Quirky App Of The Day: Mr. Jelastic
by Kathryn Zane
November 18, 2011
There are many talk-back apps out there. For the most part, they're only fun if you have kids that are entertained by that sort of thing. My kids still haven't figured out that the person they are talking to is only repeating what has been said. They're toddlers, so it's to be expected. It gets ridiculous when they start getting angry and demanding to know who it is that they're talking to. This only leads to an angry app yelling back demands to know who they are. It's an existential crisis waiting to happen. Mr. Jelastic is a far more interactive and entertaining app than most talk-back apps.
One great feature is that you can "feed" Mr. Jelastic different shapes and colors. He then assumes the color and shape. You can poke at him to send him bouncing around the screen, or pin him down with one finger and drag him around. He'll even stretch if you shake your finger across the screen. You can cut him into smaller pieces that will bounce around independently. Tilting the screen will send the pieces sliding around. If you feed a larger piece of the colored shapes, the smaller pieces you cut off will be the same shape and color. So, you can have different shapes and colors sliding around the screen. You can also put Mr. Jelastic back into one large piece by pinning one piece down with your finger and sliding it into another piece.
My only suggestion for improvement would be to make the talk-back voice sound like there is more than one person when you have multiple Mr. Jelastics. Other than that, I really liked playing with it. The character is far more interactive than most other talk-back apps that I've reviewed or tested.
Mr. Jelastic is a universal app available in the App Store for the awesome price of FREE!