21st century tech meets old school children’s pastime with Chromville

There is no getting away from the fact that in today’s world technology such as phones, computers and tablets play a big part in children’s lives. Instead of playing with dolls or cars, children want to play games on tablets or computers. Now, however, 21st century tech  and the old school popular children’s pastime, the colouring book, have met by way of Chromville, an app that is used on Android or iOS devices which brings colouring to life thanks to augmented reality.

[Image Source: Chromville]

The Chromville app has been designed for children aged between 5 and 12, although there are some adults that do like to colour too. Chromville is made up of an app for iOS and Android in the form of a series of colouring templates. These can be downloaded and then printed on the home printer, ready for children to colour in. The template colouring pages tell of a story of a world in the distance that has been hit by colour fading away. The characters are going to lose their power and only children are able to save them by colouring them back in again.

[Image Source: Chromville]

Children finish colouring their masterpieces and then the Chromville app is able to scan the page using the camera on a smartphone or tablet. The app can recognise the coloured pages and then it will bring them to life on the display using 3D animations which incorporate the designs of the children within the story.

[Image Source: Chromville]

Each of the chapters makes progression through the story and children can take part in mini-games, which all go towards forming the narrative of the story, along with featuring the characters that children have coloured in.

[Image Source: Chromville]

Children can also use their creations in different mini-games which don’t have anything to do with the story from Chromville, for instance, one is focused on the World Cup.

[Image Source: Chromville]

The Chromville app can be downloaded free of charge and over at the Chromville website there is a wide selection of colouring pages that can be downloaded and printed out. The makers of the Chromville app are planning on releasing colouring sheets that people will have to pay for and they plan on launching a version that is more educational, which will help to encourage children when it comes to telling stories and narrative writing.

[Image Source: Chromville]

So it looks like the old colouring books and pens may see a comeback with a little help from modern technology. As technology is known for making the old obsolete, it's nice to see it taking the old with it this time.