Disney Animation Artist: Mickey & Friends

Disney Animation Artist: Mickey & Friends is a cool idea. Learning to draw such popular characters can be empowering and exciting for kids. It can also help them understand that a complete drawing is just a collection of lines and shapes. Unfortunately, the game doesn't live up to the potential. The first issue is that once you've drawn a line/shape, it's there. You can't erase or change it. If you make a mistake, you have to build on the mistake for the rest of the image. But even if you create something that feels like a masterpiece, the game will replace it entirely with the stock image before the coloring stage. It can be frustrating and demoralizing, especially for older kids.

The animation section does retain some of the child's work, but it's not for those who like immediate gratification. It has the same drawing challenges in terms of the lack of editing tools. And kids will have to work on numerous images required for animation. If you have a child who is old enough to be able to follow the directions, but young enough to not care that their drawing is being replaced, this could be a hit. It may even inspire them to create more artwork offline. Otherwise, your budding artist may just end up frustrated and annoyed.