Sago Mini World
reviews and complaints

Greetings! My son is getting a bit old for your products (8 y/o in February), so, I realize my suggestion may me outside of the realm of the scope of your products-namely, a save feature. My son LOVES your block games, especially Space Blocks. He loves Minecraft, but the stripping away of complexities that Space Blocks provides by comparison has brought him back again and again. He had a minor meltdown this morning when the landscape of neighborhoods he created last night was not remembered this morning by the program. I realize your target audience is usually in an earlier part of development that probably don’t create as complex a narrative as my 3rd grader, but a save feature would be really nice. Do you have suggestions for other developers that provide an intermediary step between your early child development target and the “sky’s the limit” flexibility of Minecraft?

Thanks for providing my son MANY an hour of fun and creativity!

My grand son started on sago with joy and adventure in mind and digitally it did not disappoint. I love that there is no addenda and l Love that you are parents also. Having been a parent, a grand parent, and trained as an international nanny I would like to ask if there is some way the little games can incorporate work and patience into the little sago world showing long term or building reward. Ever since Sesame Street with rapid fire learning children have no ability to hold focus and sustained thought. I worry about the building frustration and distraction when not constantly fed light input. There must be some kind of game for a little higher age level that prepares them for real life efforts that aren’t going to to tweet pop and giggle at them when they do it right but will reward them for right actions because it is right and welcome them into the fellowship of good neighbors and good people. Please accept this challenge! With Best regards, Paula Rondeau

I love this app. It's worth the money for the all the games in one purchase. Besides being such a great interactive app and being so much fun to discover everything it can do, they do regular updates...like adding new games all the time so there's always something new to discover. I don't know who enjoys it more, me or my daughter. We've subscribed to SagoMini for years now. Since my daughter was 2 or 3 and I needed a distraction for her while we were at a restaurant for a looong time. She's 6 mow and they've added more things for us to subscribe to that we love. Like a monthly box of fun that comes once a month. She gets her own special mail in the middle of the month. Even the box turns into something fun and comes with a sagomini character to collect. We have 6 boxes now. Easy to store and she wants to play with them all the time. Plus they have sagomini SCHOOL now for preschoolers. We got that too be I just love this company and they do not slack on anything. 5 star all the way⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

UPDATE: Sago seems to have tacitly acknowledged some missteps with the launch of this subscription service. They've added the feature of making individually-purchased apps accessible within Sago World, and made the original Sago Friends available again as a standalone app. While I still have no interest in Sago World and remain skeptical of its value, I'm satisfied with the way Sago has handled its response to customer feedback.

Original review:
A formerly terrific app called Sago Friends has now been rebranded and turned into a subscription service that takes up 6x the amount of space on your device and offers you the ability to rent their apps for a monthly/yearly fee. If you add up the cost of individually purchasing the various Sago apps, it's hard to see how you'll come out ahead by renting. But the main issue is how, rather than launching a new Sago World app, they took over an existing paid app and more or less forced this new subscription gateway onto existing customers' devices. Shady move, Sago.

I actually love this app. It’s so cute and there’s so much for my kids to explore. The actual game design is lovely. HOWEVER, we have had the subscription for about 5 months now. (I will be canceling today.) Without fail, after I get the email notifying me that my subscription has renewed I can no longer login to the app. When I try, I receive and error message saying they cannot find my subscription. I have been in touch with customer service more than once regarding this issue and their response is always the same. Delete and reinstall the app and then you need to wait a few days for the system to reset.

Like many parents, I rarely pass off my phone or tablet to my kids. When I do and they find their favorite app isn’t working and then I have to delete, re-download, re-install and wait a few days; no one is happy.

I understand glitches happen, but after several months it’s pretty clear this one isn’t a priority for them to fix. Which is a shame since I have loved their various apps since I discovered them my 9 years was a toddler.

I hate to give this a 1-star, because the Sago Mini World games are absolutely wonderful, and my daughter gets so much enjoyment from playing them.

