Comment by dotancohen
2 days ago
It looks like the author examined every toy inspired by Lego, other than Lego itself.
For me the big problem with Lego was not clean up time. For me the big problem with Lego was stepping on them barefoot. How do these other toys compare?
Big problem with modern LEGO for me is that so many modern sets are almost all teensy-tiny pieces, so they look good on the box—the adult-aimed ones have always been like this since they started targeting that market, but now it’s like 95% of all their sets; also, they seem to hate exposed nubs, which is silly if the set is for play.
Larger (like tall 6x2) bricks are uncommon outside buckets, and a lot of larger pieces like dedicated wall-sections or big vehicle nose-bits or car undercarriages are now rare.
The result is that my old sets are a mix of everything from large contoured structural plates down to tiny pieces, but my kids’ bins of legos are like 98% tiny pieces. They use them less than I did, I think because it’s hard to sort through the loose pieces when they’re mostly very small, and with less variety there aren’t as many large pieces to use as jumping-off points to start a build, and making, say, a house-height wall or the front of a space ship is slower than when we had more bricks that could kinda short-hand those pieces and let you skip the middle, if you will, to focus on both the big-picture and fine details. I doubt I’d have liked Lego so much if mine had looked like theirs.
Unfortunately, LEGO has decided that they want to make mostly high-margin co-branded sets with Nintendo, Pokémon, Minecraft, Star Wars, Monster Jam, F1, etc rather than cool engineering sets with a lot of flexible pieces that can be built into lots of different things. Luckily Chinese vendors like Uncle Brick and Mould King have stepped in to offer huge sets of Technics compatible parts, including simple motors that LEGO simply does not make anymore, for not much money. It’s really too bad that Lego abandoned that market. I would certainly pay a premium for the original stuff but a lot of what I would like is just not available. Now, I still buy a lot of the branded LEGO stuff, but the Chinese stuff has also entered the rotation for the older kids who are interested in engineering.
You have to be so careful with that stuff though. Some of those knockoff legos are absolutely infuriating to assemble and don’t fit together right—not just with actual LEGO but even with themselves.
There is a definite element of “you get what you pay for” when it comes to that stuff. Unfortunately… because some of those knockoff kits look super cool.
In the late 1990s, Lego went the other way with those big single-purpose pieces, and were heavily criticised (particularly by older Lego fans) for "juniorisation" - over-simplifying sets so you just couldn't build anything different with the pieces. You can't build buildings out of big vehicle parts.
Sounds like it's gone too far the other way now and they're still not managing to find a middle ground? But it does depend partly on what age of kids we're talking about.
Buy the ‘classic’ line, the big boxes are great value also.
Yeah, I’ve noticed the classic line showing up on shelves and they seem a ton better, but I don’t recall seeing them several years ago when we were doing lots of Lego-buying. Really limited selection and mostly big, expensive sets too, not many mid-sized ones. But glad to see them releasing sets that seem more focused on play than sitting on a shelf.
This article is aimed at younger kids, before normal Lego is appropriate. I like Duplo more than magnatiles - slightly harder to clean up I suppose, but that's because they hold together better than magnatiles, which create quite fragile structures.
Our problem with modern lego is that the sets are so cool and complex that the kids don’t want to take them apart after they’re built.
The 11yo wants few new sets now because he doesn’t know where he would put them, and declines to swap out his assembled sets.
You can get brick sets that are just a bunch of bricks - look up Creative Brick Box or Creative Vehicle Box
Feels just like Grandma's ole box o bricks
What I wish for would be a lego technics creative box with motors etc... Thats closer to what I had as a kid and I built a lot of fun things with that. Never liked the basic legos that much though
That's something I've run into myself. I just recently finished the Enterprise Lego set, and it was fun to build... but I doubt if I will ever take it apart and rebuild it. There were 30 bags in that set, and I don't much fancy the prospect of trying to sift through all the pieces at once rebuilding the thing.
Finish a set? Lego Enterprise? Don't want to build anything else with it?
I see that the Lego I remember and the Lego of today are two vastly different things.
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when I was a kid I wanted some of the specialised sets simply because they had exciting new pieces like windshields, gears, dish antennas, etc. I don't think I ever made the actual thing the set was intended for, I just wanted to add new pieces to my lego bin.
We didn't see any of the toys in the article , but had a lot of other magnetic and combinable toys. The big advantage over Lego was building sizeable things with fewer blocks.
Duplo blocs come close, but they are pricey (hard to gift second hand toys) and you can only stack them when the other toys interlock in more interesting ways. For small kids, building an articulating shape the size of their arm with 4 or 5 blocs is really magical.
Those Minecraft blocks or the cheap Chinese knockoffs are sharper than a blade and a real pain.
Skill issue. You should try to not step on Lego bricks.
Yes, and I've perfected that skill against sidewalk cracks, ants, and bubble gum for quite some time.
You heard of Duplo? It’s like Lego but big.