Hasbro Pop Goes Froggio review

The girls were really pleased when I got an email from Hasbro a little while ago asking if I'd like to review a couple of their games. The first one we tried out was Pop Goes Froggio, a game I'd never heard of before. The box shows a cheeky orange frog whooshing up in the air so the girls were immediately enthusiastic.

Inside the box, you get a footpump which you can attach to a spinner, in the middle of which sits a lily pad housing the frog. You also get a series of lily pad shaped cards which, on the reverse side, have pictures of the different animal characters matching those on the spinner.

The girls loved discovering all the different parts and it's really quick and simple to set up. The rules are also easy to explain. You put the different lily pad cards in different places around the room, face down or face up depending on the age of the children and how difficult you want to make it. One player spins the spinner, everyone looks at the character it lands on then goes racing off around the room to find the matching lily pad card. Once you've found it, you race back to the Froggio lily pad, stomp on the foot pump and try to catch the Froggio that goes shooting up in the air. If you catch it, you keep the card, but if you drop it you have to put it back (although the rules can be modified to fit the age and ability of the different players). The first player to win a set number of cards wins.

Although, if your house is anything like ours, the kids will soon give up playing properly and just have fun stomping on the foot pump to make the frog fly in the air ! It's actually quite difficult to get the frog to fly - it needs quite a forceful stomp - so 6-year-old Juliette got quite frustrated when she couldn't always manage it.

I love the way the game gets kids up and jumping/running around the room and this aspect reminded me of Elefun, another game we own which has an elephant with a long polythene trunk attached to a fan that blows little butterflies up in the air that you have to catch with a net. Sure enough, a closer look at the box and it says "Elefun and friends".

It's a fun game with simple rules that can be adapted to suit various ages, but the foot pump is quite hard to operate for smaller kids. I love the fact that it uses foot power rather than batteries and the energetic aspect of the game. You do need quite a lot of space to play it in though and it can be a bit dangerous if you have big kids charging around trying to find the right lily pads while their little brother is crawling around on the floor and trying to touch the Froggio lily pad just as they're getting ready to stomp on it !

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £15.99 (but only £9.94 on amazon)

for more information : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hasbro-16937-Goes-Froggio-Game/dp/B003EYUTT6

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Galt Toys Fab Fairies Kit review

Mookie QuickSmart Scramble Bug trike review

Bathtime Fun with Winnie the Pooh and the Disney Princesses !