IAmWillGibson

My wedding in October used the official kit [minifigures were tweaked to match the humans a little better]. It fit the context of the whole event quite well, but I can see what you mean about the arch. We were back and forth on it for a while, but ended up sticking with it for simplicity at the time. Although the arch suggested by the designers a few posts above would probably look pretty clean and effective.

The other part of me feels that any model that's physically built it obviously physically buildable. I think this was brought up by GlenBricker once, but it would be nice if there was some sort of lower threshold, where a project that IS physically buildable that gets some amount of support less than the impossible 10K, which has attracted their attention and general approval of LEGO, could at least get recognized and have its instructions printed. There needn't be a marketed set for smaller builds made of real, available parts. Like the Reddit Alien. The Birds project. Stuff like that anyone who wanted to could make. But I guess the goal is to sell LEGO to people who don't already have it. Maybe I'm just touchy about the digital build thing because my stuff isn't buildable in real life. But I have made the effort to go beyond simple LDD image capturing when possible. POVRay is a good tool, man. If only it were faster.

Physical builds give you no better idea than a virtual build, because whatever you see in the pictures of a propsal are not in any way definitively indicitive of what the end result will be. LEGO will still tear down and rebuild any winning proposal and produce a set they want to produce. The UCS Sandcrawler, for example, would in no way be anywhere near as huge and complicated as the one presented. Same with Perdue Pete. Were it to get produced, I could easily see it as a very small desk set. The pictures on these things are eye-candy, sure, but at the end of the day, LEGO basically takes the title of a winning proposal and does what they want with it. Ergo, it's meaningless to be married to a lovely physical build. CUUSOO would almost be better off being text-only.

I find it almost cruel that LEGO is officially releasing these sets four days after Black Friday. I still hold out some small, idiotic hope that my store will have them on the shelves Friday morning when I get to the mall early and wait in line like a fool.

Luck's got nothing to do with it. My general lack of spacial awareness and questionable sense of colour will be the real hurdle. Oh, and really, really not wanting to go up to Vaughn for a job. But hey, I got a Saturday afternoon off, what the hey. Let's have some fun with some LEGOs.

Did anyone else apply? I have literally no idea what to expect.

That's an interesting point. I hadn't realized that's how it shook out. When I was talking about Monster Fighters, I wasn't so much talking about license issues as I was "brand fit" issues, and the fact that they're all based off "not-kid-friendly" concepts. Vampires and werewolves and zombies and death and such. But it's cool, 'cause it's cute. My game's only at a hair over 1% so it's hardly even worth thinking about, but I'd hate to get a good toehold on something only to have it scrapped for such a nebulous reason as "brand fit," so I've been pondering it quite a bit lately.

The licensing issue is a bit of a nebulous cloud when it comes to Lovecraft, but that's not even what I was asking. I mean if, for example, the Winchester had been marketed as the same model, but not specifically that bar from Shawn of the Dead [rather "Zombie club, when tired zombies go to drink carrot juice"], would that have made it okay as far as the brand fit question is concerned? LEGO can't make a model based on a non-kid-friendly property, but what about a model that just happens to look similar to something out of a non-kid-friendly property? You'd of course have no hope of gathering anywhere near the 10,000 votes you need for review, but you'd be able to avoid the more final hurdle of "it ain't right for us." I mean... if Monster Fighters can do it. Heck, I should rebrand my game as a Monster Fighters release but change absolutely nothing else about it.

Agh, I missed a T in there. Anyways, it seems to be LEGO is looking to hire a new Master Builder. In place of a normal job interview, they're holding some sort of zany live audition event that takes place Saturday and Sunday, the winner of which will be offered the job as the Master Builder at the new Discovery Centre. I have no idea how many people will be there or what any of the format's gonna be like, but we'll see if they approve of my building techniques.

Why has there been no mention of the Brick Factor event going on in Toronto next weekend? Is anyone here going to be a part of it? I'm in Group 4, if anyone wants to come and root for me!

Here's a quandary growing out of the topic the thread has found itself discussing. My current project is a boardgame. The theme is based on the works of HP Lovecraft. Now, yes, fine, I know this is extremely unlikely to pass the Brand-fit test [even though in order for children or their parents to know it isn't age appropriate, they'd have to read, so it's arguably encouraging education, not to mention the average Lovecraft story is not much darker than the last Harry Potter film]. But in trying to make the rules sound as official as possible, I've removed almost all specific references to Lovecraft. The only thing now clearly linking it is the name of the game [Miskatonic Valley] and the fact I call it "Lovecraftian." Oh, and a tiny squid-headed monster [which uses an already-made LEGO element]. Do you think LEGO would ever make a license-skirting product? If I just called this "Ancient Monsters of Massachusetts" and went forward with it, would the fact that it's clearly Cthulhu and yet doesn't call him that make a difference?

That was an awesome review. Of course, I was playing a drinking game [one shot per "very nice," two per "as you can see"] and as such, I'm super drunk right now.

