Hidden Side App to be discontinued in 2023
Posted by CapnRex101,
Hidden Side was launched during 2020, joining the roster of app-related themes developed within the last few years.
LEGO has announced that the Hidden Side app will be discontinued at the beginning of 2023, as reported by The Brick Fan.
Given the limited success of past app-related themes, do you think LEGO will continue to explore this field? Let us know in the comments.
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Interesting but not surprising. Essentially Hidden Side sets can be enjoyed and playable without the app.
Now Vidiyo on the other hand…I wonder how long that will be supported…
CONTROL+ next, please.
Yes, I think this is the future of all Lego apps, including control+
Buyer beware.....
Wish I could say I was surprised....
I can't say I'm surprised as the app didn't have great reliability from what I heard. The theme had some great sets though that could be enjoyed without it.
This is why any app-related play feature is a terrible idea.
This is why I will not buy any app based sets either system or Technic. Lego can render the functionality useless whenever they feel like it.
The boy and I love the sets but the game in the app was the same every time and quickly became dull. It was as if the developers weren't collectors themselves. A shame, and a missed opportunity.
I tried it once, and it was mediocre. Maybe they should play-test these apps more.
Apps should be there in order to enhance playability. When they become the focus of a theme, then it's essential game over, since it becomes obsolete (the app, not the theme) sooner or later. Hidden Side theme was fine without the app in my opinion and the really interesting sets I bought (graveyard and fishing ship) had nothing to do with the app (which couldn't be installed in my ancient phone altogether - I guess TLG's target group is filthy rich and capable of bying up-to-date 1.300€ Iphones).
Same thing with the technic app controlled sets. In the end, if you press forward 10 years from now, each and every app will have become obsolete but the controllers, motors and battery boxes won't.
LEGO bricks are here to move us and our kids AWAY from screens. Else, ditch LEGO bricks and go play Warzone or Fortnite or Witcher or whatever. It's cheaper!
At least all the sets were regular sets, just wait until the app for Vidyo is discontinued.
Remember when Nexo Knights had an app? You know, it was just a fun game, but the idea was you could collect different shields that were spread across the sets, advertisements, LEGO Club Magazine and the TV Show, that could be uploaded to the app to give the player new powers.
This is probably how it should be, if at all, where the app and build experience is completely separate. I can respect Hidden Side for standing on it's own in some ways, with the app being an optional extra. However, I have to draw the line at VIDIYO; with 99.999999% of the experience being based around the app. If something happens to the app, what happens next?
In other words, if LEGO is trying to blend digital and physical play, where there's no way to separate them: it's best to back off on it. With a snap of the finger, your play experience will end abruptly, and your Party Llama won't bring you any more satisfaction. At least Hidden Side has some interesting sets going for it.
Great! I love the news! Control+ discontinuation next please!
As a Kid i wished for a LEGO Technic RC car without wires. Nowadays i dislike the AppControlled RC cars just because you need a smartphone to do so. As a non Smartphone user there is no way i am getting one just because of that reason.
I believe and sincierly hope that in the next few years many people will realise that a smartphone is very bad in many ways..
Its freaking me out that all that smartphone companies need to drop out some phones every year! So terrible for the invironment! Accompanied by those who need an up to date phone any time they´ll poop out a new one.
But what bothers me most is the look around in the city, all that people are just looking at their f%6king phones ALL the time! Many people do not sence the sences of the outside anymore. If you know what i mean. Instead of watching in ones innerself in a moment of waiting, they take out the phone and swishing, scrolling them ... gives me a headache!
Have a lovely Sunday all you people
And this is why I don’t think a heavy focus on apps should be the future of LEGO.
Phone apps all have an expiration date at some point. The technology just moves so fast, and they get outdated very quickly. Companies just don’t want to support half a dozen apps over a long period of time.
If LEGO loses the Mario license, good luck playing with your expensive digital figure that requires updates just to recognize most of the stuff!
This lasted longer than Vidiyio because it was smart which was its target: fun sets and then app related stuff.
Loved these sets! Couldn't care much for the app. Please LEGO, give us (and the kids) sets that don't need a phone to enjoy. Why use the platform of powered up to include simple controllers like PF for basic funtions... and for the power user you could make an app to program and do more in depth stuff. I think that would be the best of both worlds. Oh, and before I forget: augmented reality isn't really necessary when you start with a creative tactile product to begin with IMHO.
