The Mussila-Musical Monster Adventure app is a musical app that is designed for children between ages 6 and 11 years. The app allows children to learn the basics of music and hence no experience in music is needed. With this app, children can learn to recognize different instruments and identify different melodies and rhythms. This app is fun and children can use it to expand their knowledge of music. The app is designed around a music curriculum and a player progress through levels.
When you open the app, you are presented with a splash screen and animation that shows the band members losing their instruments and clothe. The animation on the splash screen is top notch and developers can be commended for doing good work on it. The app has high quality graphics and audio and is highly appealing. The app takes a few moments to load and once it has loaded, the user is presented with a trail that the user must follow so as to recover the lost instruments and clothes while also learning about different music instruments and identifying melodies and rhythms along the way. The way the app is designed to let children follow the Mussila band on their journey and help them recover their lost belongings is a fun backstory that makes for creative gameplay and it is also engaging.
The characters include Charlotte who plays cello, Ellie who plays the electronic piano, the contrabass player, the celeste player, a DJ, the mountain monster, Benedict who plays the banjo, Bubbah who plays the bass, Mona who plays the marimba and the curlybrother. The characters have been well thought out, they are quirky and fun and children can easily relate and be drawn to them. The characters are also playing different instruments which make the app suitable for different kinds of interest in music.
The trail has 65 levels that are fun and engaging. These levels in my opinion are way too many for a children’s’ game considering you can’t go to the next level without completing the current one. It would have been better for the developers to reduce the levels and increase more gameplay varieties. The user cannot go to the next level without completing the current level and I thought that this is a limiting factor of the app. I noticed that each level is an adaptation of the previous level and the user is present with more choices and more challenging rhythms as you progress to a higher level.
Pros of the app
- Excellent graphics and audio quality and display
- A variety of instruments to choose from
- The band can be customized
- Children can record their own music
- A great learning experience and allows children to build new skills and expand their knowledge
Cons of the app
- Too many levels with few gameplay varieties
- User profile cannot be saved
- Cannot try harder levels without completing previous ones
Overall, I did enjoy using the Mussila Music Monster app. I think it is a great app for children to learn music and have some fun while at it. With a few tweaks to it to minimize the cons, this would be an excellent app.
