PBS KIDS Games Reviews

by Seanofw

On some of our iOS devices, PBSKIDSGames has no sound, and on some, it crashes frequently. It works (usually) on my wife’s iPhone, and (sometimes, crashing often) on my iPad, and (sometimes, crashing a lot) on my old iPhone; but not at all on my brand-new, fully-updated iPhone. Reboots, toggles, settings, reinstalls — nothing fixes it if it doesn’t work: Take it from a programmer that PBSKIDSGames is just *buggy*. The sound issues are widely reported online and have been for *years*; I wouldn’t expect them to be fixed soon.

If I could rate PBSKIDSGames zero stars for all the screaming fits it’s produced in my household from preschoolers who don’t understand why their games won’t work, I absolutely would. Don’t install this; you’ll be glad you didn’t.

by Yourfucjingmother

PBSKIDSGames is so close to being awesome, so I’m sad to give it such a low score. PBSKIDSGames has a lot of really great individual games. But there are so many silly things holding back PBSKIDSGames as a whole.

1. I can’t figure how to access adult settings. Other reviewers have mentioned some kind of menu for adults, but I can’t find it on iPhone or on iPad
2. I should be able to download every game if I want to. My iPad has plenty of unused storage space. Even if I can’t have or don’t need every game available from PBSKIDSGames, I should at least be able to choose which one gets deleted to make more space. Right now PBSKIDSGames automatically removes the one that was downloaded the longest time ago. There are some I want to keep available at all times!
3. PBSKIDSGames should have the games sorted by age level. Some are for toddlers, some are for preschoolers, some for kindergarten, etc. I shouldn’t have to test every game so extensively to know if it’s appropriate

by Adonutgirl

It seems that the frustrations I have with PBSKIDSGames are the same ones that parents were reviewing about a year ago - losing downloaded games at random and having to re-download. I have set the space allowance high on purpose to supposedly not have this happen, and yet whenever I have updated PBSKIDSGames we lose games, which is super frustrating for my five year old and me as well, especially as we live in a remote place and don’t have the best internet access all the time. On top of this issue, the interface is such that when scrolling through the games my child often accidentally clicks them which begins the downloading process, which can not be stopped! We currently have over thirty games attempting to load which have been going nowhere for weeks. If I was able to at least pause some of the open downloads we might have some success but I have not found any way of doing this. My daughter and I loved PBSKIDSGames at the start but it has become so frustrating she barely chooses to play on it now. If these issues were fixed, PBSKIDSGames would be very highly rate in my opinion, but with the current issues, it’s only mediocre. If I’m missing something that fixes these problems, please let me know.

by Marmotteface

My daughter loves the games. I just wish some of the games didn’t constantly freeze up or slow down. The Odd Squad Sector 21 game is her favorite, but it starts to get buggy pretty soon after playing it. It’s painstakingly slow to move the character through the terrains to find creatures, or the markers (like rocks or trees) you’re supposed to get to aren't even there (but you can still search in that spot and the animal can still be found - you just can’t see the animal either. It’s disappoint because PBSKIDSGames has such great content. We’ve deleted and reinstalled PBSKIDSGames several times. Our iPad and iPhones that have PBSKIDSGames on them have plenty of space and we run the most current iOS.

by Jejjadhehdhjshd

I got this for myself when I was little (like maybe 4 years old) and 6 years later I still have it! It’s usually because I get bored and have nothing else to do, so it takes care of my boredom, but there are issues! I downloaded a game and when it looked like it downloaded, it actually wasn’t downloaded! I had to download it again! Another issue is when I played a game, like Agent Checkup, form Odd Squad, it would freeze! I am still a kid and really enjoy PBSKIDSGames, but I think you need to fix this! Maybe I’ll even have this when I’m older! I enjoy the game and it’s very fun! My little brother likes it to! I’ll probably have this game for a long time! I also watch the pbs kids videos! I also learned a lot when I was young with this game! That’s pretty much it and thanks for reading! 👋👍🙂

by Kennedy F.

