

About 20% of the submissions are commended in one of the six levels available. And Toca Boca managed to get three gold and one silver from our four submissions! Amazing! And we’re also the only studio in the mobile category to receive three gold awards. Toca Tea Party, Toca Kitchen and Toca Robot Lab were all awarded gold, while Toca Hair Salon was awarded silver.

I’m super proud of our team that made it all happen – so, thanks to (alphabetically):

• Amanda Rösler
• Ann-Margret Karlström
• Andrey Zhukov
• Arvid Tappert
• Chris Lindgren
• Emil Berner
• Emil Ovemar
• Eric Alm
• Erik Wahlgren
• Jack Nutting
• Jens Peter de Pedro
• Lina Persson
• Mathilda Engman
• Paulina Modlitba Söderlund

You’re an amazing team that I’m proud to be working with! Hooray!

So, what have we been up to lately?

Our CEO, Björn, has been focusing on establishing our presence and new office in San Francisco office. His schedule is already getting packed with interesting meetings, regarding ad campaigns, sponsorships, and other collaborations. As an example, we are currently sponsoring one of our favorite podcasts, Boing Boing’s “Apps for kids” with the amazing Mark Frauenfelder and his daughter and co-host Jane. Check it out if you haven’t. Björn is also the Toca Boca team’s official iPad provider. Thanks to him, a couple of new iPads are now on their way to Stockholm. Very exciting!

Emil, our producer, has mostly been assisting the rest of the team with a huge number of different things – big and small. He has provided feedback regarding the new digital toys that are being developed, helped our office manager Lina look for a new Stockholm office, planned new recruitments, had meetings with interesting people, and provided the office with great, inspirational music.

I, Paulina, have mainly been working on managing the redesign of tour official website – tocaboca.com. Smaller design changes are in the making, and an improved support section will be added. We are also planning to add a small webshop for selling Toca Boca t-shirts. I have also been browsing plenty of amazing mommy blogs and made plans for the World Autism Awareness Day, which takes place on April 2. Stay tuned!

The developers have been working on updating all our apps, making sure they all work on the new iPad. In addition, a couple of minor changes/updates have been added. Some examples: Paint My Wings, now has a “snapshot saving” setting which allows you to turn off snapshot saving. Toca Kitchen now supports more cuts, has salt and pepper shakers, and a “vegetarian food only” setting. The gift giving mini game in Toca House has been redesigned slightly, with small tags that make the activity more intuitive.

And what about our graphic designers? They have been sketching with markers. Hundreds of them! This must be the most amazing collection of markers ever, right?!

What’s up next? Among other things, a very cool little treat for Easter. So, keep your eyes open!

Join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for regular updates and news.

Have a great week,

Paulina

Finally – the first Toca Boca release for 2012! And it’s a pretty one. Introducing: Toca House!

This time the toy takes place in a house where five friends live together. You have to help them with their different activities and chores. The style is similar to Toca Doctor, but here we decided to explore the domestic theme instead. I think our play designer Erik Wahlgren puts in really well in our “For Parents” section:

To small children housekeeping is novel, in their eyes it´s an act of making things nice. Later in life many learn from their surroundings that it´s a dull duty. Our aim with this game is to help bringing out the fun and rewarding parts in making your home nice. We think that establishing housekeeping as something joyful early in life will be a big help to your child as he or she will grow up and eventually will have to manage a home of their own.

It’s a fun, lovable toy that introduces a familiar concept. We hope you like it as much as we do.

Try out Toca House straight away!

The team for this toy was:

Erik Wahlgren – Play Designer
Mathilda Engman – Art Director
Amanda Rösler – Playsmith
Red Pipe – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

With additional design from Emil Berner, and animation and code from Eric Alm and Jack Nutting.

In order to tell more parents about our toys, we’re now looking to expand our team with a new role as online marketer. You’ll have the chance to work with a world-class team and with award winning products. So far our toys have been downloaded over 7 million times in 119 different countries!

