A FRIEND TO THE RESCUE

Written over a decade ago when the author was 10 and evidently never revised, this aquatic app sinks under the combined weight of clumsy prose and a severely limited suite of rudimentary special effects.

The plot is rudimentary too. With help from a sea turtle and other friends (plural in the story, if not the title), a lost baby whale eludes sharks by hiding behind a “giant piece of corral [sic],” then rejoins his mother at last. In each sparely detailed cartoon scene, tapping five buttons shaped like shells or other sea life will cause as many random nautical facts to drop into view. These range from the uselessly broad “50-80% of all life on earth [sic] is found in the ocean,” to an awkwardly phrased claim that the “deepest spot in the ocean is the Mariana Trench and is approximately 35,797 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean.” Tapping anywhere else on any screen causes bubbles to appear with loud bloops, which is the only other interactive feature. There is no audio narration or music, nor options for paging backward or even for starting over.

Extensive editing and a major software upgrade might raise this wreck, but it will take more than that to keep it afloat.