Parents' Guide to

Squinkies

By Christopher Healy, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 6+

Kids who love popular collectible toy will love this game.

Game Nintendo DS , Nintendo DSi 2011
Squinkies Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Squinkies Game: Screenshot #1
  • Squinkies Game: Screenshot #2
  • Squinkies Game: Screenshot #3

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What’s It About?

Playing as a princess in SQUINKIES, you will receive alerts that batches of lost Squinkies have been located. You'll then need to traverse a maze-like world, dodging road-blocking turtles along the way, in order to scoop up as many of the Squinkies as you can in three minutes. Each time you reach a Squinkie, you'll have to complete a mini-game in order to rescue it. Mini-games include puzzles, match-three games, memory games, coloring games, a fruit-snatching race against the turtles, and a game of pool (!). If you complete a mini-game fast enough, you also earn a bonus coin that you can use to earn an extra Squinkie from a giant gumball machine. There are about 300 Squinkies to collect in total.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

The Squinkies DS game feels like it was almost perfectly crafted to appeal to young girls who love the Squinkies toy line. Squinkies toys are little rubber pencil-topper characters, the main appeal of which is simply to collect as many of them as you can. The developers of this game could have tried to take some of the Squinkies and give them real character traits and send them on a cliched platform-jumping adventure -- but instead, they stuck to what kids love about Squinkies and just made the game about collecting them. A couple of the mini-games feel a bit out of left field, but for the most part, they feel in keeping with the Squinkies experience. As a result, this DS game, which is clearly a clever marketing tool, also turns out to be a crowd-pleasing game.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about video games as marketing devices. Ask kids if they can understand the ways in which this video game helps sell Squinkies toys and helps promote the Squinkies brand, even though nothing in the game ever looks like an ad.

  • Can kids think of other video games they've seen or played that have featured marketing aspects?

Game Details

  • Platforms: Nintendo DS , Nintendo DSi
  • Available online?: Not available online
  • Publisher: Activision
  • Release date: April 12, 2011
  • Genre: Girl
  • ESRB rating: E for (No Descriptors)
  • Last updated: August 30, 2016

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