A little paper theatre where children tell their own stories

Name: Puppetale
Author: Growing Peas

Your child picks a stage, invites the characters, presses the red button and tells the story out loud, moving the puppets with their fingers. The puppet that is talking moves its mouth with their voice, and scene after scene the story becomes a real video.

Get it on Google Play Android 12 and later · phones and tablets · free to start

Recording scene 2 of The whale who wanted to sing: a cat and a whale on the seaside stage, the timer at 7 seconds, a bar asking who is talking, and a red Stop button. — Recording a scene. A tap on a puppet chooses who is talking; its mouth follows the child’s voice.

If your children miss Toontastic

Many families made cartoons with Toontastic 3D. It has not been updated since 2017 and no longer installs on recent phones, and in its reviews parents ask for it back.

Puppetale keeps the part children loved: telling a story with their own voice and watching it come back as a film. Its look is different, a cut-paper theatre drawn by hand rather than 3D, and the video is made on the phone. It is a separate app, made by me from scratch, and not affiliated with Google or Toontastic.

Puppetale's home screen behind a red theatre curtain: a New story button and three stories saved as cards, The whale who wanted to sing, The robot and the moon, The fox and the treasure. — Every story is kept on the phone, ready to watch or to tell again.

What is inside

Ten hand-drawn stages, all of them alive: a forest at dusk, the seaside, space, the city at night, snowy mountains, under the sea, the jungle, a castle at twilight, a pirate island, the ice floe.
Twelve puppets that blink, breathe, hop and talk: fox, robot, cat, rocket, dragon, whale, ghost, owl, dinosaur, unicorn, pirate and penguin.
Ten objects to set the scene, each with its own little movement.
Soft music written for each stage, chosen scene by scene, or silence.
Several fingers, several puppets: two characters can talk to each other.
Three ready-made stories to watch, then to tell again with your own voice.
Videos made on the phone, in HD, kept in a Puppetale album. Upright or sideways.

The message Your video is ready, saved in the phone's gallery in the Puppetale album, with a Watch it button and a Share button marked for grown-ups. — The finished film goes to the gallery. Sharing it waits for a grown-up.

Made for families

No ads, no account, no tracking.
Recordings and videos stay on the phone: nothing is uploaded.
Sharing a video and buying the full version are behind a question for grown-ups.
The music switches off with one tap.

What is free, and what one purchase adds

Free: two stages, four puppets, four objects, two pieces of music and stories of up to three scenes.

Pro, one purchase that stays yours: eight more stages, eight more puppets, six more objects, eight more pieces of music and stories of up to eight scenes. Google Play shows the price in your own currency. No subscription.

Who makes it

I do: one person, on my own, under the name Growing Peas. Mail goes to [email protected] and I answer it myself; ideas for stages and puppets are welcome. The microphone is used only while a scene is recording, and every recording stays on the phone: the privacy policy says so in full.