Toys Toys Toys in the Eaton Centre. Although I would never recommend supporting that store.

When are these guys getting released at LEGO stores? There's a store downtown here that has the whole range up on the shelves, but they always overcharge so I avoid buying there. I hope to grab up a few of these sets on Brick Friday, but I'm unsure if they'll be available. I hope so. It's really where I wanna put my LEGO money and I can't really think of anything else to spend the $100 on.

So I know there are reviews and stuff, but are the Hobbit sets supposed to be out yet? The Toys Toys Toys in the Eaton Centre [Toronto] have all of them. I didn't buy any because of that store's policy on jackin' the price up sky-high, but still, it raises some interesting questions: Does this mean LEGO Stores will have Hobbit stuff on Brick Friday? That will make getting to the rewards threshold that day much easier. Secondly, did T3 release this stuff early, and if so, does LEGO care about that stuff? Is there any penalty for selling stuff before release day? Just, you know, curious.

But is CUUSOO a model show or an ideas farm? If LEGO is going to rebuild a winning model as it sees fit anyways, the model you show doesn't actually matter at all. Also, my current thing I'm promoting features a lot of pieces in colours they don't currently come in. That should not stop me from being able to suggest it and see if there's interest. People need to see CUUSOO in the right light. It's not "Hey, this is cool!" but rather "Hey, wouldn't this be cool?" Re: your point on Licensing, all my stuff tends to be based on Lovecraft, and is that licensed or not? I have no idea. So I'm glad that's not something in the way of the project.

Yeah... that's enough to drag me to the store on Brick Friday. I'd have been extra-special friends with LEGO had the Hobbit stuff been out by then [fingers crossed maybe they get it early?] but there's bound to be something on sale I want, or I'll bite the bullet and get the Winter Cottage.

I don't think the Western Town and Lone Ranger need to compete with one another. A simple method would be to not include Minifigures in the CUUSOO release. It's no longer a "competing Western Range" nor need it be a "Western theme." It's a structure. A well-designed and attractive [one would hope] building that, yes, happens to represent a Saloon of some sort. On the other hand, though, LEGO could have done this with the Haunted House but didn't, instead specifically tying it in with Monster Fighters. Although that may have just been so they COULD include the Minifigures.

The game's now in the Top 10 for last week on CUUSOO, so that's awesome. I mean, yeah, it's only with a scant 85 votes, so that tells you how chill that environment has gotten, but ti's still nice to see it up there on the front page.

I'm hoping to become the first D2C LEGO Game. Is such a thing possible? Highly unlikely, but it's fun to dream.

So It looks like I won't be getting a Leonardo figure, which sorta stinks.. but I don't want to get either of the sets he comes in. I'm definitely getting the three small sets , though. Maybe I'll just have to keep an eye out for a Leo Keychain or whatever.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the marshland was always the weakest link, and I've been toying the the cabin to the point I'm pretty happy with it. There's also quite a few newly-coloured things in there that make the whole set not physically buildable at this point [the shoggoths and Cthulhu being main ones]. It's funny you point out the wingspan, as it was a concern. But I built this trying to remain as feasible as possible, so I tried to not use too many pieces just for the sake of it, and try and reuse as many elements in similar colours as I could. So it's perhaps a bit more cramped than it could be, but it was for the sake of trimming the parts-count. Also, Cthulhu himself is pretty bendy, especially at the wings, so he can squeeze by. And yeah, the response is pretty chill, but on Cuusoo it's gotten better reaction than I thought it would. I know it's only a half of a percent, but getting 50 supports in a day isn't half bad by my standards. Now if I can keep updating and refining and find new groups of interested nerds... that's the hard part.

Dudes, I'm just happy my new idea got 20 supports in the first day. That's, like, a record for me. Now, I know those are the only 20 supports it will ever get, but it still made for a happy yesterday. And I also know there's no hope of a 600+ piece LEGO Game ever being made, but still. I feel that there should be a sub-Cuusoo for licensed [or at least Star Wars] suggestions. They just bog the place down like crazy sometimes.

I continue to report to the audient void: I've officially remove the nondescript "marshland" from the map, and replaced it with the Abandoned Cabin, which, while clearly from Evil Dead, I feel could also pass as a generic Dunwichian location. And it's also more visually appealing than the other option I worked out [mentioned above], which is a cemetery with crypt, a design that doesn't sell itself at the size it was at. Here's an image of the three options. Feel free to opine one way or the other or the other.

My gerbil-powered computer finally spit out an attractive render. Here you can see the board layed out as it currently is, most of the buildings, and mighty Cthulhu rampaging from Devil Reef towards Sentinel Hill. There are a few investigators trying to deal with the Deep One and Shoggoth. Sorry if it's a huge picture. I'm happy with the state it's in, although I'm toying with switching the rather generic "marshland" to either a cemetery [hard to do at this scale] or "cabin in the woods" [not really from the source material and a little on-the-nose meta, but almost too tasty to pass up]. I also really like the Shoggoth.