The reason I’m giving this such a low rating, however, is because for some reason, many of the games constantly “undownload” themselves from your device for no apparent reason, and you have to force download them again from the “Parents” screen, which is a rude awakening for your child when you’re on a plane ride or long car trip without access to WiFi, and they want to play their favorite game.

My devices have ample available storage on them, so it’s not an issue of running out of space to keep the apps downloaded. This drives me (and my kid) absolutely crazy.

While the developer says that this is iOS’s fault in the way that app data is managed under the hood, I do not have this issue with other apps, such as PocketCasts, which is able to retain over 100 GB of downloaded podcasts on the device without having to auto-purge them. I think this is a genuine bug, or at least a feature oversight in Sago Mini. The app should not be purging previously downloaded data without the users express consent.

My boy/girl 7 year old twins LOVE it. I was apprehensive as it seemed geared for a younger audience and I keep telling them they’d be too old for it. Finally after a week of continuous requests and them doing enough chores to earn the app I downloaded the free trial to see if it would really keep their attention. Well two days of the free trial and they both were hooked and wanted to unlock the other areas. I then purchased the year subscription at the price of $39.99.

What I love about the app is that it’s not an app that I need to monitor for appropriateness. It’s simple and safe pretend play fun. My kids are homeschooled and to be blunt, they are naive to a lot of the typical content many 7 years old may be exposed to. They are sensitive to violence and actions that would make others sad or inappropriate. This app is just a happy go lucky app that my kids enjoy. They love to make up their own voices for each character and speaking/acting out what they are doing on the screen. The app is just a cute interactive fun for 7 year olds. I wish I’d have found this app sooner as it would have been a really fun learning tool for my kids when they were younger :).

My son really like this app and as he grows older he is able to find new ways of interaction with the app. It's really a great app with a caveat... as follows:

You have to download the varios games within the app to interact with them, this is not an issue and normal as far as apps go. However, this is where the issue starts for us... updates to the varios maps seem to happen with great frequency, not sure how often exactly but maybe one every two weeks or so? When an update is made you have to download the impacted mini game within the app. This gets kind of frustrating, specially with more active kids with limited focus time. We travel by plane and tend to take longer plane rides (over 5hrs). If you forget to update your app before your flight and try to play on the plane this will not work. Also, we travel international and WiFi and data are not as available as back home in Seattle, so this is also a minor problem.

It would be nice to just offer and 'update available' button with the size of the update (mb) and the user can choose when to update but can continue to use the app without with the older update.

Fix this issue and you have a 5 star product!

Both of our daughters, ages 4 and 8, absolutely love ALL the Sago Mini apps! I love that they can have them all in one app to save storage on their iPads. They have a blast playing by themselves on the Sago Mini apps but they also love sitting side by side and playing the same Sago Mini game on each of their iPads and giggling up a storm while doing it. Even as a grown up, I'm not afraid to admit that I also think the apps are adorable. The characters are so cute and some of the things they do are hysterical. Some days I have just as much fun playing on the apps with them as they do!
Thank you Sago Mini developers for creating such an extensive line of apps that not only teach children, but teach them in such a sweet and fun way. Every time a new app comes out we are all excited to sit down and see what new creative things you have come up with again!
Our girls even have the plush characters and the play sets you have come out with also! As a parent, I was thankful and delighted to see all the toys were made to last - worth every penny we spent on buying 2 of each stuffy and 2 of each play set.

Keep up the awesome creativity!

Blessings,
The Gloster Family

Combining all of Sago's games is a really great idea -- these are the ONLY games I give my 3-yr old. But... this is a weird sort of collection. First, it doesn't seem to include all their games -- I couldn't find Doodlecast, for instance. Second, Sago has some mind-bogglingly great games (e.g., all the open-exploration titles) and some really mediocre ones (e.g., road trip, boats). My child loves some and couldn't care about others, but there's no way to collect the ones she likes the most -- I have to scroll through a mess of grayed-out titles to get to the ones she likes. Third, giving access to already-purchased titles SEEMS like a good idea, but once I deleted them from my phone, I also lost access to them through World. So... what's the point? This app only makes sense if you haven't been buying Sago apps all along.