The only digital enhancement I want from Lego are standard PDF format digital instructions, but paper instructions included with all sets.
For what it's worth, Hidden Side blended the physical and the virtual better than Vidiyo. Hidden Side had interesting sets with good play value on their own. Vidiyo was essentially two series of Collectible Minifigures, but with sets that had little play value without the app.
The Lego bricks will still keep working...
There was an app?
Oh, I miss the sets and the scary-ish theme! Never used the app, not suprised there. But the sets... 70422 , 70423 , 70424 , 70425 <3 A Lego Monsters-theme should be a never ending theme.
@RaiderOfTheLostBrick said:
"Remember when Nexo Knights had an app? You know, it was just a fun game, but the idea was you could collect different shields that were spread across the sets, advertisements, LEGO Club Magazine and the TV Show, that could be uploaded to the app to give the player new powers.
This is probably how it should be, if at all, where the app and build experience is completely separate. I can respect Hidden Side for standing on it's own in some ways, with the app being an optional extra. However, I have to draw the line at VIDIYO; with 99.999999% of the experience being based around the app. If something happens to the app, what happens next?
In other words, if LEGO is trying to blend digital and physical play, where there's no way to separate them: it's best to back off on it. With a snap of the finger, your play experience will end abruptly, and your Party Llama won't bring you any more satisfaction. At least Hidden Side has some interesting sets going for it."
Yeah, that's only a step further than the old flash games for themes which never got in the way of the sets and only enhanced it with the additional media tie.
They were nice sets. They did not need the app.
But app based sets will always have a limited future (for the app). If the set cannot be fully enjoyed without the app, I would not consider buying it.
The app will last for as long as my operating system will support it. When my phone dies, and the operating system is 3 generations later, and won't support the app from 4 years earlier, it becomes useless.
I am a huge Technic fan, but have resisted buying all the high-end app-based sets, and don't regret it. A manual controller will last forever. I will never buy a Control+ set.
@Rimefang
I've tried building sets with PDF based instructions. I hate it, especially for large sets. It's one of the reasons I plan to reduce my purchase of Bricklink Designer sets going forward.
I recently started to disassemble the Hidden Side set that are no longer being played with. During that process, I came to the realization that the biggest problem was the disconnect between the sets and the story. My children and I would watch the Hidden Side series on YouTube, build the sets, and then play the game. But the game play did not continue the story in any meaningful way. The sets provided a unique augmented reality (AR) experience within the game where they set would be identified and the progress would be made by revealing coloured tiles and placing figures in certain parts of the model. This all worked great and was super fun. However, the game play itself was effectively a button masher. Searching for hidden artifacts within the AR experience was novel and fun, but the end result was that you merely unlocked more ghosts to button mash. The real problem was that there was no story withing the game! The story was on YouTube, and the game was limited to button mashing. I believe that some level of ghost capture would have been OK; but if they had incorporated more story elements into the AR experience of the game, then that would have made a world of difference. People would have bought more sets to experience more of the story.
Happy to pay the hidden AFOL tax to support wasting money on these experiments...
Of course lego will keep making more themes with app integration, because of course they sell well
@gylman said:
" @Rimefang
I've tried building sets with PDF based instructions. I hate it, especially for large sets. It's one of the reasons I plan to reduce my purchase of Bricklink Designer sets going forward. "
I have found a small subset of pdfs from Lego to have a significantly higher quality than the usual ones, will have a look later at PC. Of course the colour is still way off. I've tried building 79003 from pdf and it is just about impossible to distinguish between green and bright green for instance. Who would have thought that making usable files from the same data source as the printer file was so hard?
As a parent my problem with these app-based sets was that you took a relatively wholesome and educational play experience (e.g. playing with LEGO) and turned it into something that involved even more screen time. Perhaps if the online/app experience was more educationally focused you'd see this as a benefit to your kids over just playing with LEGO.
LEGO apps themselves aren't the problem, but if a set relies on it for content, then it gets worse.
Nexo Knight app was not needed for anything related to the sets, shield tiles had some awesome designs by themselves already.
