The interface is as fun to look at as the app is to use. For kids, we mean.

Mac games for kids can be fun, entertaining, and even educational, but how about letting your wee one exercise the creative part of her developing brain? Get Kid Pix Deluxe 3X for your progeny, and you might be surprised at how prolific they become - not to mention the ball they'll have drawing, painting, and even animating, instead of just playing some games.

Young artistes start with any of the thousands of ready-made graphics, including a variety of backgrounds and individual objects called Stickers. Pick a colorful, playful background, and add Stickers - it's sort of a high-tech Colorforms set. You can add cheerful balloons to a creepy haunted-house backdrop, or a fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex to a pirate ship, or go more traditional and put Stickers in their appropriate settings. As with anything artistic, there really are no rules. And the app is so easy to use, your kids won't have to spend more than a few minutes to figure out how it works.

And for kids with vivid imaginations as well as deftness with a mouse, you can use Kid Pix Deluxe 3X as freehand painting and drawing application. There's a nice array of tools, all easily selectable on the lower-left corner and the bottom of the screen. When you're using a chalk, crayon, or marker tool, you can add paper texture, which gives your artwork a tactile quality. Many of the tools have their own sound effects too, ranging from cheerful to goofy but always adding to the fun. Just a couple of minor annoyances: The colors in the color picker are represented by small circles, which may be difficult to click for very small children who are still developing mouse skills. And there's only one level of undo.

For older children who already work with iLife '06, Kid Pix Deluxe 3X fits right in. You can import songs stored in your iTunes library (except for ones purchased at the iTunes Store) and use them as background music, but the application unfortunately doesn't retain the song in the My Sounds library, which stores audio you can record using a mic attached to your Mac. You can also import photos from iPhoto as well as QuickTime movies. We created animations using animated Stickers, and then exported our work to iMovie and to our iPod without any hitches - kids get excited over seeing their work on an iPod. Kid Pix Deluxe 3X is now a Universal application, so it runs on any Intel Mac efficiently.

The bottom line. Kid Pix Deluxe 3X is an excellent example of software done right. Your kids will love it - and you will, too.

COMPANY: Software MacKiev
CONTACT: www.mackiev.com
PRICE: $39.95
REQUIREMENTS: 266MHz G3 or faster or Intel processor, Mac OS 10.1.5 or later, 192MB RAM, 170MB disk space
Chock-full o' art objects. Fun interface. Works well with iLife '06. Universal binary. For ages 4 and up.
Only one level of undo. Doesn't file imported iTunes sounds into Kid Pix library. Can't import iTunes-purchased music.