I liked the old LEGO up to around the 1990s or so, give
or take. When I look at LEGO nowadays, of course they
have some of the old spirit still in place, but in other
areas they are just overpriced now and addicted to
maximizing cash influx. This was a bit different in the
pre-1990s era. 1990s already got more commercialized
but I still would say it was somewhat ok. Then something
shifted and I am not sure what. The creativity seems to
have been degraded. I saw some huge LEGO sets for several
hundred euros as collectors edition. And I understand that
he had fun building it with his kids, but to me this was
no longer LEGO. The most fun I had was assembling my own
pieces back when I was young. For instance, after seeing
the old movie Tron, I built a few of the objects in the
"matrix", in particular those floating T-like thingies.
These were quite easy to build via LEGO. I did not need
instructions, I just experimented until it worked. I think
this was the biggest selling point of LEGO, to be able to
build things on your own. When I look at those huge expensive
sets, that seems to have shifted. I get it, different portfolio
and what not but this is also corporate fluff. It changed what
LEGO is, and IMO it changed it to the worse.
Lego building instructions through time
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds fun too!
James May did this with Lucy on one of his YouTube videos.
Since I was curious I searched for it, and you can find it here:
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#33Buried at the bottom of the article, my favorite thing about modern Lego kits: > One of the most intriguing features is unlocked when you press the ‘build together’ button on select sets in the app. This allows consumers to build a LEGO set as a team by delegating each builder a building task to complete. My partner and I enjoy assembling Lego kits together, but with paper instructions parallelizing the work is prett…
On the contrary, this would ruin Legos for me and my girlfriend. We play it that one person is building, and the other person is taking the instructions and trying to speak them to the builder, who isn't allowed to look at the instructions. It's very fun and a great way for us to keep our communication going well in the relationship.
There’s an official Lego boardgame built on this concept.
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#34Buried at the bottom of the article, my favorite thing about modern Lego kits: > One of the most intriguing features is unlocked when you press the ‘build together’ button on select sets in the app. This allows consumers to build a LEGO set as a team by delegating each builder a building task to complete. My partner and I enjoy assembling Lego kits together, but with paper instructions parallelizing the work is prett…
I came to say the same thing. The "build together" mode is super fun. Everybody can go at their own speed (without me dying inside watching my 7-year-old trying to figure out things). If you are faster, you build more subassemblies, that's it. Everybody is busy. The kids particularly enjoyed the moments where you have to exchange subassemblies: "I need this from 'popcorn'!" "I need this from 'astronaut'". When the ki…
it's an MRP system for lego!
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#35This reminded me of coming across LeoCAD ( https://www.leocad.org/ - first release in 1997!) as a kid and playing around with it for endless nights, wondering how close it was to whatever tool Lego was using in-house. Looking at screenshots of older versions gave a burst of nostalgia.
LeoCAD is really nice and smooth to work with, and on Linux a much better experience than Lego's own Bricklink Studio. Unfortunately, for instructions you can't really get away from Studio, and while importing the model made in LeoCAD works for 99% of the bricks, you tend to end up with one or two types of brick misaligned, flipped, rotated, or missing.
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#36I liked the old LEGO up to around the 1990s or so, give or take. When I look at LEGO nowadays, of course they have some of the old spirit still in place, but in other areas they are just overpriced now and addicted to maximizing cash influx. This was a bit different in the pre-1990s era. 1990s already got more commercialized but I still would say it was somewhat ok. Then something shifted and I am not sure what. The…
The basic sets are still there; look up the Lego Classic line. And for creativity at a good price the Creator 3in1 sets are gold.
Don't be misled by all the franchised stuff (Star Wars, etc.). That stuff sells well and has its fanbase, but Lego is much more than that. Lego currently has good sets (including the user submitted Ideas range).
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#37I liked the old LEGO up to around the 1990s or so, give or take. When I look at LEGO nowadays, of course they have some of the old spirit still in place, but in other areas they are just overpriced now and addicted to maximizing cash influx. This was a bit different in the pre-1990s era. 1990s already got more commercialized but I still would say it was somewhat ok. Then something shifted and I am not sure what. The…
The focus of the most commercial sets changed.
They used to be toys, aimed at children's imagination, meant to be dismantled and rebuilt into other things.
Now they're display models, aimed at adults. They're sculptured art pieces that just happen to be built out of LEGO.
It's just the most commercially visible stuff though, because it's the best stuff financially speaking for the LEGO company themselves. The children's ranges are still there. You could even say that adults buying those display models are what's kept the toys alive.
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#38Modern Lego set design is this super refined art where the final product looks amazing. It also sort of sucks, ninety percent of the pieces are 1x1 greebles with very few common structural elements, Distinctly different and I feel inferior from the peak of my young Lego architect career in the late 80's, and even then in retrospect, still way to many greebles and not enough structural elements. Sure you want a few of those infernal 1x1's but it feels like the era that best matches the Lego ethos was the 70's where most of the set was structural.
There are a few sets left like this and I bought some to get my nephews Lego bucket started. but still way too many useless small pieces.
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#39Modern Lego set design is this super refined art where the final product looks amazing. It also sort of sucks, ninety percent of the pieces are 1x1 greebles with very few common structural elements, Distinctly different and I feel inferior from the peak of my young Lego architect career in the late 80's, and even then in retrospect, still way to many greebles and not enough structural elements. Sure you want a few of…
You can still buy whole buckets of generic lego pieces if you wish.
Duplo is also mostly generic parts in sets.
My kids like doing themed Legos as they look cool, but for creative building we do Duplos - even though kids are "too old" for duplo technically. Duplo allows us to build bigger structures. Like https://imgur.com/a/niEhA8E
Re: Lego building instructions through time
#40I would love simpler (harder) instructions! It's too easy tbh brick by brick as it is today. 1964 looks lovely. I also have a gripe with the complexity of modern bricks (besides "basic bricks" sets). It's getting harder to build something else than what the model is.
This 1980 style was also lovely. I rebuilt this model a few years ago - these instructions strike the balance just right. They make you think. https://lego.brickinstructions.com/lego_instructions/set/886...
Oh my god, i yearned for that set so hard, but never got it. I got the tractor and the crane which I built with my daughter more than 40 years after my dad gave them to me. That was weird and comforting at the same time.