From the Manufacturer
The player that can balance the coral without making it fall is the winner. This game for 1- 4 players. PlanToys creates toys that inspire children’s imagination as well as promote their physical and intellectual development. We’re also proving that it is possible to maintain superior quality standards while steadfastly following a path of environmental and social responsibility. PlanToys practices the “”Three R’s”" of green living: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycl…
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I was pretty excited about this toy. We already own the cactus, and from the looks of this one, it seemed it would be the cactus, but more difficult. That’s completely true, but for the wrong reasons.
What this sculpture/balancing toy consists of is:
- 1 unfinished wooden egg-shaped base (roughly 3″ by 2″), with 3 vaguely flattened sides to give it some measure of stability. If you set it on its side there are two holes in the top of the base to build upon (they say you can build from the sides as well as the top, but that’s not true – the pieces fall out), and if you set it on either of the ends, there is only one hole on which to construct your coral sculpture.
- 4 long links of coral (5.25″) which consist of 3 attached sections in gradated colors (yellow, light orange, dark orange). At each joint between colors, these can be rotated 180 degrees. They can be pulled apart too, as they are attached by small plastic pieces, but this doesn’t have any advantages.
- 10 short links of coral (3.75″) which consist of 2 attached sections (yellow and dark orange) and have one joint which, again, can be rotated 180 degrees.
Each section of the coral pieces has 2 holes – one in either side – and one at the top for a total of seven holes in the large pieces, five in the small ones. This would seem to provide ample building space, but only one hole per section can be used as the peg fills the hole entirely – so halve those numbers, and that gives you the total usable holes for which to fit the pegs, which does in fact restrict building a bit. But that’s actually not the design flaw.
The design flaw relates to how loosely each piece fits into the holes. This is the same with the cactus, but in the case of the cactus a piece will rotate once, just after you’ve placed it, then stop, and you’ve still got a stable structure. With the coral, rotation of multiple pieces is not only possible, but very likely, each time you place a successive piece. And because the base is egg-shaped and rather precarious, this means that if one or two pieces upsets, the whole darn thing comes down. It’s not just difficult – as another reviewer suggests – it’s a flawed design. And it’s just not much fun. I mean, seriously, if you breathe too hard, you might cause one piece to rotate which will cause a chain reaction, and the structure collapses. If the pieces fit snugly together this wouldn’t be an issue. If the base were constructed with this issue in mind it might only be a minor annoyance.
As it is, I’ve fully assembled it once myself (the kids can’t make it past two pieces, and my husband – who received this as a gift – was disenchanted from the start). After it was done, I was rather pleased with myself. Until I got up, and without touching it, the pieces began to swivel and my lovely coral sculpture collapsed.
Fortunately this toy was bought at a 50% discount of MSRP. Had it been a twice that, it would have been pretty devastating. Even at what was paid for it, it’s not worth it. Which is a shame. This is such an aesthetically pleasing toy. We’ve not really been disappointed with any of our other Plan Toys, but this one is absolutely, unequivocally, a dud.
If you want a good balancing toy, buy the cactus instead. It’s not just more fun, better designed and at least equally attractive (probably more so), it’s also less expensive.