Customer Reviews

ello - Ellopolis - 109 Pc Character builder set

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This set has many versatile pieces. The little people are a little annoying, and I wish they would include more of the larger flat pieces for building, but my 4-year old loves the people.

Historically, girls have been left out of the building-toy loop (although I always remember playing with legos and other building toys when I was a kid, but I had many brothers). This is a great toy to encourage creativity and to get girls to wonder about how things are put together. It is irresistably fun as well.

We gave this toy to my 5-year-old nephew. He really enjoyed playing with it but was worried that his friends might think it is a "girl" toy. I would think twice about giving it to a boy who succumbs to peer pressure, although as I said it is quite irresistable.

My friend has Ello, and I've noticed a few things about it.

First of all, what girl wants to play with the Ello people? They're ugly little robot-looking things. Sure, it's cool that you can build and design them, but still. My friend plays with her Polly Pockets on the houses instead.

Second, the pieces are rather hard to stick together. One time when my friend and I played, her house kept falling apart and she had to repeatedly re-attach the pieces, only for them to come apart again.

Finally, my over-all opinion is, if I want a house for my toys, I'm going to buy a Polly Pocket house, or build one out of sturdy blocks, not flimsy plastic Ello pieces. I don't have any desire to own Ello.

Ello playsets are the best. They are so much fun to play with and there is no specific thing that you have to biuld. Everything is from your head. The best part is that they dont give you specific ideas either so you creation never seems worse then any other creation because most of the time they are different.

This has been one of the greatest additions to our toydom. My three girls (ages 9 and 5 and 5) and my architect trained husband take over the living room, forget to eat and never tire of this toy. It has inspiring colors, shapes and is easy to use. Only limited by their imagination they have built towers taller than themselves, spread their metropolis into other rooms and create the most amazing creatures and people. The challenge now is to find the perfect storage unit...

Although the age range is for 5 and up, I actually bought this for my 2-year old after she played with it at the home a friend's daughter, aged 6. (There are certainly many small pieces, but we only play this together -- i.e. she is never unsupervised). My 4-year son also plays with this quite a bit.

I find that this set is a very good value in comparison to the larger Ello sets -- you get fewer pieces in this set (especially the larger "plates") but you still get enough to make four people, and good selection of assorted pieces to put together a wide variety shapes and scenarios.

With a little help here and there, my 2-year old daughter is quite able to put most of the components of an Ello person together herself. (However, we've had Lego around since she was born, and for her age she's unusually good at building with those as well. If you're considering Ello for a younger child, your mileage may vary).

And I'm quite impressed with the durability, in that the sticks that you use to string the people together do not seem to break -- my daughter's inadvertently bent several of them virtually at a right-angle, and they're still intact. Again, though, I recognize that this is not designed for her age group, so the fact that she can still use it is a big plus.

Basically, this is very good starter set, especially in comparison to the larger set which is double the price but (I seem to recall) not quite double the pieces. This starter set doesn't have the reusable stickers, but we haven't really had need for them.

Overall, I'd say this is a good way to give the Ello line a "trial run" if you're unsure of whether your kid will like it. But based on the play value my kids have had so far, I think it's a keeper at our home.

My seven year old sister just got this set for christmas and my whole family has been playing with it! It's so fun how you can create anything including jewlery. We can't wait to get the bigger set.

My 10 yr. old daughter loves these! Keeps her brain & hands busy making creative little works of art.