Chimen

Durability: 5/5
Longevity: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Score: 84%
Conclusion: A quirky and imaginative toy that is really appealing to young children.

The idea for Chimen creative play sets was sparked by a large magnetic art installation. When artist Jonathan Bishop and his wife Samantha saw how fascinating it was to young children, they developed it into an interesting new toy.

Each set comprises a magnetic fold out scenery board, a set of magnetic pieces to move around the scene and a corresponding story. The stories are based around a boy and girl character, Milo and Mimi, and two sets are available – Milo and Mimi go to the Park and Milo and Mimi go to Planet Miso.

The pieces are bright and colourful, and made of heavy rubber ,so they feel really nice to hold and move around. We thought that Milo and Mimi looked a bit creepy, to be honest, but this view was certainly not shared by the children (with one little tester even chirping, ‘Look, it’s Mummy and Daddy!’ – cheers son).

Just as the husband and wife team who created the product found, we were instantly struck by how appealing this toy proved to children. They were drawn to it and spent a lot of time moving the pieces around. We were really impressed by how much scope the toy offered for creativity and imagination. Something about it just seems to give children the opportunity to make up stories and act out little scenarios.

A book is included with each set, which tells a simple story about the main characters. We didn’t find the stories to be particularly well written – they are not written in a way that is fully understandable  to the younger end of the stated age range (two to six) but the stories are also too simplistic to appeal to the older end of the range, who can understand them.

The pictures in the books, however, offer a great added dimension to the fun, as children loved to copy the illustrations and recreate them using the board and magnets.

This toy absorbed children for hours and is one that they seem to return to time and time again, offering excellent longevity. There is a nice mix between recognisable items (such as a star, rocket, kite and duck) and quirky items (such as a ‘roller bunny’ and aliens called Wawa, Gumbo and Eye) and the fact that this toy looks a bit different is really refreshing.

We weren’t so sure about the ‘space gun’ as part of the space-themed set (kind of spoils the whole ‘we come in peace’ thing) but that’s more down to personal preference.

For a toy with so many loose pieces, it’s really easy to store as the board folds in two and the magnets are strong enough to ensure that all the pieces stay inside.

Approx price: £19.99

Age range: 2–6

Website: www.chimen.co.uk