GregoryBrick

Eurobricks Citizen
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  1. GregoryBrick

    Super Mario 2020 - Rumors & Discussion

    I'm curious, what can you do with the $10 City set that you can't also do with the Mario sets?
  2. GregoryBrick

    Super Mario 2020 - Rumors & Discussion

    It sure is, and it makes it obvious what the playability is - you have a Mario action figure and a world you can build and put him into and interact with physically, "making it fun to simply move Mario around". It's no different than if you could offer kids a Luke Skywalker action figure, but he made noises and spoke and his lightsaber lit up, all in various ways specific to the playsets you could buy and the way you moved him around and interacted with other figures. The fact that the Luke figure could just knock over the Darth Vader action figure, since there's nothing physically or electronically stopping it, is relevant only if you don't understand what 'playing with toys' is. It's the whole point of a 'game' - people can make up rules and then make themselves follow them if they want, for fun ("what's the point of archery, just walk up to the target and put the arrow right in there with your hands").
  3. GregoryBrick

    Non Kid-Friendly sets

    The point was made just fine: What counts as ‘kid-friendly’ is variable. We know this because you are arguing about should and shouldn't be in kids' toys. The rest was simply example: Some people say that LEGO sets with figures which represent characters who in other media are found to be LGBT, are not kid-friendly. Other people disagree. As for ‘this stuff should be kept out of media and toys’ - what’s ‘this stuff’? Toys and media are never neutral; they are one of the primary ways in which children learn about the world and what’s normal, possible, and what's good and what's bad. The fact that children can hypothetically imagine anything avoids finding out how specific toys influence children's play, and about the assumptions that children are or aren't likely to make about their toys. Are the characters in a wedding set getting married? How do children understand the figures in a valentine's set? What about characters who live together (e.g. Friends' parents)? This can only be answered by studying how children play with these toys, not by saying 'children can imagine anything no matter what, therefore the nature of a toy is irrelevant (but also it shouldn't have two dads)'.
  4. GregoryBrick

    The Lego Movie 2 - The Second Part 2019 Set Discussion

    I was tempted to agree (that the Rexplorer set is the feasible version of what's depicted), but that picture shows a ship in the shape of a fist, which the set itself doesn't even approximate.
  5. GregoryBrick

    Lego City 2019 - Rumours, Speculation and Discussion

    The Juniors Pirate set came out the same year they had a regular Pirates theme! The Junior Castle set came out the same time as the regular Castle theme! Surely there are plenty of themes which can currently house an idea as unique as 'a horse stable'. I've scrolled through the Juniors sets on Brickset. Where are people getting this idea that Juniors was some incubator for out-of-the-norm sets? I feel like I'm in a parallel universe.
  6. GregoryBrick

    Lego City 2019 - Rumours, Speculation and Discussion

    There aren't fewer options. Changing the words on the box from 'Juniors / 4+' to 'City / 4+' didn't do anything. The product mix for 2019 is still similar to that of 2018 in terms of the numbers of age-specific sets. How is it a downgrade? They can still make whatever 'Juniors' sets they want, just that this time around they'll have the words '4+' on the box instead of 'Juniors'. It's no more or less specific than before.
  7. The issue is that there is far more to a set's value than 'more ABS' = 'better than'. AFOLs aren't trying to extract as much undifferentiated ABS from TLG as economically as possible (or maybe they are ) - 1/2 kg. of multiple elements seems far more valuable than one element that weighs 1 kg. Anyway, great review Jim, both in photography and details on construction and parts. Nice catch on the linear actuator issue discussed above. I usually focus on System sets but this year's Technic offerings are really attractive. I find this model quite impressive.
  8. GregoryBrick

    The Lego Movie 2 - The Second Part 2019 Set Discussion

    That trailer is fun and I look forward to the film. As for the “post-apocalyptic” environment, that could take up as much screen time as The Old West did in the first movie (i.e. not very much). Two hours of “Mad Max Lego sets” strikes me as wishful thinking on the part of other people (I certainly hope there is more to the film than that).
  9. GregoryBrick

    What's going wrong with my Lego geometry?

    That's a real puzzler! Two questions: Are your vertical brown supports aligned properly? It looks like the ones at the top right of the castle mosaic are slightly rotated, which would push your blue/white/grey elements over the way they are shown. Does the top row of blue plates fit properly along the bottom brown plate? Just to check. Otherwise, beyond what others have said, all I can figure is that there is some sort of stacking error (the minute variations of those bricks are individually within tolerances but, by chance, this combination adds them up in this way?).
  10. GregoryBrick

    LEGO Pet Peeves

    I don't really cultivate pet peeves, but this itself probably fits the bill. If you would like to follow the company's official usage, then 'LEGO' is the plural form in the same way 'Sony' is, that is to say, not at all. You would not say "I bought a bunch of Sony at a garage sale". The official stance is that LEGO usually requires a specifier, e.g. 'LEGO bricks', or 'LEGO employees' or 'LEGO products' or 'LEGO history'. If you instead prefer a usage-based definition, then LEGOs is just as valid as LEGO is, since that is how people speak the language.
  11. GregoryBrick

    Lack of original themes

    Yes, so you agree that evidence matters when it comes to understanding these things (as does anybody doing research into play). When it comes to the question of whether a Nexo Knights figure takes 'more work' to animate than Mr. Classic Spaceman, and whether this supposed effort is significant in limiting children's play, I'm not committed to any conclusion, just that we should both (1) consult the evidence, and (2) according to your report of the evidence, the answer is 'it depends', not 'it's undeniably true' (which I grant you did not assert).
  12. GregoryBrick

    Lack of original themes

    I asked for facts about how kids play, instead of restating the conclusion as though that were proof ('established narratives impede imaginative play'). And I get accused of denying the existence of facts! Oh well. I still think it's entirely possible that an established story enables further imaginative play as much as it limits it, and that it would be worth checking. Maybe I should say "this is true because everybody knows it and if you deny it you are silly, and people should just concede my point".
  13. GregoryBrick

    Lack of original themes

    Speculation about how children use established narratives in their play doesn’t tell us much without actually checking how children play in practice. You can’t just deduce the facts from your intuitions.
  14. GregoryBrick

    Lack of original themes

    Anyone who doesn't agree with your statements is 'pretending' and willfully misunderstanding? That's unfair. For what it's worth, no, I have zero trouble reimagining any figure, Star Wars or otherwise, as something else. I think many other useful comments on the matter have already been made by other posters.
  15. GregoryBrick

    Lack of original themes

    Extra work by who? I have a bunch of Ninjago and Nexo Knights sets - as far as I'm concerned, there's a bunch of (different?) ninjas in red outfits, some in blue, etc. I don't know much or really care about who is who and it didn't take any 'work'. As for children, the ones i've seen playing with LEGO might not know the names to begin with either, and/or they have have zero problem renaming and reframing the characters (and shields, etc.) they are playing with. I'd like some evidence that the provision of a narrative structure does what people here speculate it does.