LEGO Dimensions

Minifigure Gender distribution: 2017 update

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A little over a year ago, I wrote up an analysis of gender distribution in LEGO® Minigures in the post friends era.  In the years since LEGO Friends had been released, there had been some positive trends towards an equal balance, after starting from a pretty low base line (around 11% in 2012) up to 30% in the Volcano Sub-theme of LEGO City in 2016.

As well as supporting the regular themes, 2017 has been a big year for LEGO tying in with cinematic releases, with both inhouse and external IP.  By the end of the year, we will have seen a new Star Wars movie, Wonder Woman and Justice League movies, The LEGO Batman Movie and LEGO Ninjago Movie released.

21312-1
The LEGO Ideas set: 21312 Women of NASA.  Real Life STEM role models in LEGO Form.  This set is due to be released this week from LEGO retail stores.

This post was provoked, in part after reading a comment about the relatively low female representation in the Collectable Minifigure sets recently released. I thought it would be interesting to revisit the question of gender distribution in some popular LEGO themes, and see if there were any significant shifts in trends over the last 12 months, when I last reviewed the numbers. The impending release of the Ideas set ‘Women of NASA’ is also of interest, as it certainly demonstrates a desire to see inspirational female role models immortalised in LEGO form.

I would like to look specifically at LEGO City, overall, as well as broken down into its major sub themes; The LEGO Batman Movie; The LEGO Ninjago Movie, and also LEGO Friends. I would also like to look at LEGO Star Wars sets released since the Force Awakens… Continue reading →

An Unexpected System Problem: What I learned from 71204: LEGO Dimensions: Doctor Who Level Pack

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Public health advisory: This post contains extreme trivia regarding illegal connections for various LEGO pieces.  And Doctor Who. Whilst all care will be taken by the author, the rambling brick accepts no responsibility for the exacerbation of any obsessive symptoms that develop after reading this article.  You have been warned.  And yes, I’m feeling fine, thanks. But perhaps I should get out more!

I like Doctor Who.  My first exposure was on a black and white television in country Victoria, sometime in 1975.  Episode 3 of Planet of the Spiders. Pertwee’s swan song.  Four weeks later I had my first experience with Tom Baker: the end of episode 3 of Robot.  Hat. Scarf. Teeth.  Between this, and an early reading experience based on a seemingly infinite collection of Target novelisations I was hooked(before downloads, legal or otherwise, blu-ray or DVD, we had VHS and Betamax video tapes.  These did not yet exist.  The only economical way to re-experience Doctor Who was through reading books, frequently written by Terrance Dicks as well as other writers, that documented the Classic version of the Television Series. Books are what we used to read before audio books did the process automatically for us…)

Should I even tell the English readers of this blog that in the late 70’s through to the end of the Sylvester McCoy run, Australians had Doctor Who on television, around 6:30, Monday to Thursday? For most of the year.  We experienced repeats.  Mainly Pertwee, T Baker, Davison repeats, but repeats nonetheless.  You didn’t even need to read the novel to know what happened if you missed the first broadcast. No. I shouldn’t tell them.  That would be cruel and unusual. And then they’s mention our last Ashes defeat. Repeatedly.

IMG_8812Fast forward forty years, and the news breaks on LEGO Ideas: after years of an inferior brand having the Official Doctor Who Construction Toy License, there is now to be an official LEGO set.  Released in time for Christmas 2015, it featured the TARDIS, the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi versions of the Doctor in minifigure form, along with Clara Oswald, a Weeping Angel and a Dalek.  This occurs almost in parallel with the release of a Doctor Who Level Pack for LEGO Dimensions, a ‘toys to life’ video game, that only appears to cost $AU125…but really costs much much more.  This pack features Doctor Capaldi, the TARDIS and K9.  Then there came a Fun Pack featuring a Cyberman and a Dalek.  Possibly the only time ‘Fun’ and ‘Cyberman’ can be legitimately combined in a sentence.  Daleks had previously appeared in the phrase: ‘Hours of fun with this new Remote Controlled Dalek.’

This is not a thorough review of that Level pack.  It’s not even an attempt at a review with a significant word count.  I will say that it is fun. If you like Doctor Who and have Dimensions, you should get it. If only for what happens when you use the Doctor in normal game play after playing through the Level.

But this is not that story.  This is a story about table scrap and and a serendipitous discovery. Continue reading →