Earlier in the year, we saw the arrival of LEGO DOTs: colorful tiles to put on over plates and bricks, available as bracelets and, in search of a better word, buildable homewares such as a pencil pot, jewellery stand and photo holders. There was also a supplemental pack, containing a mixture of round tiles, quarter circle tiles and a random assortment of printed round tiles.
There is a new wave launching at the start of June, and I was fortunate enough to find a couple of packs, amongst other June releases on the shelves at our local certified store a couple of days early. I picked up two packs of the 41916 Extra DOTS -Series 2, as well as some bracelets: ‘Go Team!’ And ‘Magic Forest’. Today, I will just look at the extra dots.
These pocket money packs contain 109 tiles, and include 10 ‘surprise charms’ – printed tiles. The bag is light apricot in colour and has a small window to allow you to see some of the elements inside. You can search for the emoji tiles inside, but I would not encourage unnecessary handling of packs as retailers start to open up after the pandemic lockdown. The bag is also printed with the 16 different emoji tiles that are available.
Now, when I said ‘new colours’, I meant ‘new colours for these elements’ There are around 20 each of the regular tiles in this pack. They include quarter circle tiles in flame yellowish orange and medium azure (both previously seen elements) and round 1×1 tiles in vibrant coral, bright blue and opalescent glitter – all of these recolours are new in 2020, with the bright blue the only one to have been seen – in the Hidden Side set 70428: Jack’s Beach Buggy. The flame yellowish orange appears, in my packet to be two slightly different hues, but not as inconsistent as I have previously seen. This colour, opalescent glitter and vibrant coral tiles all exhibited fluorescence under ultraviolet light. BUT, vibrant coral exhibited this far more than any of the other colours, almost overwhelming the camera sensor. Fun fact: The vibrant coral printing on the heart and ‘?’ tiles does not fluoresce.
As far as distribution of the ‘DOTS elements’: in the pack, there were spares of each colour: I unpacked 20/20 bright blue; 21/21 Bright yellowish orange; 21/21 medium Azur; 21/21 vibrant coral; 21/21 opalescent glitter. There were 11 emoji tiles in each. So, in a pack of ‘109 elements’, there are typically 115 parts. Essentially a spare of everything!
Compared with series one, the emoji tiles are square 1×1 rather than round. This pack feels quite different in terms of the designs – as such, some tesselation is possible. there are also some ‘retro slide’ and punctuation motifs. Like series one, I received a limited selection in my bag, with several duplicates. After two bags, I have eleven of the 16 final designs. I can see that kids would love swapping these with their friends. In two packs, here are the emojis I found.
The surprise charms/emoji tile distribution has been declared truly random by the designers – the round printed tiles from series one are stored in the same container in the LEGO Factory before being packed, and they all share the same design ID. I would expect something similar with series two.
The opalescent glitter tiles are the same colour as the gems seen in the 41903 Cosmic wonder.
Overall, this is another quality addition to the LEGO DOTS line. The more I look at DOTS, the more I find myself wondering how I might employ the space around a round or quarter circle tile to dither colors in a mosaic… perhaps that’s a workshop for another occasion.
With 109 parts, for $5.99 australia RRP, the tiles work out at around 5-6 cents each.
In the meantime, I’d love to see the tiles you get as you open bags of these. I hope to look at some of the new bracelets shortly, but until next time,
Play well.