It needs a few changes it’s been hard so I suppose you make it so it will have like PBSKIDSGames downloads with games and apps and I suppose you make it download faster like taking 4 minutes or less and I suppose that you like make the games easier for little kids and a button where it says easy, hard and medium then all of the bad reports will turn into good reports I have one more change please make it so people will not have bad reports it makes me sad that the bad reports are kind of slowing down your business so if you make those changes people are going to love PBSKIDSGames so much they would like to play it all the time so do those changes then no bad reports will send to you so do these few changes so everyone will love PBSKIDSGames and wish that they never sent those bad reports so those will turn to good reports

by Bow Bow Siwa 200

This game has 2 problems:
1: freezing
2: Donkey’s Froyo Stand
I’ll start with freezing first. So, I got this game for my 3 year old brother. He was playing Arthur’s Top 20 when all of a sudden PBSKIDSGames froze. Of course, it went back to normal after a few seconds, but I’d still like it to not freeze at all.
It also froze when we were exiting a game, I had to close the tab and go back to PBSKIDSGames . Please fix this freezing thing.
Ok, and my second problem is Donkey’s Froyo Stand. My brother was playing it, and it was the same order every time! That’ll definitely get plain and boring.
Overall, PBSKIDSGames is good. It’s very educational and fun. My brother actually laughs when he loses a game. You know why? Because when you lose a game on PBSKIDSGames, they don’t make it sad and boring, they make it funny and enjoyable.
Of course, it can get a bit annoying when he loses purposefully 😂 but hey who cares?
I love PBS, I love their TV, and their contests and their apps. I actually joined the PBS kids Nebraska writing competition.
Anywho, please fix this freezing problem. And please make it so that every froyo order is different while playing Donkey’s Froyo stand.
Thank you for taking the time to read this review! 😊

by Creepy Worms

Well for starters it’s not the best game but for young children it’s amazing I loaded this game for all my children and well and really all the young ones with crazy over it 😂😂
I don’t not recommend this game for older children probably past the age of 7 The games are the best either some of them are fun. But mostly all the games are boring😴👎🏻 I mean I do you consider loading it if you have young children past the age of seven but mostly it’s not the best game I love all of the games well most of them😒 some of them can be very annoying and drive me crazy😡 it also freezes a lot which is very annoying😤😤 I mean overtime your kids will most likely get bored of it my kids only lasted about two months before they all deleted PBSKIDSGames soooooo Great game find for a little kids but Meh fine I guess 🙄🙄

by OandOmamaSC

My kids love the PBS apps but this one (Games) has one huge frustration. Maybe older kids can pace themselves on loading games but my littles don't understand that the one they chose last will have to wait for the 15 (or however many) others they clicked first to load. It either needs to not let them choose a new one until the last one gets done OR allows the user to pause or end a game from loading. That way when they see one they'd rather play, they aren't stuck waiting on games they no longer want. It'd also help if you knew which game was next to load. I've even closed PBSKIDSGames and reopened hoping we could start the "load queue" over but it remembers and resumes with the long line of games. Once the games load it's a great app! My two just rarely wait around for it.

by BoogerPie

I love this game but it has A LOT of problems.

Odd Squad: In this game, sound is important. Without it, you can hardly get the instructions. However, this section often has the noise almost fuzzy, meaning that it becomes annoying, so I either mute it or turn it down till I can hardly hear it. And on the last area of Sector 21, almost all of the area that you couldn’t walk on was red instead of showing the trees and rocks. And on both that area AND some of the areas before that one it didn’t show the animal, a thing on that level, something else, or a mix between!

by Erica Welsh

My son and I adore PBSKIDSGames. I love that it is free, and I love the variety it has and the fact that it’s an app that can grow with him. I love that it is safe, and there are no ads or links that can take him anywhere I don’t want him to be. It’s so wonderful that it’s free, and I’m so grateful for that!! I haven’t found /any/ other app like it.
But I have one tiny suggestion that will make it significantly better for us.
There are so many games on PBSKIDSGames, and a lot of them are meant for older kids. My phone is always connected to WiFi, and so when he plays by himself, he tends to download games that he just can’t understand, and then he gets stuck in them and frustrated. And so I was wondering if you could add a toggle switch on the grownups page, to toggle between “Show all games” and “show only downloaded games” on the home page. That way it will be easier for him to choose his own games and only play the ones he knows how to play, but when he gets a little older and gains more skills, I can see them all and choose new ones for him.
5 stars, if someday there is that option.
4 stars for now, because it’s just too hard for him to use.

by Val8780

My son has been loving playing games in PBSKIDSGames since pre-k. Over the past couple of months, we have tried updating PBSKIDSGames but no matter what we try, we cannot get any sound to play in the games. We have tried a few games and nothing works. Sometimes the scroll on the right side of the screen sticks so we cannot select different shows either. I would have loved to leave feedback within PBSKIDSGames instead of in PBSKIDSGames store but could not find a
any place to leeave feedback. Once these issues are addressed, we would love to come back and play our favorite games again!

