Whether you’re actually a kid or just a kid at heart, there’s never been a better time to love amazing toys like the ones we cover at The Verge. Big toymakers are capitalizing on adults’ disposable income and a recent wave of nostalgia for the ‘80s — the heyday of toys — like never before. Meanwhile, crowdfunding and 3D printers are letting tiny startups get in on the action as well.
The Lego Group’s running an online survey (via Jay’s Brick Blog) that starts out a tad boring, but soon reveals fun merch ideas!
Do note:
The designs showcased in this survey are purely conceptual. They represent imaginative ideas and creative exploration, but they do not guarantee or imply that LEGO® will produce them as actual products.
Remember Lego Masters Australia finalist Nick Lever’s amazing custom Nintendo Game Boy MOC? I built one to personally confirm its excellence.
But Lever wasn’t done: his new v7 instructions lets the D-pad move, the contrast knob spin, and reduces the bill of materials. Enough to justify opening mine up again, I’d say.
Oh, BTW... he’s now got Lego Game Boy Color MOCs too! Check one out at the end of my gallery below.
Maybe not the GOAT, but it comes with a goat... and you can put a cheesemaker, shieldsmith, town guard, weaver, carpenter, minstrel, and barkeep to work in their own little shops and posts. Then rob them blind with the thief or the tax collector. Hey, somebody’s gotta pay for that castle, right?
The buildings are hinged like the castle, too, opening up for play. $229.99, coming March 1st.
They’re all still available for the moment, but the Mountain Fortress in particular is going fast... Update: That’s one’s sold out. More about these unofficial official Lego sets in my story. You’ll need a BrickLink login and a Lego login to snag one. Checkout seems to be working: I successfully nabbed a Parisian Street.
The new sets celebrate the 25th anniversary of Lego Star Wars and most notably include a 9.5-inch-long Millennium Falcon and a 12.5-inch-long Tantive IV. Despite bringing the sets down in size, the Millennium Falcon still costs $84.99, while the Tantive IV is priced at $79.99.
There’s also a new R2D2, Invisible Hand, and Tantive IV diorama set. They’re available for preorder on Lego’s website and will start shipping on March 1st.
This Lego build of Hokusai’s 1831 woodblock print, designed by Lego artist Jumpei Mitsui and assembled here in a 10-minute time-lapse that Boing Boing pointed to today, was recently featured in the Seattle Art Museum.
Correction: This story originally referred to Hokusai’s work as a painting, but in fact, it is a woodblock print. We regret the error.
Here’s my video TL;DR on the new Lego Ideas Polaroid OneStep set and how it compares to the real thing! And here’s my exclusive story about how Lego designs such a set.
A Polish website appears to have leaked a listing for a Lego Polaroid camera, as reported by Jay’s Brick Blog.
Based the photos and the (machine-translated) description of the listing, it doesn’t seem like the camera can take real photos, but it apparently can spit out Lego-ified photos if you load them up.
Here’s some photos from the listing.
CNBC reported that the layoffs, which follow a previous round that cut 800 jobs, come as the holiday sales boost the company hoped for never materialized, even given its rehash of former smash hit lines like Furby.
Nilay Patel interviewed CEO Chris Cocks earlier this year about the company’s missteps, like a controversial D&D license change it had to walk back, and struggles that lead it to sell its production company.
I kid you not: if I had to pick just one Lego set ever made, this epic transforming castle packed with clever details and play features would be the one. I sold off my airsoft guns to afford the $400 set at launch — now, Lego has it on backorder for $300 alongside the awesome Loop Coaster (also $300) and UCS Razor Crest ($420). I’ve never seen this one on sale before.
Note: If you buy something from these links, we might get affiliate revenue.
Bricklink is currently under maintenance, and Jay’s Brick Blog reports that it may be because of a suspected hacking or cybersecurity incident.
Bricklink’s maintenance message doesn’t make things sound great. “We are currently investigating some unusual activity, so it’s too early to speculate further. We will share more information once it’s available.”
We’ve reached out to a Bricklink customer support email to try and learn more.
Add Ted Lasso to the list of TV shows getting the Barbie treatment. Mattel’s offering three Barbie dolls based on the show’s wholesome characters. You can choose from Coach Ted, BFF Keeley, or the one I need, brick shith— err— AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Walton. The dolls are available right now, but it seems the Diamond Dogs have snapped them up already.
If you’ve been sleeping on Lego’s incredible $240 Atari 2600 replica... good! You can now nab it for $192 from Lego or $202 from Amazon. I love the pop-up diorama.
The massive 21-inch tall Hulkbuster is also just $385 right now (normally $550), and the best Luke Lego Landspeeder yet is $168 at Amazon (normally $240).
Note: If you buy something from these links, we might get affiliate revenue.
Lego has leaked its own Orient Express train set — as part of a truly excellent online catalog of its most detailed sets for adult tastes and budgets. Will those adult tastes extend to murder? It does include a well-dressed man with a walking stick — perhaps Poirot.
Here’s the fan set that inspired it; leaks suggest it’ll cost $300 for 2,540 pieces, and that it may have been delayed to 2024.
Thorston Bonsch has been building incredible Lego vignettes based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for years, and he’s now capped it off with an incredibly detailed version of the famous Hobbit-house with the round green door where Bilbo and Frodo lived.
I particularly love the pantry and dining room — can easily imagine them full of singing dwarves! (via The Brothers Brick)
The latest collab between Nintendo and Lego will feature the cozy world of Animal Crossing — though right now, it’s unclear just what the sets will consist of. Based on the teaser, though, things are appropriately adorable, and Isabelle unsurprisingly makes for a very cute minifig.
Meet Nerfball — Hasbro’s official way to play.
Tomorrow, Meta will explain why you should pay $500 for a Quest 3 at Meta Connect... and I’m starting to wonder if Lego will be part of the pitch. See the blocks in Zuck’s image below? They’ve got trademarked Lego logos on top!
But Zuck has since yanked his video, and Microsoft’s similar teases with Minecraft have yet to produce a killer app.
What’s better than a Mandalorian Jedi? A USB-powered one, of course. Not only does Hot Toys’ 11-inch tall Sabine Wren action figure reach uncanny levels of photorealistic, her miniature lightsaber lights up green thanks to USB-powered LEDs.
Oh, and you can roll her eyes at Ahsoka. Pre-orders are $271, figures ship mid to late next year. This Obi-Wan figure might beat her to a USB lightsaber by a few months, though.
Dart Zone is about to sell a pair of Stranger Things themed blasters — one fires darts out of a mini Demogorgon head that opens when you squeeze the trigger, the other out of a foam baseball bat covered in nails. That sounds safe! (FWIW, the nails are squishy.)
Guessing it’s just a cash-in, but maybe Season 5 will see the group wield such gadgetry? Here’s hoping.
In a world full of swiss-army-knife 14-in-1 docking stations, how do you make yours stand out?
RayCue’s formula: it’s also a digital photo frame... and a Bluetooth speaker... and charges both your phone and laptop... and comes with a secondary “keyboard” hub... and most importantly, lets you stick SD cards into a tiny Mac’s floppy slot.
