Pop Up Pirate is a simple idea for a game, yet lots of fun and very exciting to play, especially if you jump easily (like me!). We have had our for about three years, since my mom bought it for the kids as a present.


The game differs from a lot of family games in that it does not take ages to set up, or require screwing in lots of fiddly components. Everthing that you need is pretty much ready to go, apart from the little plastic swords that need pushing out of their frame, and a couple of stickers that go on the base. Five minutes work and you are good to go!


The game consists of a base, which is not really necessary to play the game, a plastic barrel with two rows of slots all around it, four different coloured sets of plastic swords in red, blue, green and yellow, and a little plastic pirate with a smiley face, who slots into the top of the barrel.


Once the pirate has been slotted into the barrel, the aim of the game is to slot swords into the slits around the barrel. One of the holes triggers a mechanism which makes the pirate fly out of the top of the barrel. This always makes me jump, and I'm sure I will have a coronary one of these days playing this game!


You can have as many players as you want, but idealy, this game suits 2-4 players. Anyone aged 3 and up can play this, as long as they have the co-ordination skills to slot the swords all the way into the holes. My little boy, has mild special needs, and has problems with fine motor skills, so needed a bit of help with this, although after a few goes he did improve a lot.


The game is great for building up tension, especially if it goes all the way down to the last few holes, and you know that one of them is going to trip the mechanism. It differs from similar games like Buckaroo, as it does not matter how gently you put the sword in to the barrel, the trigger hole has already been set.


A typical game lasts about five minutes, but you never just play one game. This is a game that you will want to play over and over again, and everyone wants "just one more go". It has a wide appeal, both to kids and adults, and makes a fantastic party game. You could add a twist that the loser has to do a forfeit!


I only have a couple of gripes with the game, but they are enough to make the game lose a Dooyoo star. Firstly, the game does not seem to go back into the box very well, and you wonder how it ever fit in the first place. After a very short time, our box broke,and we now keep the game in a chocolate tin! My second gripe is the fact that the mechanism does not always set properly, so sometimes you can get all the way to the end of the game and the pirate still hasn't popped, which is really disappointing. You can't play again until he has, and it can be a real pain trying to get the game to reset. Unfortunately this seems to happen quite a lot. You also need to make sure that the little swords don't get lost, otherwise you can't play the game properly.


Despite this, I think that Pop Up Pirate is a really fun idea. It is a game that we play every couple of months, and is especially useful during school hols, when you are running out of ideas for things to play! The little plastic pirate himself can be played with as a bath toy, or just as a character in his own right, as long as he doesn't get seperated too far from the game! The game itself is very useful because it suits all ages and big kids can play against the younger ones on a completely level playing field, as no amount of skill will win you this game, it is purely a game of luck!