Thank you to Cube Dog for sponsoring this review. For more information about Cube Dog please visit the Facebook page or download it on iTunes.

Do your kids love to play iPhone and iPod Touch app games? My son is always trying to talk me into downloading and playing various gaming apps and his iPod Touch is full of them. I’m normally not one to play video-based games so you won’t find many on my phone, but I was recently given the opportunity to try out a new app that looked interesting and fun so I thought, why not?

Cube Dog is a brand new app that was just released this month in the iTunes store. It is an interactive 3D animated app which incorporates high-quality 3D graphics and animation to create your own virtual dog from start to finish. The app allows you to choose from several different colors, styles of faces, eyes, and bodies to build the Cube Dog you want. Then you can give your dog commands by using the touch screen to choose from a variety of actions, such as playing with a ball, going to sleep, or even turning into a ninja dog. You can pinch and zoom on the screen to make your dog move and you can “pet” your cube dog and rub his tummy or rotate him by using a swiping motion on the screen.

The Cube Dog app is free and comes with several choices but you can get even more choices by purchasing a parts pack with all 84 parts for 99 cents or you can get more animation choices with Pack 1 and Pack 2 (each have 12 more animations) for $2.99 each. I haven’t tried those out yet because I’m still enjoying the free choices, but I might add those soon.

To give you an idea of what Cube Dog looks like and can do, the creators made this cute little video for you:

Want to see my Cube Dog? One of the coolest features of this app is the ability to use the camera on your iPhone or iPod Touch to take a picture of your Cube Dog in your own environment so it looks like he is there! My kids (ages 19 and 16) were very impressed with this feature and we had fun trying it out. Here’s my Cube Dog going on a road trip with us:

Cube Dog going for a ride

Isn’t he cute? Another fun action he can do is to “call” your phone. When he does, your screen will show an incoming call from Cube Dog (but your phone doesn’t actually ring). Whether you accept or decline the call, it goes back to the Cube Dog putting away his phone, so it isn’t an actual call but it is still funny to see it pop up on your screen as one.

The Cube Dog app is entertaining and fun for all ages. Kids will probably enjoy it the most but I had a lot of fun with it and even my older teenagers took turns playing with it and said it was fun. It’s similar to some other virtual pets but what I like about this one is you do not have to “feed it” or do any other actions to keep it from “dying”. (Anyone else remember those annoying little virtual pets on a keychain that beeped incessantly if you didn’t take care of them?) With Cube Dog, you can play with it as much as you want, when you want, but you don’t have to constantly tend to it.

The Cube Dog app works on the following devices:

- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 4
- iPod Touch 3rd generation
- iPod Touch 4th generation
(They all require iOS 4.0 or higher to run the app)

I don’t know if the creators plan to make the app available on other devices, so if you don’t have one of the above and want to check out the app, I’d recommend asking them on the Cube Dog Facebook page.

Cube Dog will also be hosting a fun contest June 13 – 17, 2011 and you can find out how to enter by visiting the Cube Dog Facebook page.

While Cube Dog provided me with the app to review, the opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Cube Dog, Clever Girls Collective and I promote Blog With Integrity.