Parents' Guide to Atlantis Odyssey

With a constant stream of activities, and solid guidance on what to tackle next, kids shouldn't get confused during the game. Much of the action in Atlantis Odyssey involves removing bushes, trees, and other items from your path to advance to new areas. Each item requires some energy to remove. They'll earn some energy, too, by completing tasks. To stay on track, they just need to check their to-do list. When kids finish a task, they can click on a button to indicate it's complete and claim coins and stars. As kids complete activities, they'll find out a bit more about who's on the island and other mysteries.

Kids can occasionally play mini-games to earn items, which involve elements like moving birds to sit on a branch with similar birds. One matching-type game can be played once an hour, although the instructions aren't very clear, which detracts from its fun factor, especially since the prizes from those brief games are often much-needed. You can obtain the necessary items for some tasks fairly easily, but others, like gems, are doled out sparingly. As they advance in the game, activities require more steps. Without purchasing any of the additional currency packages that are sold in the in-app store, kids will likely experience some delays. You can easily run out of energy, yet still have more bushes, trees, and other objects left to clear to reach your destination. Despite that general game structure, kids aren't constantly urged to buy something. Extras are certainly offered, and they'll see some reminders about them, but they can get around having to purchase anything if they're willing to wait for their energy to replenish or other actions to be completed. At more than a minute for one energy credit to be refilled, the replenishment process isn't exactly fast -- but that could potentially give kids a reason to take a break from playing Atlantis Odyssey, and ultimately help keep their screen time in check.