When we saw an advert for elefun, it looked like a fantastic idea and i really thought it would help with my nephews coordination. How wrong can someone be? The game should be renamed to eleflop for a number of reasons.

~~The Game~~

For anyone that doesn't know, Elefun is a game for children where butterflies are supposed to fly out of the elephants trunk and it's your job to catch as many as you can in your net. Simple enough - whoever catches the most of their colour wins. It works by placing the tissue paper butterflies into the elephants head. You then turn on the fan and the fan blows them up the trunk and out of the hole at the end. This would be a fantastic game if it actually worked but it has more flaws than good points.

~~ My opinion ~~

There are so many flaws to this game that it's difficult to know where to start. It is based on a fantastic idea and i feel it's a real shame that it doesn't live up to its name.

Good Bits
~~~~~~

It's a fantastic idea that looks like a great idea on the tv with the children laughing and catching butterflies that slowly flutter to the floor. I mention this because i think it's the only good part of the game that we've found.

Bad Bits
~~~~~

Well, where do i start? It might be a fabulous idea but it hasn't been carried off in any way, shape or form. Assembling the nets was our first problem as my sister suffers from shaky hands and couldn't do it for the life of her. Seems a touch silly for a children's game, though it was easy to overcome (i did them). The nets aren't sturdy at all so if anyone drops them in amongst all the fun then don't expect it to survive if someone happens to stand on it.

The fan is the biggest disappointment of all and i find myself wondering why they made half an effort on what could be a fantastic toy. It requires 4 C batteries that aren't included with the game so you would think it could have power from that. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. We tried some cheaper batteries to start with (most toys take them fine and run out when they start to annoy you!) but quickly discovered they were nowhere near powerful enough. So we went out, bought some duracell batteries and tried those assuming it would be different. It wasn't! I ended up holding the elephants trunk in my hand in order to get the butterflies to come out - not ideal if you're actually trying to catch them! I do wonder why they couldn't have used mains power. I know it's a children's toy and you have to keep it safe, but believe me when i say a child will not be able to operate this without an adults help.

The butterflies were our next disappointment and probably the icing on the cake for us. They're made out of a kind of tissue paper and are twisted to allow them to flutter to the ground. This is far from reality and the butterflies hit the ground soon after coming out of the trunk. That is the ones that actually made it out as we found some of the butterflies would be stuck. I don't think 30 butterflies were enough to include either as you'd soon find them scattered around your house and without these, the game is completely useless.

~~Enjoyment~~

The children on the tv advert looked like they were having great fun and we were either very stupid or very naive to expect the same thing. All of the problems above stalled our sense of enjoyment and to be honest, we didn't enjoy it at all. The fan didn't have anywhere near enough power to move the butterflies and the trunk was too long for most of them to make it out.

~~Age Recommendation~~

It's recommended for children aged 3+ but to be honest putting the butterflies in was quite fiddly for us and you need quick reactions to actually catch any of the butterflies that come out. I'd say it was more suitable for a 5 or 6 year old.

~~Price~~

It's currently on Amazon for £12.71 but i think we paid around £15 for it. Value for money? No! I wouldn't buy this again, even if it was retailing for 1p.

~~Batteries~~

4 x C batteries and it can't be the cheap ones either. It says on the box to use high powered ones but if duracell won't work, i don't know what will.

~~Improvement~~

A couple of improvements that might make the game playable -

~ Use Mains Power. Obviously batteries aren't powerful enough and they have a very short life considering how expensive the game is and how expensive the batteries are. Mains Power might be more reliable and powerful enough for all of the butterflies to make it out of the trunk without holding it.

~ Chop the trunk. The trunk is obviously too long for the butterflies to come out successfully and this could easily be solved by making the trunk a bit smaller and the elephant at the bottom a bit bigger.

~ Include more butterflies. There were only 30 butterflies included and they are quite small so they would easily get lost throughout the house. We haven't played this game for months and i still find them in my little girls toy box.

~~My Verdict~~

This is definitely a flop and i wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's fiddly, expensive and a great big let down. Spend your money on another toy and give this one a miss.