Month: October 2022

We Are Getting Some New Friends In 2023

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We have now had LEGO®Friends Sets on the shelves for over a decade, and during this time we have seen the girls grow, get rebooted and learn, while seeing each other through good times and bad. The girls who played with those first sets have grown up, and during the second half of the 2022, we have seen our core cast grow up and head off to pursue their dreams: Olivia at Space Camp, Emma at Art School, Stephanie sailing around the world, Mia rescuing animals and Andrea heading out to perform. All of this while welcoming new characters to Heartlake City.

During this time, we have been able to see our own kids grow up, and perhaps there is just a little too much backstory to catch up with, for newcomers to the brand. And so in 2023, we are going to see a new core group of friends, a new logo, and new stories to take place in Heartlake City. This change in direction was teased at LEGO CON 2022, but no further details were forthcoming.

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We Stress Test the New ‘In Box’ Paper Bags

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At the recent Recognised LEGO® Fan Media Days, we were treated to a presentation by the sustainability team with regard to progress being made on their various programs. The first part if the presentation was from Therese Noorlander, Senior Director of Sustainability Engagement. She spoke about some of the history of sustainability withing the LEGO Group – taking it back to the the Great Yo-Yo Craze of the 1930s: when the craze ended, leaving the company with boxes of unsold yo-yos, they were cut in half and used as wheels for toy wooden trucks, through to the ongoing research with regard to finding a sustainable material to use for plastic bricks. Most of this information has been published previously, and can be found on the LEGO Group’s sustainability website.
However, some of the most exciting news, not previously covered elsewhere, came from Anne Boye Møller, who for the past four years has been the Project Lead for the sustainable prepack. She works with a team based in Denmark and the Czech Republic and was proud to announce that the first generation packing lines are ready to go, and some of the first SKUs(sets) have been packed using these paper bags.

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Retro Review: 6034 Black Monarch’s Ghost [and who were they, anyway?]

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We recently took a look at aspects of the Classic Castle theme, in the LEGOLAND era. Now, in the Rambling Brick household, there is actually a distressing paucity of Castle sets from any era: By the time that the Castle Era was getting under way, with the arrival of the Crusaders and Black Falcons in 1984, I was well on my way to descending into my Dark Ages,

As such, virtually all Castle sets that I own are purchases I have made in recent years.

Today, we are going to take a look at a small set from 1990, 6034 Black Monarch’s Ghost. This set is one of two sets from 1990 that featured the new ghost minifigure. It’s a small set, with only 43 pieces, and features a number of aspects that make it a truly classic Castle set.

I may well get distracted, trying to reconcile the identity of the ghost, with the name of the set.

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Monkie Kid Seasons 1-3 Now Available to Stream in Australia

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Over the last few years, the LEGO® Monkie Kid theme has provided us with an imaginative, and somewhat colourful collection of sets, incorporating both fantasy and science fiction themes. However, the animated series has been available in only a patchy fashion in Australia, despite being the home of the animation studio.

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10 years of Super Heroes: 76210 LEGO® Marvel™ Iron Man™ Hulkbuster™ Revealed.

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Chances are you already saw the box images from when the set hit the shelves prematurely in Indonesia, but today the 76210 Ironman Hulkbuster is officially revealed.

Based on ‘Veronica,’ appearing in Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron the 52cm, Tall Iron Man Armour Mk 44 ‘hulk Buster’ is the tallest Hulk Buster released to date. It is also the priciest, at $USD549.99 €549.99 £474.00 $CAD699.99/AUD849.99! the previous record holder, 76105 released in 2018 had 1362 elements, while this new version has 4049 pieces! In 2018, when the last larger scal hulkbuster was released, a 4000 part set would have ranked in the top 15 sets for part count. In 2022, this set barely makes it into the top 30!

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Classic Themes: Defining Classic Castle

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In which we explore the early days of LEGO® Castle, take in the early factions, and look at just what made Castle sets ‘Classic Castle’…

Over the past 18 months, the Rambling Brick has looked at the development of Classic Town from the early days, through the System era, a World City inspired Dark Ages to LEGO® City we know today. We have followed this up with a look at Classic Space, and its evolution through to the turn of the century. There is still an article to follow up here, looking at space themes in the 21st Century, and where they are today. This is particularly pertinent, given the 2022 reimagining of the original LEGO Space Flagship set: the 928/497Galaxy Explorer. This is not that article.

Before I write that article, for reasons that will eventually become apparent, I would like to take a look at the other pillar of the Classic LEGO Minifigure Themes – Castle. While Town gave kids the chance to live out the present, and space allowed them to imagine the Future, Castle allowed then to explore the past.

As a kid growing up in Australia, castles were a thing of fantasy: we only really saw them in books (with drawings) and in movies or on television. Typically in the context of an episode of Doctor Who. While the country has been inhabited for tens of thousands of years, the need for permenant fortifications was never really needed. In fact, the only castle I am aware of in Australia was built in the early 1970’s and run as a theme park.

But what are the characteristics of Classic Castle? And what time frame might be considered ‘Classic’? In this post, we will look at: Castle inspiration before minifigures existed; the initial range of Castle sets (1978-1981), and finally, consider Castle sets throughout the rest of ‘LEGOLAND’ phase: 1984-1990.

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Extra Pieces Go To Denmark:

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I have recently returned home from Denmark where, along with my Extra Pieces podcast collaborator, Jay from Jay’s Brick Blog, I attended the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend followed by Recognised LEGO Fan Media Days in Billund. This was an amazing experience, running at an amazing pace where we got to meet AFOLs from all over the world, LEGO Designers, and representatives of many other LEGO Fan Media. We talk about some of these experiences in our latest episode of Extra Pieces, available of most major podcasting platforms.

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LEGO® BRICKTALES OUT TODAY ON XBOX, PLAYSTATION, SWITCH & PC

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Begin a charming adventure set amongst colourful LEGO® brick dioramas and featuring authentic brick-by-brick building gameplay 

Yesterday, we were able to bring you our prerelease review of Thunderful Studio’s LEGO® Bricktales. Today, the game has been released on Major consoles, as well as PC/Mac/Linux for for $29.99 / €29.99 / £24.99 (Australian price pending…). Our reviewer had found the game engaging and having appear for puzzle gamers and LEGO fans alike.

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Bricktales: First Impressions [Guest review]

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A few months ago now, we announced the forthcoming arrival of BrickTales, a Physics puzzler from Thunderful games. Release is coming up on October 12th and we were fortunate to be given the opportunity to take a look at the game, pre-release. Its been a busy few weeks, so I passed the Keys on this one over to our in-house games Reviewer, Harry .

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40562 Creator 3 in 1: Mystic Witch: Gift With Purchase 14-31st October

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It’s a funny time of the year: the Christmas/Holiday season sets have been announced, but the Gifts with Purchase are a bit unpredictable until we enter November: We went with early October purchases to secure the Gift with Purchase Ideas Set ‘Ray the Castaway’ and then out of nowhere… This Happens.

The 40562 Mystic Witch set is a Creator 3-in-1 set that will be available as a gift with purchase in the second half of October 2022 (there might even be a day or two of overlap with double GWP Points if you are really clever). In Australia, the purchase threshold is $165 AUD (or $USD100/€100/£100 ROTW): Perfect if you are looking at 10308 – The Holiday Main Street in time for the holidays- or another copy of 10497 Galaxy Explorer because it is an awesome set!

I was fortunate to be sent a copy to look at: will it be enough to trigger purchases during the latter half of October, before the Christmas GWPs start to appear, and indeed before Black Friday in November? Let’s take a look!

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