A cozy building game for kids
Sparkle World is a soft, pastel world made of blocks. Build a house, fill it with really nice beds and everything else, dress up, adopt a unicorn, and invite a friend over with a secret code made of pictures.
What's inside
Sparkle World started with a list from a girl who is almost 8: make my own worlds, cool outfits, really nice houses with beds in them, pets, candy and ice cream, zip lines, treehouses, and big campers you can go inside. So that is what's inside. Then she asked for boys to play with, and for cars, vans and boats to drive, so they are inside too.
Pick a world. Build anything!
Start a world in one of seven kinds of places, then build with more than 200 pastel blocks: pink planks, heart windows, glowing lamps, candy, glitter and rainbow blocks. Hold still for a moment, then drag, to build a whole row at once. Oops? There is always Undo.
Ta-da! A whole house!
Pick a Magic House from your Bag, choose a spot, tap Build! and ta-da: a whole furnished home, beds and all. Then change anything you like. There are 20 of them, from a cottage and a princess castle to treehouses with rope bridges and the Sparkle Camper, with bunk beds inside and a rooftop deck with a slide into a pool.
My bed has a canopy!
Really nice beds (a princess canopy bed, bunk beds, a heart bed, a cloud bed) and every kind of furniture, in lots of colors. Play the piano. Watch cartoons on the TV. Fill the bath with bubbles. Read a storybook. When night comes, the lamps really light up the room, and a bed means sweet dreams until morning.
A tiara, fairy wings and space buns!
The Dress-Up Studio has 19 hair styles, from braids and space buns to buzz cuts and faux hawks, tops, jerseys, skirts, dresses, shorts and shoes, hats, caps and tiaras, glasses, wings and backpacks, and something to hold. Everything comes in lots of colors and patterns: hearts, stars, stripes, dots, plaid, dinos, rockets, rainbow and flowers. Or tap Surprise me! and pick Girl, Boy or Mix.
I can ride my unicorn in the sky!
Adopt puppies and kitties in lots of breeds, bunnies, a panda, ducklings and turtles that love to swim. Give them names, pet them, feed them treats. The pony and the horse are for riding, and the unicorn flies, leaving a rainbow trail behind it.
Let's have a sleepover!
Invite friends from a group of ten girls and six boys, each with their own style. They chat with you, dance with you and sleep over.
Zip line, then ice cream!
The Sticker Book
Your Sticker Book fills up as you play. These are real stickers from the game. Tap one!
30 stickers in all, from First Block to Best Friends Forever.
Play together
Friends can visit each other's worlds from their own iPad, phone or computer. The code is pictures, so there is nothing to spell, and nobody needs an account.
Try it! Tap Lily's 4 pictures on Mia's phone.
Lily's iPad
Your code
Say it to your friend!
Mia wants to play!
Mia is here!
Mia:
Playing together. Careful friends is on, so Lily's things stay safe.
Maybe later!
Mia gets a friendly "not now". Nobody comes in without a yes.
Mia's phone
Join a Code
Tap the 4 pictures your friend tells you
Knock knock!
Waiting for Lily to say yes…
You're in Lily's world!
Say hi with a tap:
Lily can't play right now.
Maybe next time!
This is a pretend version. In the real game, the knock card looks like this:
Players talk by tapping friendly phrases. They can't type messages to each other at all.
For grown-ups
A dad made this for his daughter, so it works the way a careful parent would want. Here is exactly what it does and doesn't do.
Questions
It was made for a girl who is almost 8, so every button has a picture and a short word, and nothing is scary or can be lost. For early readers, the game can read its words out loud (switch on Read words out loud in Settings), and the storybooks have a Read to me button. Kids who love building, dressing up, pets and adventures will feel right at home.
No. Sparkle World runs in the web browser on iPad, phones and computers. Tap Play now and it starts. It works with a mouse and keyboard, or with touch.
There is no typing: players tap one of 16 friendly phrases. To visit a world, a friend needs the 4-picture code, and the host has to tap Let in! for each friend. The only voice is the walkie-talkie, which stays off until a grown-up turns it on for that device; then only friends who were let in, and have theirs on too, can hear. The host can mute anyone, or send anyone home, at any time.
A grown-up opens Settings, taps Walkie-talkie (grown-ups) and answers a multiplication question. That turns it on for this device only; each family decides for their own. While playing together, your child holds the walkie button to talk (up to 15 seconds), and the microphone turns off as soon as they let go. Friends in the same game who have theirs on hear them live. Nothing is recorded or kept anywhere, and it works only on this website, not in other versions of the game.
No and no. The candy shop and the ice cream parlor use Sparkle Coins, which come from playing: finding gems, cooking, gardening, a daily gift. Coins can't be bought.
On your device, in the browser, saved as you play. Nothing is stored on the server. Browsers can clear website data, and Safari may clear it for sites that go unused for a while, so save a favorite world as a file now and then: open My Worlds and tap Save on the world. That file also moves a world to another device (My Worlds, then Open a file).
Up to 4 players in one world, each on their own device. The friend who made the code is the host: it's their world, and their rules.
With Careful players on (it starts on), friends can only change their own building and the ground, not your houses and furniture. The host can also Undo building for a friend, and a copy of your world from before friends came is kept on your device.
