ADVENTURES OF MARTY LITTLE

Composed of very short visual sequences that cycle over and over with repeated tapping, this minimalist app is tailor-made for children with developmental disabilities or just microscopic attention spans.

The plotline, insofar as there is one, begins with a lad and his dad driving past a sign with the familiar arches. The lad’s demands for fast food (conveyed pictorially) escalate into an argument that ends up with the car going over a cliff and into an undersea realm. There, a black, horned figure attacks dad and then, in an abrupt cliffhanger close, turns to the boy. Except for the title, publisher and the inscrutable word “maquito” uttered by the father near the end, there is no text. Likewise, aside from snatches of demonic laughter and other clipped sound effects, the app is silent. The illustrations are all thick-lined, very simply drawn cartoons with arrows at the upper corners for navigation. Taps cause each scene to run through either one or two changes—ranging from a different posture or a close-up to the appearance of color highlights—and then back to its original form.

As the story is sketchy to the point of incoherence, the chief draw here will be its inherent circularity and repetition.