We’re looking for a person that:

• loves games and toys
• is a communicator with a knack for both letters and figures
• has experience in planning and executing performance driven marketing campaigns
• has managed large scale, international SEM/PPC campaigns on both Google and Facebook
• has worked with newsletters as a sales channel, and recruiting new leads for those lists
• knows how to optimize and A/B-test landing pages both regarding the design and the copy
• is experienced in Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer
• preferably is a native English speaker, but excellent reading and writing skills will be accepted

JOB DESCRIPTION
We’re looking to expand our marketing team in the Stockholm office with a communicator that loves both letters and numbers. The combination of the two – finding the tone of voice and copy that sells and then having the figures to see what can be improved upon – is what this new position will be managing. You will be working together with our Community Manager in strategically planning, creating and managing campaigns that successfully increases our reach and sales.

Your background is most probably from a marketing division where you have been operational in the daily activities. Perhaps you have been working with e-commerce or in the travel industry. We think that you see value in combining community efforts with metric driven marketing, and are willing to work in a team in order to do so. The efforts will be coordinated to ensure that they stay on brand, and are in sync with the other marketing activities. We are a fairly small team where you are expected to be self-motivated and have a passion to continuously improve and deliver high quality results.

Initially, you will be working along side our Paulina, our community manager, and relieving her of some tasks while she is on maternity leave. It will be good way for you to enter the company and get a feel for what our fans want and expect from us. The tasks will entail interfacing with our fans in many different channels, and is a mandatory part of the position. As Paulina returns you will be working side by side with complementing responsibilities again.

HOW TO APPLY
If you think that you fit the description and are excited about joining Toca Boca please provide us with the following:
- A short letter describing who you are and what you enjoy doing
- A CV detailing your experience and skills, focusing on performance based marketing activities
- A few examples of marketing activities that you think would be suitable for Toca Boca
- A list of your favorite games, apps or toys that you like now or used to play with when you were a kid :)

The job is full time, and based in Stockholm, Sweden. You will also be working together with staff from our San Francisco office.

We would like your application by email, on Friday the 2nd of March, 2012 at the very latest. We will be reviewing applications as they come in. Please send it to paulina+marketing@tocaboca.com
If you have any questions about the job, please email our CEO Björn Jeffery at bjorn@tocaboca.com or our Community Manager Paulina Modlitba Söderlund at paulina@tocaboca.com

ABOUT TOCA BOCA
Toca Boca is a play studio that makes digital toys for kids. We think playing and having fun is the best way to learn about the world. Therefore we make digital toys and games that help stimulate the imagination, and that you can play together with your kids. Best of all – we do it in a safe way without third-party advertising or in-app purchases.

We are a part of the Bonnier Group which is a family owned business that started as a book publisher in 1804. Since then, the group has grown to include newspapers, magazines, television, cinemas and digital media.

“We reached 4m in December and then 5m on 15 January, with December being by far the best month we’ve ever had,” says chief executive Björn Jeffery.

- From The Guardian

Last Sunday, exactly 10 months after we released our first apps, we reached 5 million downloads of our digital toys for kids. We are happy, proud – but not content. You’ll be seeing some amazing toys from us under 2012 – promise!

As our first year as a company is coming to an end, I just wanted to thank all of you that have been supporting us during 2011. It has been an amazing year in more ways that I can describe – awards, laughter, happy kids… Simply a great year! And if you like Toca Boca then you’re in good company, and on a team that is growing quickly. Remember that we reached 2 million downloads in September? We are way over 4 million now! Hooray!

Hopefully the holidays are as relaxing for you as they are for us. We’re saving up energy to make more fun toys for your kids to play with next year. We have some amazing things coming that I can’t wait to tell you all about. But we have to save some of the fun for 2012 too :)

Thanks again, and from all of the Toca Boca team – Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Toca Boca is a play studio that makes apps for kids. We see them as digital toys and so far we have created ten of them for iPhone and iPad. Our products are produced with love together with kids and with much attention to detail. We believe that products for kids deserve the same amount of work, quality and effort – if not more! – as products for grown-ups.

In order to make more fun toys, we’re now looking for a new graphic designer to join our brilliant team. You have the chance to create beautiful and fun things that will be appreciated by children all around the world. So far our toys have been downloaded over 4 million times in over 115 different countries!

