Arigomi

The Simpsons Season 23 Episode 11 Lisa visits a "BLOCKO" store. There are a lot of nice details like the Pick-a-Brick wall and the Cosmic Wars set Chubba the Shedd's Dust Palace.

The storyline hinted at the possibly of the dragons returning but in new forms. It would be nice to see new sets with all of the dragons redesigned.

An alternative to the ball and socket joints already exists, but it is more expensive to produce. It is an assembly made from 3 different parts (48170, 48169, 47455). The most recent example of these parts being used are in 6914 Prehistoric Hunters. Together, the assembly creates very strong joints that you can click into position by bending along the joint or twisting along the axis. It tends to be used only for brick built creatures. How about a theme inspired by Captain Planet and the Planeteers?

I wonder if TLG has any plans for a LEGO Friends game.

I have mixed feelings about the return of the classic shroud-type ghosts. I think an update using the CMF S6 genie tail/legs would've been nice. That mold has already been used in LEGO Spongebob for The Flying Dutchman's legs. If you combine that with a cape and matching minifigure hood, there is more room for variations and detail for ghosts. Unfortunately, that setup might be too expensive for the set's budget. At least with the classic ghost shroud, we can expect the glow-in-the-dark play feature.

The empty glass on the piano for collecting tips is a nice detail. While it is one of the weaker Friends sets, it does have a lot of potential for storytelling. This set looks like a lot of fun for little girls to live out their "Heartlake Idol" reality TV fantasies. I can picture it now. Peter sings a horrible rendition of Beyonce's "Single Ladies". Olivia, Andrea, and Stephanie don't hold back the harsh criticisms. Peter storms out of the room while holding onto delusional visions of becoming a singing sensation.

I'm impressed with this series. The repeats feel fresh and inventive. Some of the minifigures from past series felt incomplete. For example, the soccer player didn't have a soccer ball. It is good to see that series 6 addresses these concerns. Hopefully the new distribution will help alleviate the problems between army builders, collectors, and everyone else.

Creator still includes sets with brick built creatures. It is something you won't find in any other theme. For 2012, 6914 Prehistoric Hunters already fills the yearly quota for creatures. It looks7346 Seaside Home uses the new 1x4x2 curved slope brick (heavily used in the Friends theme) to create ocean waves. The brick built palm tree looks interesting.

Astrid is part of the design team for Creator. She has done some of the building tip videos, including one on designing cars. I'm pretty sure she was responsible for designing 5767 Cool Cruiser. Looking a pictures for 3315 Olivia's House, I noticed a new play feature that hasn't been implemented in LEGO houses before. All of the rooms and the rooftop patio are modular. This allows you to rearrange the house into several different configurations. This feature reminds me of a part in the businessweek.com article that mentions how the building process was tweaked to better fit with how girls play. The modular nature of the house means that girls can shift gears from building to storytelling by using just the rooms they have completed so far. I think its a very clever approach to address how girls play with LEGO.

I don't agree with the assertions that Friends sets are too simple in terms of building. This criticism might have applied to Belville but Friends doesn't repeat that same mistake. If you compare 8403 City House with 3315 Olivia's House you can clearly see that Friends has just as much brick building as any comparable set.

I wonder why they didn't make any with metallic silver. I'm more interested in that color than metallic gold.

Thank you for the great review Rufus! I've been eagerly waiting to see someone's thoughts on this set. It's sad to see TLG is still struggling for color consistency with yellow. I certainly would love to see more Creator sets in more unusual colors but it doesn't happen very often. Unlike other themes, Creator sets are in production two years and the use of special colors can be a problem if TLG decides to drop a color from the approved color palette for the upcoming year. I can see why some would like this car in red but it has to share shelf space with the red car, 5867 Super Speedster. It's good to see that the alternate models have same care and attention given to them as the primary build. It is interesting that you talked about Creator alternates coming from left field. The power boat from 5892 Sonic Boom isn't at all unusual from the perspective of the designers. Boats and planes share a lot of similar features including propellers and the use of inverted slopes. This similarity is the reason why aircraft in the Creator theme have a boat as an alternate build. I suspect that 5767 Cool Cruiser was designed by Astrid. She mentions on the Creator site that one of her favorite sets was 4993 Cool Convertible. She also did a few of the Creator video tips on vehicles. It would help explain the sporty and fun aesthetic of the design that you don't normally see from cars that are designed by guys.

City Alarm seems to take inspiration from the Heroica games. I'm surprised that it comes with the orange brick separator. I'm might just get it since it also comes with a complete set of printed 2x2 tiles for a LEGO die. Kokoriko looks like an interesting parts pack. You don't see 1x1 brick with studs on all sides in sets very often. The faces printed on the pink pieces are disturbing. Is that supposed to signal when a chicken lays an egg? It looks like black wrenches are being replaced with red crowbars as tools for removing tiles from the the LEGO die. The Minitaurus microfigs seem to have very detailed gold printing.

Like most series, there are only a handful that I'm interested in. Still, the amount of new parts are welcome. Little Red Riding Hood has very useful parts for anyone wanting to create a sorcerer for Heroica. I wish the female viking was a valkyrie with little wings on her helmet instead of horns.

The Life of George site is up and it has a very retro/modern style compared to most products by TLG. The companion Facebook page makes this product a bit surreal as well. I was surprised that real people actually bothered to post responses.

I have a hard enough time finding 1x1 round plates when they fall on the floor. Some adults use tweezers for more control and precision while building. I was impressed by the set though it costs 20,000 yen and looks extremely fragile.

The knife block is my favorite now.

I'm not surprised if a clone brand copies LEGO sets. What did shock me was how they went about it. Instead of copying the 3-in-1 concept of Creator sets, they repackaged the alternate builds as completely separate sets.

I love the concept behind this. Just like IKEA furniture, some assembly is required. I'm surprised you didn't give some of your creations Swedish sounding names.

From my own personal experience, the bricks and plates you find in K'nex sets don't have very much clutch. Things tend to fall apart from gentle handling if you don't interlock the plates and bricks. There is also a tendency to use stickers across multiple pieces. This is especially a problem with curved elements.

Overall, these sets have much more potential than Belville sets. There is more focus on building this time around instead of shortcuts with <insert that tiresome argument> parts.

The cattle stoppers for the vehicles in 4440 and 4441 are made from droid arms clipped to bars. In 4441, you can see the bottom bar is attached by 1x1 plates with clip on top.

I guess flick-fire missiles were too boring and thus, flick-fire snakes were born.

I wasn't expecting to see two vehicle sets per price point. Normally there is only one vehicle set at each price point since they will be sharing shelf space with Creator sets from the previous year.

A second house is pretty much a foregone conclusion if previous years are any indication. It is highly unlikely we will see something similar to 4954 Model Town House. While it looked impressive, it lacked the play features that kids wanted. It is the driving force behind the light brick in Lighthouse Island and the sound brick in Hillside House. I just hope that we can get some interesting colors for the walls and roof this time.