Aside from these bugs, I highly recommend PBSKIDSGames for your child!

by Rayga01

Hello! I am 10 years old and PBSKIDSGames is great, but I have a suggestion. I think PBSKIDSGames should have an option to sort the games from things other than the shows. For example, age or difficulty. Also, I would like to have the original version of Kart Kingdom back. I have not found out why it was removed in the first place, but it was my favorite PBS game to play. I was so sad when it got removed, and never forgot about it. Then, when I saw it was back I was so excited, only to find that it was missing everything except racing from the original version. I loved that in the original there was Clanky Caverns, mini games, quests, and more. You could also create your own character and play online with other people. Now, none of those things are there. You can select a character from out of 3, and only race against fake, computer people. I would like to have the original Kart Kingdom back please, or, at least, know why it got removed.

Thank you for reading!

by JacquieBulla

I haven’t had PBSKIDSGames long but I and my 2 boys like it so far. I just have one complaint. They love Word Girl and so like to play Pretty Princess Magical Rescue. Not the most educational but at least there’s a tiny bit of vocabulary at the beginning. However, each time they reach the end of a game scene by collecting the 5 flowers, a man’s voice says there is a riddle to solve and then nothing else happens. Nothing comes up or is said further. We can’t find anything to click on except the X to exit. It’s like it just freezes there so we can go no further in the adventure. I am hopeful this can be fixed and maybe there will be a little more vocabulary or educational component with the riddles too! Otherwise we just only get to go through the first stage of each scene.

by NOS2468

A while ago PBSKIDSGames worked great. Now I can hear a ding when a game downloads, but NO sound within PBSKIDSGames . Works ok on iPhone but NOT the iPad. Update: Received the following from the developer and it works! “Hello, and thank you for your review! We are aware of a change on iOS devices that affects sound in our games, and we are working towards a resolution as fast as we can. We have found that toggling 'Silent Mode' or 'Mute' may temporarily resolve some users' issues. Some iOS devices have a small switch on the side or top edge, which can toggle this mode. Toggle the switch to unmute audio. If your device does not have a physical switch that controls this mode, you can find this toggle in Control Center. For older iPads, swipe up from the bottom of the home screen. For newer iPads, swipe down from the top-right corner. Once the Control Center appears, find and tap the bell icon to unmute audio.”

by NicknameTaken7

Not sure when it happened, but now the levels in the rover builder game don’t unlock after completing. My child has a fit when he has to restart each time.

There are a few games that freeze and annoy my child and daddy has to fix it, but on the whole very appropriate and engaging activities for my youngest child. I wish the grown up settings were lockable or a separate app. That one child keeps clearing or reducing the space and wiping the downloaded games; then has a fit they are all gone. Which takes me about a half hour to redownload.

by Yaya Zzss

I’ve been playing this since kidAnd I’m still playing it I give it to my iPad to my cousins and they always pick this certain app they have so much fun with it but they’re too impatient I have to download all the games before I give it to them if I don’t download any of the Pinkalicious game they will get mad at me and start screaming and crying but overall this is a very very very good game I recommend this to any parents it educates the them
End it has fun games for them when they’re done and if you get a video one it is awesome too and thank you for reading this bye

by Lindseysl2011

This is a very good app but i suggest you add
More games to Xavier riddle and the secret museum and other tv shows but i have something to say my brother also plays this and he is four and it takes so long for the apps games on his iPad to load and he cant control his wait time cause he is only four
And on iPhone it loads very quickly i suggest you put the same speed on iPad and iPhone
So more people want to play and my brother plays this after we get home on Thursday Friday and when he finishes school work on Monday and Tuesday Wednesday.

by Mrs2Happy4

My grandsons 7 and 4 liked PBSKIDSGames. I think some of the games are a little strange, but maybe that’s the limited instructions they give. To figure out how to play them. One game, appears backwards to me-you have to move items to make a course with a conveyor belt. On my Kindle Fire HD, PBSKIDSGames won’t load anymore. Deleted app and reloaded - still didn’t fix it. On my IPad, some of the games don’t do anything when you press the play button (Wild Kratt’s Under the Sea to name one). Both these problems just started happening on the devices.

by Cymphanee

This is an amazing app! There’s so much to see, play And there’s so many adventures that you can play, I love PBSKIDSGames And that it has every cartoon Games, It’s very amazing I love about it that you don’t have to Buy or purchase anything so yah there’s games you Can play if your bored And I play the games when I’m in zoom class. it’s really entertaining to See! If your reading this Then thank you because PBSKIDSGames is really fun to play And see soooooooooooo please get it It’s for free then if you make your apps free people will Purchase it more! but if it’s for money Not much people will get it because they don’t wanna waste money just on games. But PBSKIDSGames is amazing please make more games like this!

by SupaStarKid

I was hoping after the update that it would fix the game disappearing issue but unfortunately it doesn't. Even after you change the storage space and max it out at 5 GB,you still waste time downloading the games your child loves, just for the games to disappear five minutes later. I have a brand new iPad updated to the most recent iOS and our child loves this game but we had to delete it. Developers you guys really need to figure out this problem I'm not the only person complaining about it. How do you guys even have a job still? PBSKIDSGames is useless if it keeps deleting the games

by Mom2Bear

For an app meant for small children, this needs a lot of work. Some of the games are super cute but my toddler can't understand what is downloaded and what isn't, and many aren't appropriate for his age so I don't want him downloading games that are too difficult and wasting data. There should be a setting where little guys can only click games that moms and dads downloaded for them.

