Pop up pirate is a game that I remember playing as a child, it is one of those games for the whole family to enjoy together and it is for that reason that I bought it for my daughter last year. It is imperative to me that we have a large selection of family games to play, it seems that nowadays as my daughter is getting older I have to bribe her time with an array of games and prise her away from her collection of toys that she would rather play solitarily.


Pop up pirate is basically a game of luck; you are given 4 different coloured swords - with there being a different colour for each player, so there can be 4 players in total. - The aim of the game is to take it in turns to place the swords into a special barrel trying not to pop the pirate as you do so. The person to pop the pirate is the loser. The barrel which holds the swords and pirate is basically as it sounds, it's very plain and simple in design and looks very similar to a normal barrel, the only difference being the slots all around the sides to hold the swords and the hole at the top within which the pirate sits ready to pop up.


There is not much skill involved in this game and it's not difficult to learn the rules, even for a three year old. This game states that it is for children aged 4 years and over, I bought it for my daughters third birthday because I didn't think that that age range was correct and I turned out to be right, my daughter had no problems learning the rules within the first play and she had relatively little problems whilst playing it.


To begin the game you have to load the pirate into the barrel, it took us a couple of plays to learn this but every time you load the pirate you must twist him onto the base to reset the barrel. If you fail to do this correctly the pirate will continue to pop up when the sword is placed into the same hole as the time before. Setting up the pirate correctly resets the hole and creates a new game every time.


The thing I like most about the game is the ability to play it with my daughter, the thing she likes most however is the surprise of the pirate. During the whole game her face is lit up with both excitement and nerves waiting for the pirate to pop up and when it does pop up she gives a little jump accompanied by a pearl of laughter which is lovely for me to be able to see.


The game doesn't last for very long and this is definitely one of its major downfalls, an average game with two players last no more than 5 minutes, of course you can play it again and again but it does become rather boring and tedious after a while and even my daughter gets fed up after the third round.


Overall I do really like this game and more importantly so does my daughter. I don't think that it is really a game for older children and it is definitely not something I would buy for older nieces and nephews, I think that because the game is so simple and easy to play it is definitely one for younger children of around preschool age. I wouldn't say that this is the best game that we own, but it does provide some fun and my daughter enjoys it despite the game play not being very long.


The game comes in a handy storage box which perfectly fits the barrel and all of the accompanying accessories, it's just the right fit so it doesn't take up too much room in the cupboard either. We have owned the game for almost a year now and I must say that the quality of the game is ok, but not excellent. It is still in full working order due to it being mainly plastic but there are (or were) many stickers on the barrel. These actually fell of eventually leaving a very ugly looking sticky residue on the barrel. This isn't a major issue however and doesn't affect the game play at all. This game doesn't require any batteries or such things and can bought from amazon for £16.99 which is a relatively reasonable price to pay. I would recommend this game with a warning that the game play is not very long.