When I was a child I owned a Pop up pirate and it was a game I truly loved. Now I have my own son I bought him a pop up dragon which was the ELC equivalent of the original Tomy game but I was disappointed so when I saw Pop up pirate on a car boot for 50p I jumped at the chance to buy it for my three year old son.

My son has a love of pirates and did enjoy the ELC game the problems with that game meant he lost interest quickly. I was actually quite excited myself and when I opened the box and discovered that this game now has a base to put the barrel on. This is a change from the original game I owned.

How to play?

To start the game is that each player has a set of swords there are four different colours: red, yellow, blue and green. The game is designed for between two four player so how the swords are divided does depend upon the number of player. My son does not allow me to have any blue swords as I am not a boy. The barrel is balanced on the base then the pirate which has a Treasure Island scene sticker which has the required treasure chest for a pirate ocean scene. To put the pirate in the barrel you need to turn as you push him down. Each player then takes it in turns to push a sword into the barrel until the Pirate pops out.

Our Experience.

I have found the additional new base a bit of a disappointment. It does nothing to make the makes more stable and with a little better design could have been an improvement. The pirate is easy enough to push down but my son doesn't tend to turn at the same time which is an important step otherwise the same hole activates the pirate to pop up each time. I found the swords do go into the barrel much firmer than the flags in the Castle on the ELC version. It is also much clearer for my son to see whether it is completely inserted although he does sometimes not realise this and it has to be pointed out to him.

My son has just started playing structured games of this kind and this game is ideal for teaching him to take turns. At times he does find this difficult as he wants to win and will remove my swords , He will also not necessarily wait for turns but then he has to wait for me to complete the game if he hasn't popped the Pirate out and I find this a subtle way to teach him to take turns.

I do think it is important to make people aware that the Pirate is made of hard plastic and does pop out with some speed to it is important that your child does not look over the barrel as it could cause injury. This is not something I have ever had to talk to my son about though.

All parts do seem too strong and robust as I would expect from Tomy. The game I bought does have some damage to the sticker with the name pop up pirate but I removed it and it now looks like new.

This is a game my son does also play on his own which does mean that he doesn't have to have turns although I do supervise this from a distance to check the swords are in and that he doesn't put his head over the barrel.

This is a great game for developing hand and eye co ordination, Learning social skills and having fun at the same time.

I have previously worried about introducing my son to swords and similar armoury at a young age but once he watched Peter Pan he started using anything as a gun or sword and I do now feel it is just a game rather than worrying he is going to turn into a serial killer from these kinds of harmless games. As the swords go directly into the barrel he doesn't connect that it might hurt the pirate.

This Game is recommended for children over four years of age and I do think to play the game probably this is a good recommendation I do think this is a great game for introducing structured games to younger children although this does require supervision and support.

This game is available from toys r us for £11.99 and I don't consider this to be a bad price although I did get a bargain. I would also recommend that you purchase this game over other versions even if they are cheaper it is worth buying the quality product in this case.