Overview
Finding Dory: Just Keep Swimming is a fun and simple maze-like adventure where kids direct blue tang Dory's swimming through 13 puzzles. The puzzles represent different locations and events from the Disney-Pixar movie.
How to Play
Each underwater puzzle starts with Dory recalling a part of the Finding Dory movie. Then Dory relives it by having the player direct her swimming by placing a finger on a constantly-branching path of bubbles. Dory will swim to the player's finger. Sometimes currents come along so that players will have to draw their finger quickly across the screen to keep up. By having Dory swim over the bubbles, players earn a score. If your score is high enough, you can be awarded with up to 3 stars per puzzle.
The puzzles are set in five locations, including a reef, shipwrecks, kelp forests, and the fish tanks at the Marine Life Institute. In some of the puzzles, you need to help Dory find her missing friends. In others, you have to time Dory's movements so that she is not touched by other fish or curious kids' hands. In yet another you must keep up with teacher Mr. Ray on a fieldtrip to witness the great Stingray migration.
App Analysis
Finding Dory: Just Keep Swimming is a great way to extend the fun of seeing the movie on which it's based. Swimming inside of these puzzles makes you feel like you too are a part of the movie! With so much detail to see inside of this ocean, kids will enjoy playing these levels more than once, which is a good thing, since the app only offers 13 puzzles.
Cleverly, this app doesn't let kids fail. This is a side-scrolling game where Dory must swim to stay within the player's screen. If the player isn't quick enough in giving Dory swimming directions, she lags behind. Or if the player repeatedly runs Dory into obstacles, she will fall behind. When this happens, the game uses a clever mechanic of asking Dory to retell that part of the story so that kids can play it again.
Also fun is a gimmick where kids choose two objects based on Dory's vague descriptions. The objects show up in the puzzles at unpredictable times and usually create a comic moment.
Best For
Download Finding Dory: Just Keep Swimming after enjoying the Disney-Pixar Finding Dory movie. It's an entertaining way to revisit the movie's story while also allowing your kids to play inside of its worlds.
Finding Dory: Just Keep Swimming is compatible with Apple TV.
This Finding Dory: Just Keep Swimming kids app review was written by Jinny Gudmundsen.
All tech products are judged on a five star scale by looking at the following factors: fun, education, ease of use, value, and technical.
