Giveaway and Review: Mixamajig Ups The Ante With More Fun, Options and Giggles

Ever since Steve Jobs mentioned “one more thing” nearly four years ago, we’ve reviewed hundreds of gigabytes worth of iPhone and iPad apps. But one of our favorites has been a fun little game called Slideamajig that allows users to create countless funny creatures by swapping out body parts. Slideamajig was a good buy — not only because it was ridiculously fun, but because the app’s creator, Chuck Gamble, was very good about updating the game and keeping it fresh.

Now, Slideamajig has received an overhaul. Launched last week, Mixamajig is a fresh take on the original app’s premise. Kids and adults can still create creatures like before, but there are many, many more options that take creativity to a whole new level. Creatures now have a formal name, Kooks, and there are — as before — hundreds of possible combinations. But with Mixamajig, you can customize your Kook with downloaded or photographed images. (Check out my dog wearing a Wil Wheaton sweater in the Kook on the right.)

What’s more, backgrounds are now subtly animated and, if that’s not good enough for you, you can add your own photos as backgrounds. Plus, if you played Slideamajig as we did by inventing weird noises and voices for each of our creations, you will be excited to learn that Mixamajig now allows you to record a sound or voice for each of your original Kooks. Don’t worry, you can turn off sounds very easily too. And what would an app be today without sharing? Mixamajig allows you to share your Kooks via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook. Or you can just save them to your photo library for later use.

Complete Kooks glow when assembled properly, so a fun little game we came up with was to shake the iPhone to create a random Kook and then try to quickly assemble the Kook as it was meant to be, beginning with the feet and working up.

Mixamajig is a superb improvement on one of our all-time favorite apps. It’s the rare game that is truly fun for all ages – I’ve seen toddlers having just as much fun with the app as grandparents. And with all the new options, I can almost hear a new chorus of giggles now.

The iPhone version of Mixamajig is just 99 cents and the super HD iPad version is just a dollar more. But because Chuck loves GeekDad readers and he’s so excited about Mixamajig, he has given us 5 iPhone codes and 5 iPad codes to giveaway. (Edit: codes have now been given away.)

Disclosure: GeekDad received a review copy of this application.