For years, children’s toys have been trapped in a binary, marketed towards girls or boys and specific races or ethnicities. Creating characters and experiences that showcase diversity has been quite the challenge. But one mobile-first kids brand has made narrative and character diversity a priority in the development of its apps. Toca Boca recently announced the release of its 34th app, Toca Life: Vacation.
Indicative of a wide range of characters and families, children will be able to play with characters that truly represent themselves while showcasing the multifaceted nature of our world. Thanks to an internal diversity team at Toca Boca, each of this company’s dozens of apps seek to reflect a myriad of races, ethnicities, languages, religions, abilities, social classes, and orientations. Because when it comes to creating a tolerant society, we’ve gotta start them young.
Last week, Toca Boca released Toca Life: Vacation, and already the game has claimed the No. 2 spot among paid apps on the App Store for the iPhone, and the No. 1 spot on the iPad. With this app, Toca Life says, “Kids can now feel the excitement of running through the airport to catch a flight, jumping into a hotel bed, or digging for treasure on the beach any time they want.” So if you want to give your child a vacation this summer, this prove to be a good frugal option.
As with other Toca Life apps, children maintain full autonomy over their own stories. Featuring four locations and a cast of diverse characters, users can tell any story they want and engage in a plethora of activities.
“The Toca Life series has a very enthusiastic fan base with more than 900,000 kids playing with the apps each month,” said Petter Karlsson, Play Designer at Toca Boca. “From the more than 50,000 feature requests we received, it was clear that kids wanted different elements of a travel experience. The resulting app included locations kids will love, filled with engaging play experiences and surprises.”
Designed specifically with kids in mind, there are no in-app purchases or third-party advertising, nor are there rules, levels, or high scores. Just unadulterated fun.
Toca Life: Vacation is available for $3 on the App Store, Google Play, and Amazon.
