Osmo Monster vs CrushStations
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Osmo Monster
Transform your child's drawings into animated characters that come alive in a magical world. Create and share animated adventures with friends and family, bringing imagination to life through interactive play.
- Drawings brought to life
- Create animated stories
- Save and share adventures
- Interactive character creation
- Magical world integration
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Bring your drawings to life! Each item you draw for Mo will be magically pulled into his world. Create animated adventures to share with family and friends. In Osmo Monster, your child’s drawings become part of magical animated stories with the help of Mo, a furry orange friend. Each item drawn for Mo is magically imported into his world. And every animated story can be saved to replay for family and friends. Play your favourite Osmo Monster on iPad! Requires the Osmo Base and Creative Set both can be found at www.playosmo.com Please see our device compatibility list here: https://support.playosmo.com/hc/articles/115010156067 **Oppenheim Best Toy, Platinum Award, 2016** - Toy industry's top award. "It’s cinematic." - Forbes "This is one toy I wish I had growing up!" - CNET "He’s the kind of creature you’d see in a Pixar film or on Sesame Street" - The Wall Street Journal About Osmo Osmo is using the screen to create a new healthy, hands-on learning experience that promotes creativity, problem-solving and social interaction. We do this with our reflective artificial intelligent technology.
CrushStations
This game trains working memory, a key executive function, by challenging players to remember creature colors and types to rescue them from an octopus. It's designed to improve cognitive skills linked to academic success.
- Working memory training
- Executive function development
- Creature memory challenges
- Educational game design
- Research-backed gameplay
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CrushStations is a game designed to train working memory, a subskill of executive functions. Working memory involves holding information in mind and mentally working with it (Diamond, 2013). Players need to remember the color and type of creatures to free them and keep them out of reach of the hungry octopus. How does this support learning? Executive functions refer to a set of top-down, goal-oriented cognitive processes that enable people to control, monitor and plan behaviors and emotions. Miyake and Friedman’s model supports a unity-and-diversity view of EF in that it incorporates the three distinct but related components of EF: inhibitory control, task-switching and updating (Miyake et al., 2000). What is the research evidence? Our research suggests that CrushStations is an effective way to train working memory. The study supporting this claim will be published soon. Research has found that EF is related to performance in literacy and math along with long-term gains in school performance and academic readiness (Blair & Razza, 2007; Brock, Rimm-Kaufman, Nathanson, & Grimm, 2009; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006; Welsh, Nix, Blair, Bierman, & Nelson, 2010) and that disparities in EF among preschool children from low-income versus high-income homes may contribute to the achievement gap (Blair & Razza, 2007; Noble, McCandliss, & Farah, 2007). This game is part of the Smart Suite, created by New York University’s CREATE lab in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Barbara, and The Graduate Center, CUNY. The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A150417 to the University of California, Santa Barbara. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: CrushStations at 4.5 against Osmo Monster's 4.1. CrushStations also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). Osmo Monster's advantage is update cadence (every 2 months vs every 13 months) and ratings volume (768 vs 11). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
CrushStations holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Osmo Monster has 768 ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 61% of Osmo Monster's written reviews are positive against 50% of CrushStations's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Osmo Monster ships an update every 2 months, CrushStations every 13 months. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.
| Parameter | Osmo Monster | CrushStations |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (768 ratings) | 4.5 (11 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 61.2% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 768 — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 13 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 567 MB | 294 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tangible Play | New York University |
Customer experience
Osmo Monster
CrushStations
Bugs and requests
Osmo Monster
Reported bugs
4 issues- Drawings not showing up correctly
- Compatibility issues with newer iPads
- Sound not working in the app
- Frequent crashes and freezes
Requested features
5 requests- Add more adventures and stories
- Improve drawing recognition and responsiveness
- Introduce new gameplay modes
- Add support for newer iPad models
- Provide French and other language options
CrushStations
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Osmo Monster
No in-app purchases
CrushStations
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Osmo Monster free?
Is CrushStations free?
Which has better reviews, Osmo Monster or CrushStations?
Do Osmo Monster or CrushStations have ads?
Which is updated more often, Osmo Monster or CrushStations?
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