As I mentioned last week, when I reviewed (here) their Pop Goes Froggio game, the lovely people at Hasbro kindly sent us some toys to try out here at The Madhouse and the girls have been having great fun giving them a thorough testing. Next up was Monkey Dunk, another game that I'd never heard of.
It actually reminds me of a modernised and much more fun version of the old classic Tiddlywinks (a game the girls had never heard of, which I found quite shocking ! I must teach them some more of the really traditional games over the holidays.) Instead of counters, you have to flip little plastic mokeys into a plastic "lagoon", which the girls thought was hilarious - although it's not as easy as it looks for little fingers.
I love the way there are no complicated rules so even young children can jump straight in and play without lots of long-winded explanataions. 9-year-old Sophie and 6-year-old Juliette both happily played together and, for once, they were pretty much on an even footing which is nice. All too often, Juliette gets frustrated when she can't manage as well as Sophie or understand complicated tactics and that didn't happen at all with this game. A great aspect is that you can make the game slightly more complicated (or even up the odds for the youngest player if there is a big age difference between players) by using the added extras like the lily pad blocker, or the banana tokens to score.
This is another game from the Elefun range (like Pop Goes Froggio) so the cheeky elephant puts in a surprising appearance to make the game even more exciting. You push him down in one of the lagoon holes and after a few minutes he will pop out to stop play (which reminded me of Pop Up Pirate). The girls loved the element of surprise and thought it was even funnier if he made monkeys pop out at the same time.
I think this picture just about sums up what the girls thought of it really !
It's aimed at kids aged 4+ and 2-4 players can play at any one time. It needs a fair amount of space on a table or hard floor but is really quick to pack away as you can play in the base of the box (always a plus point !). Each game only lasts about 15 minutes but if our house is anything to go by, your kids will play for much longer than that each time !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £16.28
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Having 4 young children this looks fantastic!! The pictures you have taken are great & you all look like you had loads of fun. 4.5 is a great score too, may have to scope this out for Xmas x
ReplyDeleteThis looks a fun simple game that all the family can join in with!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a good game for our household, where if the rules are in any way complicated the game gets left to gather dust!
ReplyDeleteI like it, game looks great!
ReplyDeletelooks great, my daughter got so many games last year for birthday/christmas but they are such great fun and she plays with them so much its def worth it. another thing to add to the christmas list!
ReplyDeleteThese look great fun, my DD is probably a bit too young to understand how to play but something to add to the Christmas games list
ReplyDeletehehe that looks like such fun and your girls look like they had a fab time playing :) xox
ReplyDeletemy three year old couldn't quite get the hang of flicking the monkeys but my 75yr old mum excelled at it!
ReplyDeleteThat looks great - I used to love tiddly winks when I was little:) @kikicomp
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