Dr. Panda

Are the Dr. Panda games new, or am I just late to the party? It seems that every time I turn around, one has gone free. And there was a time not so long ago when my youngest was obsessed with watching the San Diego zoo’s live panda cam (http://www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam/), so I still get excited for her whenever I see anything panda-related. At this point, we’ve got Dr. Panda’s Handyman, Dr. Panda’s Beauty Salon, Dr. Panda’s Restaurant, and Dr. Panda’s Hospital.

Of course, it turns out the panda in these apps is purely gratuitous. He pops up to congratulate you for a successful repair in Dr. Panda’s Handyman, or to greet customers in the beauty salon. But there is no real need for a panda, per se, in any of these games. But that’s okay—all of the characters are adorable in a big-eyed simply-drawn sort of way, and my girls love them.

All of the Dr. Panda apps are role-playing games in which you pretend to be a handyman, beautician, chef, or doctor. The handyman app is particularly charming: in the giraffe family home, you get to use a jackhammer to break up the remaining tile in a broken floor, then spread glue, re-tile, and clean up the mess with a vacuum cleaner. The polar bear family has a leaky shower—lower in a new tub, with the use of a pulley system, then fix the broken pipes in the wall by fitting the pieces into the puzzle. My favorite might be the fish tank that needs assembling, populating, feeding, and then cleaning.

I like the problem-solving nature of Handyman. And there is an element of creativity behind every Dr. Panda app—you get to make lots of choices in how you handle situations, what color you paint the door, or which wig you put on the pig, etc. Plus there are lots of nice little extras. In between scenes in Handyman, you can visit the attic, where a friendly ghost and bat live, and play a quick little sorting game to separate the screws, nuts, and bolts on an assembly line. Sorting properly earns you stickers toward a scene full of power tools. In sum, the apps are fun and don't seem to be a total waste of time... especially considering the price I paid.