I'm not going to hide from the fact that the main draw of this story telling app was the actor doing the Narration. My Childhood days were full of the stories of Mr Benn and with Ray Brooks behind the vocals of 'The Haunting of Bagger Bones' it was a done deal there and then.
Of course snapping back to reality I had to be objective when reviewing this app so here are my thoughts below....
Unique Story Telling
The Haunting Of Bagger Bones is a story app designed for children ages 4 and up. It has a unique twist in that the app makes your child the star of the story!
More specifically, before the story begins the first part involves you taking a picture of your child's face - using either the front or rear facing camera of your phone. Once the photo has been taken you perform gesture controls to pinch the photo to fit a virtual hoodie (this pic is then used for the character in the story).
You take two photos in total, one depicting your child's frightened face pose and then one using a scary face.
This part of the process is fun on its own as you and your children can have some fun seeing how many different faces you can come up with. The re-take button will be worn out very quickly I'm sure!
Another fun element comes next in the form of choosing your child's forename; as it will be spoken by the Narrator. This involves selecting the initial and then scrolling through the pre-set list of names. My only gripe is while the database contains 2000 or so names, a few were missing.
There is no way to customise a name either. However if your child's name is missing, you can let the developers know via naughtyskeleton@baggerbones.com or tweet them here @BaggerNames and they will do their best to include it in a future recording.
Story telling
Once this is compete you get into the story telling and the illustrations are beautifully drawn here; with fun little animations happening in the background.
The narration is also great and from an Adults point of view hearing Mr Benn's voice brings me back to my own childhood!
Sadly there is no interaction with the screen so you can't make anything happen; the story simply plays out in a timely fashion.
Yet, it suits the target age spot on! It's also great to hear the Narrator speak your child's name and see the face pop-up on the phone's screen.
The two photos you took also appear in both sides of the tale. My only thought was it would have been good to have added more expressions to your character at the start; so it would constantly change throughout the story, rather than just in two places.
Additionally it would have be fun to have been given the option to add a custom photo for Bagger Bones (one of the core characters); though in hindsight this may scare the kids perhaps, especially if they see their Mom/Dad appearing as a bag of bones!
Finally my only other gripe is the story is over before you know it and for £2.99 I would have hoped for more content. It would have also been great if it saved the photos you took so you could retrieve them quicker the next time you launched the app. However the photo element plays a fun roll when tucking your kids into bed before the story is read, so I can't be too critical here.
Summary
Even so, the pacing of the story is spot on for the target audience and the illustration/narration quality shines through. I just hope they bring out some updates in the future with more names and additional seasonal stories; it would be great to see more in the series, that's for sure!