Hovercraft - Build Fly Retry
By Amanda Bindel,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Cool 3-D modeling, racing, and revision; lots of ads.
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Hovercraft - Build Fly Retry
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Based on 2 parent reviews
Child Friendly
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What’s It About?
In HOVERCRAFT - BUILD FLY RETRY kids can fly an existing hovercraft, create their own, or purchase a specialty craft in-app. Then they fly through traffic, weaving through obstacles by tapping left and right or collecting coins until they crash, sometimes causing massive chain reactions. Races are recorded so kids can replay their last race. To customize a craft, kids piece it together, block by block, and must include a power source and thrusters. Kids can create and save multiple crafts. As they play, kids earn coins to use for getting more hovercrafts and can share their point achievements via email or social media.
Is It Any Good?
Putting aside the barrage of ads, Hovercraft - Build Fly Retry is a fun and educational experience for kids. The races -- including the crashes -- are fun, and kids can review the video of a race and try again to improve their distance. The track doesn't change, though, which may get boring, but kids can keep it fresh by trying it out with other hovercraft. Also, the controls and speed are challenging enough that they either will keep kids enthralled or frustrate them. Unfortunately, the ads and "free gifts," which are earned for playing for certain lengths of time (kids see a countdown showing how much longer they need to play to earn another gift) or watching ads, make it feel really gimmicky and distract from what could be a real gem.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Talk to kids about your guidelines for in-app purchases and explain to them how advertising in apps is used to make money. Check out What's the best way to talk to my kid about advertising? for ideas.
Take the hovercraft building process offscreen and create with Legos. Kids then can recreate their ideas in-app and test them out on the virtual road.
App Details
- Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire
- Subjects: Science: engineering, gravity, motion, physics, Hobbies: building
- Skills: Thinking & Reasoning: hypothesis-testing, logic, problem solving, thinking critically, Creativity: imagination, innovation, Emotional Development: developing resilience, moving beyond obstacles
- Pricing structure: Free to try, Free (Additional vehicles available for purchase in-app)
- Release date: May 27, 2015
- Category: Racing Games
- Topics: Cars and Trucks
- Publisher: High Score Hero LLC
- Version: 1.4.1
- Minimum software requirements: iOS 6.0 or later; Android 4.4 and up
- Last updated: January 23, 2019
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