Here come the grannies!
Version Reviewed: European
Following an impressive entry from Halfbrick with Bluey’s Quest for the Gold Pen, developer Gameloft is taking a crack at the beloved IP with Bluey’s Happy Snaps. After Gold Pen’s more fantastical approach, this latest adventure brings things back to basics, making for a charming, lighthearted experience that kids will absolutely enjoy.
The aim is simple: take photos of stuff. Yeah, that’s really it! Starting at the Heeler’s home, you’re tasked with taking photos of specific objects and creatures around the environment. Take photos of the right things, and you’ll fill in the accompanying sticker in your scrapbook. Once you’ve completed at least 15 stickers, you can move on to the next area.
In addition to the house, you can also explore the beach, a play area, the park, the lookout, and more. Each environment is beautifully crafted to look exactly like the TV show (running at 60fps, no less), with all the regular cast members returning to lend it authenticity. Given the premise, the levels are packed with things to look at and interact with, including kites to fly, trampolines, chalk to draw on the ground, and plenty more.
While most stickers are collected by simply locating specific photo subjects within the environment, each location has three special photo opportunities that generally involve playing a brief minigame. It could be placing a bunch of toys in some seats to create a makeshift dinner party, or perhaps driving around in a cart as ‘the grannies’.
Completing these photos unlocks pictures to colour in and customise with stickers. Naturally, you’d want touchscreen support for this, and while it’s included, it doesn’t really work – at least in my experience. I could move the cursor around with my finger, but I couldn’t interact with anything properly. Not good, but it does at least work well enough with analogue sticks.
Despite Happy Snaps providing direction with its scrapbooks, it’s otherwise content to let you go off and have fun taking photos of whatever you want. To put this sense of freedom to the test, I handed the controller to my four-year-old daughter, and as expected, she loved it (and wouldn’t give the controller back, the cheeky monkey). There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ with this game, no punishment for taking pictures of the wrong things, with plenty of rewards available when you do.
Gameloft has done a good job in making it as accessible as possible for youngsters, too. Every single menu option includes voiceovers from Bandit and Chilli’s respective voice actors, so if your little ones aren’t quite there yet with their reading, they can still understand what to do.
Finally, it’s worth highlighting the ‘Play in Real Life’ menu, which displays various activities from the game and provides instructions for how to recreate them with your kids. It’s a nice way to introduce some breaks from the TV if need be and extend the fun to the real world.
