This game holds my 3½ year-old's interest and matches her skill level well. Activities involve shaking the Wiimote and pressing either the A button or the directional buttons. The game allows as much time as needed to figure out how to press the buttons.
This game comes with six activities in two themes, air and water. There are two levels, but I have only experimented with the beginner level. In the water theme, the protagonist is an elephant who pops bubbles by shaking the remote, dance with umbrella-toting elephants while holding the remote, and ride in a paper boat through the ocean. The last two activities also add accents with button presses. The air activities are similar, but with a rabbit protagonist. First, discern which of two silhouettes matches an animal on clouds and select the appropriate one by pressing A or directional buttons, then dance, then ride in a box with air balloons. Again, the latter two are accented with button presses.
The controller makes funny noises (cricket, drum, etc.) when you press some of the buttons. These amuse my daughter. I am most amused watching her dance. :)
Each game runs a few minutes, then older person intervention is required to coordinate aiming the remote at the screen and pressing the A button to select a level and theme.
I imagine the developers of this game are pretty smart in releasing it episodically - she likes playing it, but I can see that it will get old after a time and she'll want to play something different soon. This is the only Wii game we have for her so far - but we have a VSmile with 4 games and a Leapfrog Click Start.
This is by far the most accessible game from our collection so far for her since the controls are relatively simple. The VSmile uses a joystick which she only partly understands and which calls for fine motor control, and the Click Start has a keyboard and mouse. She has figured out those two tools, but gets frustrated when the mouse runs out of range. No such problems come out in Pooyoo.
MyWii writes: "Learning with the PooYoos is the first in an educational series aimed at kids aged 3-6 years old. The first thing that struck me about Episode 1 was how bright and attractive the graphics were. They take up the whole screen with no distracting menus, icons, or text as other games would feature. A soothing female voice walks you through the actions, and teaches you what simple objects and colours are on the screen. The whole experience is very user friendly, especially to the younger age group."
De Telegraaf writes: "Nintendo showed recently in London to the European press some DSiWare and WiiWare titles will appear in the coming months. Think of the sequel to Lost Winds, Super Meat Boy (a bloody version of Mario) and the student project Reflection."
