Doodle Find app review: a fun sketched seek-and-find

Introduction

Doodle Find is an iPhone and iPad app that you look for the object in singles or multiples and as you click, the difficulty increases. This is done through a time limit ever approaching, and also through the screen filling up with more and more items, which naturally hide the items you are trying to locate.

New Take on an Old Favorite

Doodle Find lists the items at the top of the screen in one of seven languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, or Dutch. Of course, I never realized my kids have reset the language prior to starting a new level! Above the language setting, you find the sound on/off switch, but the sounds are not obtrusive. It isn’t a repetitive theme song that will drive you nuts, it’s just a "found, here I am," and time-running-out sound. Those I can handle.

The game becomes increasingly difficult as the time gets closer to running out, and also as you make a wrong tap. Initially you have only about 40 items to look through. By the end, you have 72. The items can be right side up, sideways, or upside down. They can also be different shapes or different forms. For example, an arrow may be yellow and straight, or green and bent, or red and triangular. There are a lot of variations on the music notes too, and they are not always as easy to find as you first think!

Training Your Eyes

Doodle Find helps kids train their eyes to look for specific things, like a needle in a haystack. It’s a fun game that my kids enjoy from my toddler right through my 11 year old. There aren’t many games that I can say this about, so finding this gem has been great!

I appreciate that the developer put in so many variations of the same objects. Birds for example, are not just birds, they are seagulls, ducklings, and so on. This means that there could be up to four different birds on the screen in any number at any given time.

What I don’t like, is that there is a one minute, thirty second time limit for the first level. This means that my toddler needs the game reset every two minutes, and that I have to stop whatever I’m doing be it at a doctor appointment, or my conversation with the pharmacist. While she enjoys this game, I also have to read the description to her and my six year old. I have another game which is more challenging, but does have images for the younger children to read. I’ll also be reviewing it.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Free
• Quick moving
• Fun for all ages
• Can elect to have your score on Facebook

Cons

• One minute and thirty seconds is not a lot of time for a parent to get anything done
• Word descriptions mean reading the items out to your child before they can read

Final Thoughts

Doodle Find for iPhone and iPad is a great game for both platforms. It works well on both the iPhone screen for easy pocket entertainment, and on the iPad when you have had the forethought to bring the larger screen along. It’s a fun game for all ages, but you do need to read the items off to younger children, and the game is only one minute and thirty seconds long, so you don’t get a lot of time before helping them start again. Overall, this is a fun game for kids, and I would still recommend it.