Which all brings me to this point: this collection works way better in theory than in execution. Why replace, arbitrarily, one of your apps with it? Why not release it as a standalone? Friends is now significantly more difficult to get to and the file size is bigger, all in the name of something that really doesn't work for me. Thanks... but no thanks.

This is a issue to most people and it gets people frustrated within gameplay not only is it fun though but the most annoying thing I have ever come across with is the one day play I mean you have to pay thousands of dollars (it only costs seven dollars) but still what is the point of playing this game and purchasing it for like 29 99 i just want to have a game where it doesn’t make you pay after one whole day no other game out there is like that why would you want to waste money for a game and no gameplay these developers are trying to get money and I get that but your not thinking about people who don’t want to pay seven dollars to play a game and they will need money to use for other things like house water and energy for lights fans and more why would people want to play this game for money nobody likes that I am pretty sure that people are already mad and frustrated about this issue but other than that the game is fun oh also try to do this for every other game you have made ps. People who purchased this and or downloaded it you made a bad choice of choosing a dumb game that makes you pay after one day to use the game. Please FIX THIS ISSUE!
J

UPDATE!: I can't thank the developer enough for taking the time to respond!:) And my heartfelt thanks to the developer for being so caring and for creating these wonderful apps that my 3 year old absolutely loves and goes bananas for!:) I am now giving all Sago Mini apps 5 stars.:) Thank you.:)
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Previous Review: My 3 year old has Sago Mini Friends App on his iPad mini and he laughs his head off with delight & happiness whenever he plays Sago Mini Friends App, which is downloaded from a while back on his iPad mini. But earlier this morning, my older son borrowed his iPad mini and when I tried to download Sago Mini Friends, from my "Purchased" list, onto my iPad mini, I couldn't find the app anywhere!:( It's not even in my previously purchased list of apps in my App Store account! And yet, I know I purchased it, because it has been on my 3 year old' iPad mini for a while! Now, we have this new App that you have to pay for, to get full access.:(

PLEASE GIVE US THE SAGO MINI FRIENDS APP BACK! Especially to people who had already, previously, downloaded it onto their device! It is not right to take away something that little kids, like my 3 year old son, truly enjoy! Thank you.

I want to start off by saying that I would’ve given this a 5 star rating if I wasn’t having the problem I am going to mention. Other than the issue I’m having, my child (17 months) LOVES this game! There’s so much to do with this app- SO MANY games... he can stay entertained for a long time. It definitely helps to whip the iPad out at a restaurant or a store, etc, when he gets a little frustrated and doesn’t want to behave properly in public. It keeps him happy and calm, as well as developing new skills and learning so much! It’s adorable and fun and my husband and I sometimes find ourselves playing with this as well!
My only issue is that we have paid for the game on our iPad. But when I have tried to log-in with that same account on my iPhone, it cuts off right after I put the birth year. I have never been able to get past that point. So therefore, he can only use the iPad to play. And sometimes my husband needs it for work, so I’m left only with my phone. I would like for this problem to be fixed. I’ve already updated, so I know that’s not the issue. Please help fix this- my son and I would certainly appreciate it!
All around it’s a perfect game for any child of any age and I highly recommend downloading it, it’s worth purchasing! :)

The games are great if you can navigate how to actually buy them as a group or subscription. After spending HOURS trying to buy this and discern what we were actually buying, I discovered there are two main apps that house most of the games that both require separate subscriptions - Mini School and Mini World. Both contain dozens of the games that are individually listed (many that I already bought ). Their website doesn’t detail what games are in each. It’s hard to tell if there is even a difference unless you search into the FAQs. We also have a box subscription. Their website is cute, but pretty much worthless for user support or details about how to give them money and telling you what you will get for that money. The site is also so buggy that you have to login again anytime you click anything … and you’re lucky if you don’t get sent to some random glitchy Toca World site. Thank goshness the game user interfaces are so nicely designed and work.