The other issue is, at first I couldn't even figure out how to get the games. If I accidentally click on one I can't turn off he download. It won't let me delete one app at a time either. Now I can click on them but it just sits there and won't load (months have gone by and no new games load).

by Rachel From Canada

This is my daughters favourite app - she lives that we can change up what games are on it and download different ones to make things new (I keep it at a 500GB limit or it doesn’t work properly). All was good until a couple months ago when PBSKIDSGames stopped loading unless we are connected to WiFi (I have data turned off for PBSKIDSGames). It had previously worked fine and we used it all the time in the car and on the bus. Please fix the issues with PBSKIDSGames loading and also with the storage!

by 🦅🐷🐨gg

So recently I need to take game came out and I was super excited to play it as always. But when I opened it it was super slow and I didn’t know why please fix that. It says running pants will hold obstacles but I can’t because it won’t let me the arrows won’t work. So please fix that I know this might be a little harder know you make me more fun games but please try to fix something or else I will know my review rating to three stores. Thank you and goodbye.

by Holli1215

My daughter LOVES PBSKIDSGames. The game choices are great and love that she can still play in the car when we don’t have WiFi. Would have given 5 stars but many times the games that we have “downloaded” aren’t there anymore and need to be re-downloded which is kinda weird and obviously not ideal because that takes more time and has to be done somewhere we have WiFi. Other then that bug PBSKIDSGames is great

by Bpondo89

My kids are nuts for PBSKIDSGames, and really enjoy playing games featuring their favorite show characters. I only wish there was a way to cancel game downloads! My kids accidentally start a game downloading while trying to scroll, and that significantly slows the downloading of games they do want (not to mention our limited, rural Pennsylvania bandwidth for the household). Adding this feature would make PBSKIDSGames a 5/5.

by Mristell

There are twelve cases I made up. First one, It was Scarlett Brenda. She tried to make a glitter ✨ scarlet teal dress but she got frustrated. She made a glitter path. Second, It was Willow Touzet. She wanted to learn how to roller skate but she kept slipping and falling. She got mad. She hypnotized everybody to become her servants. Third, It was Midnight midday girl. She hates regular time so she turned 🕖 into midnight 🕛. She turned midnight into day time. Now everything is back to normal on this case. Fourth, It was Sebastian yarn. He wrap everything around to becoming squishy. He tried to make a sweatshirt but he mess up. He wasn’t mad at all. He thinks yarn should help him to get everyone to be squishy. Fifth, It was Jamie Adam Flora. She had her enchanted forest animals to be ☮️ with her. She was going to make a netter vine with flowers 🌸🌼🌺🌹 but she messes up. She got mad that she made a flower 🌺 vine. Sixth, It was Gabby hockey. She was good at hockey until she fell. And broke her 🦵. She got so frustrated that she made everything turn into ice 🧊. I can’t go through all of my cases. Let’s just get on the twevleth. Twelfths, It was the bop hamster. It walk to look for something that is square foods to eat.

by Jen Briz

My 4 year old son loves PBSKIDSGames and can always find new games to play. It keeps his attention and he learns which this momma appreciates.

The Sesame Street game “Show me the Cookies” has a glitch. There is a part of the game where you have to match things that go together (bee to hive, frog to lily pad, etc). We have tried this game on two different phones but every time the picture won’t let you drag it. As soon as you move it, it goes to the middle picture on the right. Over and over again. Just wanted you to know. Aside from that we haven’t had any issues. Thanks!

by RulesOfTheRoad

Our son has very limited screen time, so we want to make his time count —that’s why we keep coming back to PBS Kids.

Most kids apps either have bad graphics (“They’re just kids! Why hire professional designers?!”), constant nagging prompts to buy other apps or upgrade, or they are just boring after the first 30 seconds and first $1.99.

The PBS Kids app enables us to set parental controls and hand over the phone for 5 minutes while our kid gets safe, well-made fun with his favorite characters in games he has the skills to succeed at.

I am continually impressed by the quality and quantity of games to pick from in this one app. Just set a reasonable download cache (I picked 1.3gb) and let him pick what looks interesting.

The best part is we have no concerns about PBS stealing our personal data, eavesdropping, or otherwise abusing our trust.