We’re looking for a person that:

• loves games and toys
• has experience of designing games
• understands the process of creating games
• is experienced in creating and delivering graphics for game production
• is a skilled animator
• is used to working together with programmers to find suitable solutions
• has excellent skills with digital graphics tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects. 3D tools is a plus.

JOB DESCRIPTION
You will be responsible for the graphics and animations from concept to finished products in a few of our toys. We work with parallel teams and each team consists of a game designer, a graphic designer and a programmer. Together you create the full play experience and produce it as a team.

Since we work tightly together, your influence over the product is very big. We expect you to be fully committed from concept to launch. Our development usually takes about three months from initial idea to a released product. Right now we only make toys for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and most of our toys are developed in 2D using Cocos2D. We also use Unity for our 3D products. Other platforms will be added over the course of time.

HOW TO APPLY
If you think that you fit the description and are excited about designing Toca Boca toys, please provide us with the following:

• A short letter describing who you are and what you enjoy doing
• A CV detailing your experience and skills, focusing on games and graphic design
• A link to your portfolio with relevant examples focusing on games, clearly stating what you were responsible for in those productions
• A list of your favorite games, apps or toys that you like now or used to play with when you were a kid. Also a short explanation of what you like about them would be nice.

The job is full time and based in Stockholm, Sweden. The position is open now and the starting date is as early as possible.

We would like your application by email, on January the 13th 2012 at the very latest. Please send it to jobs@tocaboca.com

If you have any questions about the job, please email our CEO Björn Jeffery at bjorn@tocaboca.com.

ABOUT TOCA BOCA
Toca Boca is a play studio that makes digital toys for kids. We think playing and having fun is the best way to learn about the world. Therefore we make digital toys and games that help stimulate the imagination, and that you can play together with your kids. Best of all – we do it in a safe way without third-party advertising or in-app purchases.

We are a part of the Bonnier Group which is a family owned business that started as a book publisher in 1804. Since then, the group has grown to include newspapers, magazines, television, cinemas and digital media.

We are super proud and happy to announce that our latest toy Toca Kitchen is released today.

We’ve been wanting to make something around the topic of food and cooking for quite some time. The challenge was to make it as free and fun as our other apps, and not to fall into the pitfalls of stress and strict rules that many other cooking games have. We chose to keep ii completely open in terms of sequence order – you can cook all food in any way, and in any order – but add a little character preference as a spice. You can learn what each character likes and dislikes and then choose to cook their favorite food for them. They (almost) eat everything, but don’t always get too excited about it… This is up to you to find out and play around with!

Personally, I think this might be our best toy so far. If you’d like to give it a try, it’s out today and is $1.99/€1,59 for an app that works both on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Our team for this beautiful toy was:

Jens Peter de Pedro – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Art Director
Eric Alm, Andrey Zhukov & Jack Nutting – Playsmiths
Lisa Jonsson – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

… one more thing! You haven’t missed our free little Christmas present for you? Here’s Toca Hair Salon – Christmas Gift.

“The Winners development of digital toys for touch screens and focus on learning, enabling small kids (2-6) their first safe interactive digital experience whilst providing an open ended play, focus on imagination, no winning or losing has been recognized. The winner is an example of clever ideas developed in a R&D environment in close relationship with the users in this case the small kids”

I’d like to thank our fantastic team, and of course all families that have been supporting us since the beginning. Thanks!

The official press release is here.

Today we have some really great news to share with you. It was just announced that Toca Hair Salon is the 2011 Gold Winner in the Children’s Media / Virtual Category of NAPPA – the National Parenting Publications Awards!

We’re really happy and proud that we’ve been chosen as one of the most innovative and enduring products for families. It what we set out to do, and this is great recognition that we’re on our way! Take a look at Toca Hair Salon again and our great team that made it here.

Video 1: A presentation that I held at Creative Mornings Stockholm, an event started by Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss Miss). An overview of some of the research that we did prior to the app development, and a little about our products and some stats at the end.