If you figure out how to get in, you’ll be lucky if you haven’t wasted $50 for individual games before paying for any subscription and countless throws of the iPad that is asking you to log in AGAIN online, AGAIN in the app, then telling you that you don’t have a subscription, then you do. We have paid dearly in time and money for the “pleasure” of “trying” to use this app. I honestly don’t know if it’s been worth it at this point.

Let’s just say that I’m 10, and I barely play this anymore. But, ONLY THREE games unless you pay?! This is a minor cash grab. I’d advise against this app if you don’t have young kids and/or have money lying around waiting for something to either be wasted or used. So easily could be five stars ⭐️ if the devs made it more interesting for slightly older kids too. (5 - 10) So, a few suggestions:

1. Account Profiles. These would be free, allowing you to save a free account to a device. You could choose an avatar, (the sago mini characters) and decorate them with unlocked clothing. Some would come from unlocked achievements, (see suggestion two) some with come free, and others would come from the membership.

2. Achievements. There would be a list of achievements you could unlock, and when you meet the conditions to unlock one, you could earn clothing, or maybe even backgrounds for your Account Profile. If you added this and maybe an online mode, you could show off your favorite badge from the achievement.

3. More Free and Just More Games. You could track the age of the user, and every birthday you unlock more games depending on the age. You could do this ages 1 to 10. However, these would be free and only one would be membership, at age 10, or just no membership games with this feature. You should also just add more games without this feature, and a sorting system.

Your Slightly Unsatisfied Customer,
Adele

hello, the first thing I am going to say is that sometimes it absolutely does not work. The first time I played it, I was like” mom? Will you get me the premium on this game?” and I got the app when I was about six and now I’m 10 (well technically nine my birthday is in two weeks) and I still have it because it’s a pretty awesome app! I do recommend that three to seven year olds should play this but I’m really not sure (:
it’s pretty good, and it’s not a waste of money if you buy the pinion. You can unlock so much and it just makes the game 10 times worth downloading! I actually like to role-play with my sister and it much reminds me of Toca Boca but with animals. So, I’m going to talk about the premium first. The premium is decent; it gives you so much more, but can you add some more premium icons/games? It’s really cool already but I think that if you made like some sort of thing where you can play with cats instead of dogs that would be great! I’m personally a cat lover so it made me a little bit jealous when they add a dog sing instead of cat sing, when cats are like my favorite thing in the entire world. And yes I have a cat of my own. The only problem is is for some reason, every once in a while the apps will go away and you have to re-download them. (yes, I need the premium thanks. Every once in a while I will have to re-download them and sometimes I don’t have Wi-Fi)I got really angry the other day because I had just got in the car and I am starting to play on my iPad but then I noticed that all of the premium things were downloaded except for like the plane thing- UHG will u fix ittt

My girl loves this game on the iPad, but she cannot play it on my iPhone XS, because the stupid login page forces landscape orientation, and because the keyboard pops up and pushes the password field to the top of the screen, it will not allow you to enter your login and password using a password manager like 1Password, nor will it allow you to paste in the password manually. Because my Sago Mini World password is a random jumble of letters generated by 1Password, I don’t have it memorized, so it’s not practical to type it in manually.

