When it comes to plastic toys, our focus has shifted to recycled plastics - Sprig Toys' wood-and-plastic Sprigwood, and the nice, clean colors of Green Toys' dump truck and recycling truck (all highly recommended).

But sometimes it's useful to be reminded of just how far pure, injection-molded plastic can take you when you have an idea to push to its limit. Tier Toys is up to just this kind of work with their Animal Stackers line of toy animal sets. Thanks to the finely-tuned detail you can achieve with virgin plastic (phthalate- and lead-free, per CPSIA certification), Animal Stackers get more interesting on closer inspection, but not interesting enough to justify the asking price for most parents.

The company sent us their Noah's Ark Animal Stacker for review, and Z and I quickly realized that we weren't just dealing with a toy set and its storage bin, but a toy set and puzzle combined. The most fascinating thing about the set is the level of detail in molded plastic figures whose colors suggest something much broader. The features of the animals - feathers, horns, fur, feet - are matched perfectly by those of their matching resting places. The way the snakes fit into the little snake holder is, for lack of a better descriptor, pretty sweet.


The stacking and unstacking is fun, too - it makes putting the animals away a part of the play, and for those of us (me, not Z) with compulsive tendencies, it makes it MORE FUN than playing with the toys. But it does inhibit some aspects of regular pretend play, an impairment that was keenly felt by Z. For one thing, there is no interior space to play in - the "doors" to the ark open up on a wall - and of course the little room on the deck is not a room at all, either.

Of the many themed sets these human and animal sets come in (farm, castle, giant dog house, etc.), the Ark seems like the most conceptually pleasing execution of Tier Toys' founding idea. Although the Sea Explorer looks like a nice play set, too.

We see price as the big barrier here. Noah's Ark is listed on Amazon for $70 and is currently out of stock. That was Tier Toys' original MSRP, and it made our jaws drop. They have since officially dropped their MSRP to $50. But we think even that is high. I'm just not sure you can really sell a bunch of brightly colored plastic animals, however nicely made, and however nicely packaged in a carrying case that is also a strange puzzly thing, for that much money. It looks like the full Tier Toys lineup will be available on Amazon when they are released, but if the current list prices are to be trusted, they'll be selling for $60 to $100, depending on the set - shipping straight from Amazon, and available for pre-order now, which makes us think the pricing is not a fluke.

I'm not saying let's all pounce on overpriced toy X; I'm just saying, how many of us could justify that expense when our child is just as happy with greener alternatives that are much less expensive to boot? If we really want small plastic animals, we can get them in a tube.

One more note for toy afficionadoes. Tier Toys' manufacturer, the brightly-named 3d FunTimes, is an Australian startup with patents and CAD molding capabilities and other weird startup toymaker stuff. But they are looking for partners to contract with to apply these patented technologies to other toys:

The company can use its unique patent to create learning toys and puzzles from almost any existing range of toys in stores today. The Company was established to license this patent to existing toymakers for application across their existing toy lines.

Playmobil Stackers to help us sort all those itty bitty parts - now there's something I'd like to see.

As for Tier Toys' non-collaborative lineup, we'd love to see a much smaller scale that could bring the price down - say, 10 animals in a smaller stack of compartments that sold for $15-$20. Likewise, I could see sets that capitalize better on the "puzzle" aspects of this toy - a fossilized dinosaur whose bones can be removed and returned to an archaeological dig.

I have an off-label use for this toy that I'm itching to try. We'll get a video up if we can implement it without damaging our Animal Stacker's donation value.

Edited to add: This toy is rated for kids ages three and up.

Our Tier Toys Noah's Ark Animal Stacker will be donated to a local charity or given to a child outside of our family.