Björn Jeffery, Founder of Toca Boca from Stockholm/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Video 2: An interview made by Warren Buckleitner at Children’s Technology Review, at their office in New Jersey. Warren digs into the process of making digital toys for kids and tries to find where the magic happens.

Enjoy!

Ever since we released Toca Tea Party in March, we’ve had requests from you to make it for iPhone. The process is not as simple as switching a button unfortunately as the whole interface (and some of the gameplay) needs to be rearranged in order to make it feel as good as the iPad version. Also, we felt that the play pattern that we had explored had more potential and could be used for other themes too. So – when exploring these two areas, we decided to combine them into a new toy and try it out.

Introducing: Parenting’s Birthday Party Playtime. A sequel for Toca Tea party, and one that has a birthday theme and works on both iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The overall structure and gameplay is similar, but this time we have birthday cake, party poppers and presents! Hooray!

And the “Parenting” part? Well, this is our first official collaboration so far, and for that we chose Parenting.com. They are a part of the same company group that we are, and have a long standing dedication of making quality editorial products for families. So with them as our partners, we’ve made this digital toy that families can enjoy and play together. And if you happen to be living in Germany, Austria or Switzerland – you will find our local partner there, familie&co, has made the equivalent Kinderparty von familie&co in those local App Stores.

I hope you like this new little twist on the concept. And if you do, we might have to take Toca Tea Party back to the drawing board and give that a go too.

Our team for this toy was:

Chris Lindgren – Play Designer
Mathilda Engman – Art Director
Andrey Zhukov and Jack Nutting – Playsmiths
Lisa Jonsson – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

The Toca Boca studio has been buzzing with activity these past few weeks. And now we’re finally ready to reveal one of the things that we’ve been working with. Introducing: Toca Store! A store play set on your iPhone or iPad – designed to be played with together with parents, friends, siblings or dolls.

The idea of picking familiar play themes is both interesting and challenging. The preconceived notions of how it will work is a factor that needs to be considered, as is the added value of playing this with a digital device. As with many of our other toys, it has intentionally been designed to be a part of playing store – not the sole playing experience itself. The fun comes from the conversations around what to sell, discussing pricing, imagining running a real store. Give it a try – I think you’ll like it.

The team behind this digital toy was:

Chris Lindgren – Play Designer
Mathilda Engman – Art Director
Jack Nutting – Playsmith
Red Pipe – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Although figures and statistics are fun, there are more important things in life. Things that make you want to get up in the morning. The review and demo that India has done of Toca Hair Salon is one of those things. You just have to see this:

So – a few tidbits of information:

* We released a great update for Paint My Wings which now features a third butterfly, different wing-shapes and the new bonus feature – brushes! So now you can make more beautiful butterflies than ever. The update is free and can be downloaded in the App Store.

* Yesterday, Wired’s Geek Dad did a great developer profile on us. Amongst other things they write:

I will continue to recommend Toca Boca because they are focused on creating sandboxes for young children to play in. And, while sandbox environments may frustrate gamers – the way preschool children play is different, they don’t need leaderboards or badges or endless goal setting. They need something else, which Toca Boca understand well.

We’re very proud of this, of course :)

* Since the release of Toca Robot Lab we’ve had loads of praise from all over the world. Three examples here: The Guardian, Mors Apps (in Danish) and Giggle Apps.

* More good news – we’ve won three awards! This time it’s Toca Tea Party, Toca Doctor and Paint My Wings that all three have gotten the prestigious “Editor’s Choice” from Children’s Technology Review. More to come, we hope!

* Finally, I’d just like to thank all of you that have bought are apps and that are supporting Toca Boca. We really appreciate it and look forward to bringing you and your kids more great apps! We have loads more coming up, and if you’re fans of Toca Tea Party I think you might appreciate our next little toy. We’re working together with Mathilda Engman that did the graphics for TTP so you’ll recognize the lovely style!

The toy consists of two parts – first up is a construction phase where you build your robot. Endless combinations are offered with the different pieces of scrap that roll out in the lab. Once you’ve finished making the robot – it’s time to test fly it! Fly around while knocking objects over in the different flying spaces. If you want to, try to find the stars! Finish off by flying to the magnet that sends the robot back to the lab for a test result. Then start over to make a new robot with other pieces!