I don’t like that a lot of the games are money worth it’s a kid game it should have half of it free and the games open are boring pls fix this and also the gameplays that are not money worth are frustrating and boring I played this ( I’m 8 ) and it was so boring when I was 5 I played this and it was all free and I didn't pay but know that I did after 3 years it’s sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring pls fix this also I HATE IT ITS SO BAD RN GAHHHH

Hi, I like the game but why do you ask for akses to my camera that is not good. That is one thing I do not like about the game. another thing is that why are some of the places locked. And why do you want people pay with real money. There is a game that is way way way way way way way better then you it is called PK XD! that are the best! you are just. So that’s how I fell like about your game. but there is ONE thing I like that it is a little fun. That’s all for now bye. Oh and do not feel bad about my rateing but that is just how I feel. Bye

We have been avid followers of Sago Mini. They're my son's absolute favorite games, so I was pretty interested to see them all rolled in to one. Unfortunately, because we have bought just about every app- Sago Mini world is just not worth $5 a month to play games we already have.
Good idea, terrible execution for their old supporters. If you've never tried Sago Mini games before, this is a pretty cool thing, but for us- it's pretty pointless.
Not going to lie, I'm sincerely disappointed and was hoping for a new game to add to our collection. Maybe next time.

How do I get to the game where the robot is in its home and rides on the skateboard? It is NOT robot party and I even watched a video that showed all the games on YouTube trying to see if I was missing it. That scene was the whole reason my kid wanted the game and I’ve bought a yearly subscription only to be asked daily where the robot house is. She has convinced herself she is playing the game wrong and must do something special to unlock this elusive robot house. Please help, I will gladly amend this to five stars if this is not a case of false advertising! Help!

Listen I love this game that’s why I’m writing this to improve it. when I got this game I wanted to play ALL the games that’s why I’m sad(I’m gonna re act my emotions) ohh what a cool game I’ll download it! (20-30 mins later) YOU HAVE TO PAY!? FOR THE GAMES?! (Explosion) I think you should make it free so kids can play without there parents spending money,ALSO (I know what your thinking this is gonna take forever) I think u should allow connecting devices to play together kids with there friends can play with each other, Ok I’m done. I’m out of breath pls do these stuffs! See ya

So I purchased this app for my daughter who loved it. We only wanted it for one month, so I unsubscribed directly after paying for one month. Then the app disappeared from my phone. I could only open it through the App Store, could not download it again to my phone, and when I tried to find someone to contact at sago mini, they made it basically impossible to contact them except through snail mail. So we basically paid for nothing. It’s a shame that they don’t have user friendly customer support because it’s a clever brand that I would purchase more through if I felt I could get assistance when needed.

This bites! I have three littles who absolutely love this sago worlds, but fight over my husbands tablet to play it. The “subscription” base used does not allow for this to be shared over family share and with each little one having their own tablet I cannot see spending $90 per year for this app. I wish there was an ability to make a sago account and login over multiple devices when buying one year at once or something. This way the entire “family can share” instead of battle Royale for daddy’s iPad. If that was not an issue this platform would be a five star, but to share, buying all the apps individually is a better bet. Wish we could get a refund for our year subscription now..

This world concept really would only make sense if it were like every other combo app where you could at least access the apps that you have already purchased. We have most of them and love them, but even when you click on restore purchases, it won't. I'm seeing from other reviews, that all the loyal Sago Mini fans feel the same way. I don't have all the apps, so some would still be locked, which is fine, and would probably still make my child ask for the others, which makes Sago more money on individual apps purchases. A subscription only really works for someone maybe new to Sago apps. But after all the money I've invested already, it doesn't make sense to pay a monthly fee.

My kid loves this app, however it says you pay a subscription fee and you can access the subscription across all your devices. Lie. I cannot sign on with my email on my phone and access my subscription, I would have to buy a subscription for each iPhone/iPad that is not under my child’s iCloud account so that is extremely misleading. Another HUGE issue, is my is my toddler has an older iPad mini (2) running IOS 9.3.5 and this app CONSTANTLY crashes on her making it more frustrating with all the crying than fun. If it cannot support that iPad, well it shouldn’t be available for download. I wouldn’t recommend this app based on the misleading information. I’d rather just purchase apps individually than pay $7 (which is almost 2 apps) a month.

