World RespawnHow this compares
Including the cases where one of these is the better choice for your child.
Roblox
Roblox is a place to play games other people have made, and to make your own. It has chat, a virtual currency called Robux, and a marketplace.
Here your child makes their own game and plays it. There’s no chat and no currency, and your child cannot spend money inside this app.
Roblox Studio, the tool Roblox games are built in, is available on Windows and Mac. This works on a tablet.
Scratch
Scratch is free, it began at the MIT Media Lab, and it can do more than this can. If your child is happy in Scratch, they may not need us.
Scratch’s blocks are labelled in words. Here your child works by touch, and every rule card is a picture, so a child who can’t read yet can still build a rule.
codeSpark
codeSpark Academy teaches the basics of coding through puzzles and games, and has a place to make simple games of your own. It’s aimed at younger children.
It starts just as gently here, and the games are 3D, with rules your child invents.
Minecraft
Minecraft is a wonderful world to play in, and building in it is genuinely creative.
This is different. Here your child makes a game with rules they invent, and hands the tablet to someone to play.
Toca Boca
Toca Boca makes beautiful digital toys, and we’ve borrowed a lot from how they think about play.
The difference is what your child ends up with. Here they build a real game they can hand the tablet over to play.
Easier to try than to read about.
Open it on your child’s tablet and watch the first two minutes. That’ll tell you more than this page did.