I bought this game for my 5 year old daughter whom after learning how to use the control pad of her gameboy advance while pressing buttons thanks to My little Pony: Runaway Rainboy, was ready to learn how to do basic platforming. This game is perfect for this. The premise is that you have to find the puppy hidden at the end of each level -and- collect crystals along the way to unlock certain things in your hub playroom. There is no penalty for not jumping over things - your character will just bounce back off of the item, yet in order to reach the end of levels you have to master button-control pad timing (As opposed to just learning it via the other game). The A (or B) button is used in the various minigames and this teaches her how to better coordinate both control pad movements and button presses, as there is a time limit to some of the mini games that are required for your child to pass before moving to the next level. I did notice that for some of the mini games, the game is smart enough to adapt and change the difficulty level if he or she can not finish in time 2 or three times. For me this is the right balance of challenge for a 5-6 year old.
The graphics are nice, colorful, and clear. Perfect for a kid and your child can choose to be a girl or a boy (out of maybe 30 possibilities) each with his or her unique name.
If your child is new to gaming, please be aware that he or she will get frustrated with this game. My daughter cried a couple of times trying to get through a couple of hard spots. I was able to show her how to overcome the obstacles but made her do it on her own in order for her skill to improve. This is game can be used to bond with your child. We also make her read the text by sounding out the words as she is in Pre-K and is learning to read. The text in this game is large and easily readable by younger children (no big words).
My daughter was able to get to the 5th level of the game all by herself, start to finish, reading all the text to me. The look on her face while playing is worth 5 times the $[...] I paid for this game. Thanks to the developers for a very well thought out game. Beware though, the game is a bit short in length.