We love it, our test team loves it, and we hope you will love it too. It’s only $0.99, it works on both iPhone and iPad, and you can run to the App Store and get it today!

Our great team behind Toca Robot Lab was:

Chris Lindgren – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Art Director
Eric Alm – Playsmith
Lisa Jonsson – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Psst… one more thing! Don’t miss our free updates to Toca Hair Salon and Paint My Wings? New characters in both – and more!

Since we released Toca Tea Party for the iPad, we’ve had a lot of good feedback on the music played on the radio. So we thought we’d release the jazz track as an free MP3 for you to download! Or use as a ringtone on your iPhone perhaps? The track was custom made for Toca Tea Party, and written by Johan Setterlind.

Download Toca Tea Party Jazz here! Enjoy!

(and don’t miss that the Toca Tea Party is temporarily discounted at the moment…)

Helicopter Taxi (released 15th of March 2011)
* Almost 300 000 rides in Helicopter Taxi have been made (each play session is a ride, in this case)
* The median user of Helicopter Taxi uses it 1.8 times a day.
* Over 600 000 elegant helicopter landings.
* Most popular in Asia, with North America in second place.

Toca Tea Party (released 15th of March 2011)
* 140 000 drinks have been spilled in Toca Tea Party.
* The cloth with clouds is about twice a popular as the other two.
* Over 100 000 Toca Tea Parties have been held.
* The median player plays for 4 minutes, and kids play the longest in Europe and South America.
* The most popular cake is the Donut, which is eaten more than twice as often as the Jam Cookie.

Toca Doctor (and HD) (released 28th of April 2011)
* Most popular mini-game on both iPhone and iPad – “Splinters”!
* Approximately 80 000 patients have been scanned (including the HD, but not the lite versions).
* Most popular in Europe – not to hot in Africa (yet!).
* About a third of the players make it to the bonus game “Doctors Case”.

(extra transparency: this post took a little time to post, so the figures are from a few weeks back. feel free to add a few in your head! :)

Today we’re very proud to introduce you to our latest, and probably finest, digital toy to date: Toca Hair Salon. As you might imagine, it takes place in a hair salon where kids can comb, shave, cut, color, blow-dry and even grow hair back! There are four cute characters to choose from and when you’re happy with the hair style – take a snapshot and save it in the camera roll.

No instructions, no points, no timers. Just the fun of playing around in a hair salon!

Toca Hair Salon is a universal app that works for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad for just $1.99. Run and get it straight away, please :)

The team behind this remarkable digital toy was:

Jens Peter de Pedro – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Art Director
Jack Nutting – Playsmith
Lisa Jonsson – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Paint My Wings is a universal app which means it works on both iPhone and iPad, and costs $0.99. We hope you like it!

Our team this time was:

Jens Peter de Pedro – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Art Director
Andrey Zhukov – Playsmith
Ulf Blomqvist – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Since we started Toca Boca, we’ve talked about the idea of bridging the gap between digital and physical. Toca Tea Party was the first step with its encouragement of using physical toys together with the toy. Another way of doing it is to take on a game or setting that normally takes place physically, and move into a digital environment. Our latest toy that we’re releasing today, Toca Doctor, is an attempt to do just this.

Toca Doctor takes on a familiar situation and role playing game that kids have been playing for all time. Using both touch and tilt, a series of minigames and puzzles takes kids on a tour through the human body. Beautiful illustrations and cheeky sounds guides the way through 18 different challenges.

Keeping true to our idea of making digital toys – there is no way of getting stuck or playing the wrong way. Each puzzle does have a predefined idea of what the correct answer is – and gives appropriate feedback for it – but kids always have the option to skip a puzzle if they don’t like it. The gameplay moves on indifferently, and allows the same puzzle to be played multiple times in a row. There are no timers or stress elements – everyone plays in their own time. When everything is finished, a little bonus game appears and you can play everything again.