I love this app, it is adorable and entertaining for my 20 month old daughter. It’s comprises of a selection of games that entertain little ones well, especially on the cause/effect area. Coming upon the place to unlock the app, I came to find out it’s $6.99 a month or 19.99 a year, on sale.. what? That’s ridiculous considering it really isn’t educational and more interactive. That’s nearly a Netflix fee, for a series of games most kids will be bored of in 2~3 weeks time. I don’t understand the money grabbing here, there is a 24 hour trial but doesn’t justify the monthly price tag. Khan Academy Kids app is way more useful and just as cute, plus it’s educational. Don’t waste your money on this, cute but not worth the subscription put out by a fat cat.

My child is on the autism spectrum and has always adored the sago mini games. We have purchased every single one as it has come out. Suddenly this update comes about and was automatically downloaded into my phone instead of another sago mini app we already owned. my child sees it and immediately opens it. He became extremely frustrated to not be able to access all the games he knows we already own, because they are locked. I had to sign up for the trial in order to avoid a major meltdown. Now I am unsure as to how to proceed. Perhaps I am missing something but it seems I am being forced to pay a monthly fee for games I already own. Can the developers please explain how this will work for those of us who already have purchased all the apps before this?

If you’re willing to pay for the annual subscription, this app is worth it. It’s the app my 4 year old continuously uses when we are on the go.

However there is one bug that frustrates me to no end. All the tiny apps require downloading to play. Whether it’s an app update or something on the server side, at the moments you need to use the app the most (car ride, airplane), the app forgets these ‘downloaded’ mini apps requiring installation again. When you don’t have wifi that’s not possible, making the 40+ apps more like 8 and very frustrating for the little one who doesn’t understand why they can’t play all the games anymore.

I’ve redownloaded the app and tried multiple things but this constantly occurs and seems like a massive flaw in the experience.

Sago is great at making engaging content for children. I own all the apps. However, as I listen to the disappointing cry of my child who doesn’t understand sago world is the same thing he already has, I will add that sago world is a 1 star for me. Sago world requires a subscription for access to all the apps I already purchased. So if I bought the subscription I would be paying for a few features and ease of access which isn’t worth $40 a year on top of the price I already paid. I do wonder why you cant have a regular access portal for non-subscribers so that my child can access all the apps in 1 single app, you can make the games we own clickable and ones we don’t non-clickable. You could also add an option for those who bought everything already to get access to the extra features too.

BEWARE THIS APP IS A SCAM AND A HASSLE!

Listen: the interface is smooth and it’s cute as hell but here’s the deal...every game is essentially the same concept on a different background. Not worth it.

Worse, its been a nightmare to cancel the $6.99 subscription.

I removed the app and cancelled a monthly subscription a while ago and I am STILL being charged $6.99. HOW? I cancelled it on my phone and double checked on iTunes so WHY AM I STILL PAYING FOR THIS?! I don’t understand why this is so impossible to unsubscribe—my son lost interest after a couple weeks and doesn’t want to play anymore so STOP CHARGING ME AND REFUND THE MONEY YOU STOLE.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE PANDEMIC TO SCAM PARENTS IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.

so parents beware: Do NOT purchase a monthly subscription—YOU WILL REGRET IT.

I am surprised and, frankly, disappointed in Sago Sago for this latest update. My daughter loves the many games we have, including Sago Mini Friends. I am impressed by the level of creativity and ability of the Sago products we have. I especially loved that there were no in-app purchases to worry about my daughter clicking. How rare, I thought, to find a company so committed to its demographic that it makes it easy for a caregiver to play with the child or, periodically, let the child play independently for a while. I have recommended the Sago Mini games to many of my friends with young children or who care for young children.

Needless to say, I feel betrayed by Sago. Making people pay for the apps they already have... And pay a monthly fee, no less!?!? I am highly disappointed. You can be certain this is one update I will take care not to do! I will also think twice before recommending any of Sago's apps.