Tag Archives: Games

Exclusive interview with Jason Allemann, creator of LEGO Ideas 21305 Maze [News]

LEGO’s newest Ideas set, 21305 Maze, is available starting today. Jason Allemann, the Maze’s creator, has long been known known for helping out fellow fans by providing instructions to many of his models, and this time around, Jason has put together a special Maze website which hosts instructions several alternate maze layouts, and inspiration for even more. Jason has even created a motorized miniature golf-inspired maze (video below).

We got our hands on the Maze last month and had fun reviewing it, but we wanted to know what its creator had to say. Jason was kind enough to speak with us about the Maze, his design process, and how to create a successful LEGO Ideas project.

Click to read the full interview with Jason

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Lord of the Rings foosball: 1st team to 5 points wins the One Ring!

Hot on the heels of Jonas’s pinball machine comes another amazing Lord of the Rings themed game. But this time it’s tabletop football! (Or as we call it in my house, foosball). Balbo, a long-time builder of Lord of the Rings themed LEGO creations, says that he was inspired by the Iron Builder to make a tabletop game of his own. If you look closely, you’ll see that each player is a different character from the film and that the “turf” has mosaics of Bag End, the Black Gate, and the Eye of Sauron.

My only concerns with this awesome build would be its durability (foosball games can get pretty heated and I’d hate to see LEGO pieces flying across the room) and the amount of space between characters (especially over the Eye) which could lead to frequent dead balls. But still, I’d love nothing more than seeing Lord Elrond slip a soccer ball past Saruman to end the War of the Ring.

You can check out the rest of Balbo’s awesome LEGO creations on Flickr.

Slicing through the stars

While cruising through the myriad of new LEGO uploads on Flickr, I spotted this beautiful but deadly looking starfighter from Adam Dodge.

The high-contrast color scheme quickly caught my attention. But then, I read the name Switchblade. It is aptly titled because this craft can open and close much like its namesake.

The builder describes how the poseable wings provided quite an engineering challenge to fasten on securely. It must have been an intriguing task. It looks great in the final product and the flexibility really makes this starfighter stand out.

This creation was build for the long running Starfighter Telephone Game. The point of the game is to build a spaceship off of the design of the previous person in the line. I think Adam did a great job incorporating some of the style and flair of John Matz’ earlier starfighter (on the left below).

Ghostbusters coming to LEGO Dimensions! [News]

Ghostbusters will be joining a host of other franchises in the upcoming LEGO Dimensions, a multi-character collectible-figurine action game similar to the popular Skylanders and Disney Infinity games.

Players will purchase the base game, and then character expansion packs to add more playable characters to the game world. Today at Gamescon in Germany, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, the publisher for Dimensions, announced the latest character pack, Ghostbusters. The game will be developed by Traveler’s Tales Games, makers of many other much-loved LEGO games such as LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones. No word yet on when these will be available for pre-order, though the base game and many other character packs can be pre-ordered now! The base game will be available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and Wii U.

Today’s announcement included 3 character packs for LEGO Dimensions, as well as a few images of the characters being used in-game. So far confirmed packs include:
• Simpsons
• Portal
• Back to the Future
• Doctor Who
• Ghostbusters
• Multiple DC characters including Wonderwoman, Superman and Batman
• Scooby Doo
• Jurassic World
• LEGO Ninjago
• The LEGO Movie
• The Wizard of Oz
• The Lord of the Rings
• LEGO Chima

Click through to see the rest! Continue reading →

Colonel Mustard in the study with the candlestick

Ian Spacek seems to be on a roll in the ongoing 2014 MOCOlympics contest. In a round focused on board games, he chose to recreate Clue, a classic family game that has been around since the 40’s.

I love the way Ian has captured all the woody tones of the original board, as well as packing the build with many beautiful details such as the floor patterns, furniture and props. Check out MOCPages for loads of close-up photos and a chance to compare Ian’s interpretation with the original.

Fallout Enclave Vertibird in Lego

The Vertibird is one of the more recognizable pieces of industrial design from the Fallout universe (and practically the only aircraft in the games). Justin Stebbins (Saber-Scorpion) has done a great job of capturing the shape of the original. While a trans blue cockpit may not match the appearance in the game, it matches the shape well, and still feels right.

Mass Effect Reaper is a Harbinger of the End

This isn’t the first model of a Reaper featured here on The Brothers Brick, but it still warrants highlighting. Ben Caulkins (Benny Brickster) had done a great job of capturing the look of the largest space borne Reapers in the Mass Effect games. The creepy legs and eyes of the machine are perfectly represented.

The Ultimate Video Game System

I don’t want to hear about the Play-Box 420 or the Dream Station 5000 or even the hopelessly derivative Intellivision; the greatest video game system of all time is the Atari 2600 and TBB regular Chris McVeigh (powerpig) has finally brought the mighty console to life. Back in the day we only needed one button to shoot/jump/kill and it was red so you couldn’t miss it even if you were all jacked up from too much caffeine and sugar. So set the dial on the way-back machine to 1977, grab your unscratchable copy of Journey Escape and revel in the four-switch “wood veneer” greatness. If you don’t believe me, just check out a very young Heisenberg react to the 2600 in this advertisement from the early 1980’s. Who needs ultra pure crystal meth when you have Mega Force!

UPDATE: Mechabrick Kickstarter reached funding

In just over one week, the Mechabrick Kickstarter that Ralph had previously featured has successfully reached its funding goal. That means that Dubreq Ltd. has enough funding to get the game to market, and it also means that there are still 20 days left for funding in order to reach some of the stretch goals.

So head on over to the Kickstarter page and check out the project if you haven’t already. Because it isn’t a question of whether the game will be able to reach the required funding any longer, it is now just a question of which bonus features will be achieved in the stretch goals.

Congrats to Ben Jarvis and the Mechabrick Team from The Brothers Brick.

Mechabrick: turn your minifigs into mecha

One of the many cool things I didn’t list in my report on Steam 2013 was mechabrick.

It was started by British AFOL Ben Jarvis that combines three of his passions: Lego, robots and wargaming. Ben has launched a kick-starter project to get it under way. If successful, this should enable the launch of the first mechabrick kit, which will consist of all the parts you need to turn four minifigs into kick-ass mecha (with friggin’ big guns, of course) and four boards that are to be combined to form the play board. The kit will also contain stickers to customise the mecha, as well as dice and a rulebook. Mechabrick is more than just a war game with mecha, however. An essential and fun part of the game will be building the scenery and obstacles on the game board with our favourite plastic bricks. Ben built a rather impressive example for the show.

At the event I had the opportunity to handle two of the prototypes and they looked (and felt) promising. I’m sure that plenty of you, like Ben, are fans of Lego, robots and wargaming. Check out the pictures in the flickr group and the project page. If you like what you see, you can pledge your support.

An Amazing Contraption: Lego Ball Maze

Check out this phenomenal creation by Jason (True Dimensions). I love seeing real, working objects made with Lego, that function just as well as their traditional counterparts. Jason’s ball maze is fully working, and features an integrated, removable ball storage box, and interchangeable mazes in several different themes.

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