All in all, we are very happy and proud to be releasing Toca Doctor and Toca Doctor HD today. And a special thanks to Erik Olsson who did a stellar job throughout the whole process.

Our team this time was:

Chris Lindgren – Play Designer
Gustav Dejert – Art Director
Erik Olsson – Playsmith
Ulf Blomqvist – Sound Design
Emil Ovemar – Producer

I’d like to share some of the research that went into creating our new game studio: Toca Boca. Since we come from a Research & Development background, we spent quite some time making sure we were prepared for the challenge of the competitive app market for kids. We discovered some interesting things.

To begin, we mapped the existing kids apps and categories we saw on the App Store. To generalize a little, it turned out to be a lot of flashcards, ABCs, book adaptions, and a surprising amount of cupcake apps. Some very ambitious, others not so much. There was definitely space for more serious studios. More importantly, we tried to look beyond the app category to see what needs that they tried to address for kids, to better understand where our product could differentiate and stand out from the general trends.

In her book “The Right Stuff for Children Birth to 8” (published by the NAEYC), Martha B. Bronson talks about five different ways of playing. Kids progress through all of them depending on ages, stages, gender, cultural context, personal preference and many other factors.

The types of play are:

• Active Play – physical activity, sports, playing outside
• Make-Believe Play – playing with dolls, different types of role-play
• Manipulative Play – construction and puzzles
• Creative Play – playing music, drawing and painting, crafting
• Learning Play – reading books, playing games, developing certain skills

So if these are the ways that kids love playing – are the apps in the App Store facilitating all types? Not necessarily. Many are in the “Learning” category, with a few in the “Creative” category. But where are the apps that encourage kids to be active? Or to actively use their imagination? So that is where we started to develop.

At Toca Boca, we believe that apps can stimulate and facilitate all types of play. It requires thinking beyond the screen and regarding the device not as a phone but as an object that is an integral part of different ways of playing. The best way to explain what I mean is to shortly describe the two apps that we will feature this week for App Friday:

Helicopter Taxi is a digital toy that uses the camera to create the effect that the helicopter is in the room with you. Unlike most kids apps, it doesn’t require kids to look at the screen the whole time and instead acts as a toy that encourages kids to move in a room and be creative with their imagination. To use the terminology above, it stimulates “Active Play”.

Toca Tea Party is a digital toy that turns the iPad into a coffee table for kids. The iPad is just a part of the fun but the toys and dolls that are sitting around it are just as important. The features of the toy helps facilitate the process through asking for more cookies and cakes, or spilling out tea that needs to be cleaned up. But kids play with it in whatever way they want to – because it is free and open ended. It is an example of encouraging “Make-Believe Play”.

Going forward, I hope to see a wider range of toys and games that take on all types of behavior and fun for kids. There are so many ways of playing that could benefit from a digital facilitator in some way. Think beyond the screen and get creative!

A few cool people…
* Arctic Startup broke the story about our launch and said that our parent company had been a front runner in the Nordics when it comes to “best harness[ing] new technology for the media industry”.
* Mobil:Business followed up with a long interview with me about the thought process behind Toca Boca and the strategic fit for the project (in Swedish).
* We got a little Latvian flavor from TV NET here along with the Dutch iPadclub here.
* Our former partners BERG liked the idea of making digital toys rather than games…
* … and so did the legendary Bruce Sterling at Wired when he posted about Helicopter Taxi.
* The digital toy angle resonated well with Switched.com too which called it “a Tonka Truck for the iPhone”.
* Our friend Andy Budd thought Helicopter Taxi was “lovely”.
* “America’s Digital Goddess” Kim Komando thought it was “pretty awesome” which made us very happy of course.
* Dentsu London said that the AR functionality in Helicopter Taxi made the experience “feel more real, live and personal”.

Some reviews…
* Slide To Play gave it top marks, a “must have”, and “perfect for anyone who loves to pretend”.
* Appadvice said they would “definitely recommend [Toca Tea Party] for anyone with a child between three and five years old, and maybe older”.
* The iPhone Mom said that Toca Tea Party was “unique, well executed and irresistible” and that Helicopter Taxi lets kids “run wild with their imagination”.
* Wired’s Geek Dad said that Helicopter Taxi was “the first app I have seen that turned my iPod Touch into a toy”.
* The Parenting Blog Screen Play made us “apps of the week”…
* … along with MacWorld Sweden that made Toca Tea Party “iPad Game of the day”

…and some fantastic fans!
* First things first – the best fan video came from Kuwait and our newly found friend Pinot who made this fantastic video below:

Toca Tea Party from Pinot on Vimeo.

* Rev Dan Catt showed us how British kids have their tea here:

* Charlie, 15 months, gave it a good shot too:

* Finally, our very first fan video! Ian and Fanny doing a very cute demo:

That was a little taster of what we’ve been smiling at over this past month. It’s been absolutely fantastic, and we look forward to many more months like this. Thanks for all your support!

We’re equally excited to announce our second digital toy – Toca Tea Party! It turns your iPad into a table – ready to serve teddy bears, dolls or even parents! First you have to lay the table – choose the right table cloth, if your friends are drinking tea or juice, and then finish off with choosing your favorite cookies and cakes. After that you can invite your friends over, the radio starts playing and you can eat and drink with your finger! If someone spills out the tea, be quick to dry it up! When everyone has finished it is time to do the dishes. Tip the iPad slightly and all the cups and plates fall into the dishwater, and you’re ready to start serving more guests again!

Toca Tea Party is a digital toy that allows you to play together with your kids. It supports multi-touch so several hands can eat and drink at the same time making it even more fun. It is made to amplify the classic way of playing with food and drink in a doll setting through using the iPad as the centre piece. It is designed to stimulate and trigger your kids imagination, without steering the way that they play it.

Our team (with lovely friends) for this product was:

Chris Lindgren – Play Designer
Mathilda Engman – Art Director
Axolot Games – Playsmiths
Emil Ovemar – Producer

Try out it yourself! It is in the App Store for iPad waiting for you.

As our first digital toy, we are proud to announce the release of Helicopter Taxi for iPhone! The story is that Rita and Skip, our pilots, run a helicopter taxi that picks up five different characters that need to get to certain places. Your kids can fly the helicopter by walking around in the room and moving the iPhone. Since it is in 3D, you can look at the helicopter from all angles by simply turning the iPhone. After picking all of the characters up and flying them to where they want to go, you fly the helicopter home so Rita and Skip can rest for the night. After that, you’re ready to play again!

Helicopter Taxi uses the camera on the iPhone in an innovative way in order to create an augmented reality effect. It looks like the helicopter is flying in the room with you! You pick the characters up by simply laying the iPhone down on a flat surface, and then they get in or out.

Helicopter Taxi is not a game so much as a digital toy. There are no points, high scores or certain time limits that kids have to adapt to. It is also forgiving with where and when you land the helicopter – it always works, and you’re always in the right place. We feel this is important so that kids can play with it in a way that suits them best. Without constraints!

Our team for this product was:

Jens Peter de Pedro – Play Designer
Emil Berner – Art Director
Andrey Zhukov – Playsmith
Niklas Wörmann – Playsmith
Emil Ovemar – Producer

So what are you waiting for? Go get it! :)

After some considerable researching, play testing, designing and developing we are finally here. Launch day! And what could be a better way of launching our new site than posting the mandatory “Hello World” blog post. It feels amazing, and is the result of a lot of hard work from a very dedicated team that I’m very proud to work with.

Apart from developing our products, we also spent a lot of time researching different ways of playing, and studying how kids interact with toys and games. This led us to a few hypothesizes and statements that we’ve written about on our about-page. The mobile ecosystem, on any platform, is not ideal for the combined use case of both parents and kids using the same device. That means that we as a game studio must take extra caution when designing our products, in order not to fall into the design compromise pitfalls of that are out there. Our producer Emil Ovemar wrote about this in regards to in-app purchases and Smurfs Village a while back. This is important for us, and something that we hope that many more developers of digital products for kids will follow.

There are many more stories to be told about what we’ve done, and what we’re going to do. So grab the RSS-feed to make sure that you stay updated. The fun has just begun!