While for Hidden Side , parts of the sets were adapted to be scanned with colorful pieces and rotating bits meant to be scanned. Still the sets worked well as standalone as well, since the scannable sections were small.
However, with recent Mission sets from City, while great parts packs, there are no Paper or PDF instructions so the app is kind of required for building the "main" model, not that big deal for AFOL but many people want what's on the box.
I don't see it as a problem. Hidden Side is a standalone Lego set, you don't need the app to enjoy it. You'll lose the app's features, but I don't think there are many kids that will play these for 4 years anyway. Adults don't care about these; they care about the sets themselves.
The Bluetooth based motors can be controlled via either a physical remote or 3rd party PC/Mobile apps.
More problematic are;
Vidyo was 100% app based, failed and I hope it'll be TLG's last extreme app/set integration. It's OK to try and fail sometimes.
Super Mario is the only real problematic one, as there are no 3rd party apps for that, and if/when we'll lose the app, we won't be able to update Mario's firmware to latest one, so even off-line play would be hurt. That means that new-in-box Mario won't be as good as used and updated ones. Hopefully by the end of 2026 they will come up with off-line update or we'll have a 3rd party app to do that.
I was a big fan of Hidden Side for the very unique sets and the ideas behind those sets, and was actually a big fan of Vidiyo for the elaborate minifigs and excellent prints we got with the tiles. I never tried the app for either theme once (not a big gamer anyway).
I want to continue to see interesting themes that push the creativity of what a LEGO set can be (ghost hunters?? pretty cool and kind of edgy) and high quality minifigs that justify a $5 USD price point (for $5, a detailed mini with 3+ printed tiles? more please!).
But the app? Leave it and save consumers some money.
Discontinued just 2 years after the sets were discontinued? That's a lot shorter timeframe than I expected.
...although what exactly does "discontinued" mean? Are they simply not updating the app or will they actually pull it from the app store and make it impossible to install going forward? I hope it's the former. Let people install the old version and simply stop updating it. Pulling it would seem unnecessary.
I'm a big fan of the Lego Bits & Bricks podcast where they (as an official Lego podcast) talk about the success and failures of Lego video games (including digital integrations such as Hidden Side). However, I feel they really miss the mark when they fail to discuss planned obsolescence such as this app.
Both Hidden Side and Vidiyo were doomed to failure. Lego made a fundamental error in that both apps only worked on expensive, new, high-end phones. Lego's target market for these sets won't have this sort of high-end phone/tablet - which parent with any sense gives a 9-year-old a brand-new £500 phone???
If Lego go for the app market again (which, inevitably, they will), then for it to be a success Lego MUST make their app compatible with budget smartphones and smartphones running older software.
I'm concerned for the longevity of bluetooth-controlled sets - how long will these apps stay on the market??
But, hats off to Lego for the interesting designs of Hidden Side sets, and the minifigs in Vidiyo.......briliant!
Every time I pick up a Mario set... I look up the pdf online. I'm not doing apps with Lego, sorry.
I didn't get any of the Hidden Side sets, but they did look rather interesting. I do hope Lego does a similar theme in the future, but without the app integration. A ghost centric theme that is inspired more by Danny Phantom than by Ghostbusters is always a neat and fresh concept.
Too bad the theme with great builds and more niche buildings that City wouldn't touch got discontinued so early due to bad box design and a pushed app.
Cue Iago (Gilbert Gottfried) from Aladdin:
"Now THEERE'S a big surprise! I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die, from NOT SURPRISE!"
I hope Lego does continue to experiment and try out new forms of app-enhanced play, even if lots of them end up not being a huge success.
The Lego instructions app with 3D instructions looks like it might prove to be more of a long term thing (alongside printed instructions) - my 6 year old daughter certainly find it easier and more fun to follow using the app.
Schadenfreude is one of the markers of a toxic culture.
It all has started many years ago with the game Life og George, that I enthusiastic bought only to find out, that my phone was not supported...
This is why I don’t buy motorized Technic sets.
@lytly said:
"This is why I don’t buy motorized Technic sets."
Correction: why you don't buy motorized Technic sets anymore.
@Brickulator93 said:
"At least all the sets were regular sets, just wait until the app for Vidyo is discontinued."
Vidiyo sets were regular sets too. Overpriced and not to everyone's taste sure, but there wasn't anything about the sets that will die when the app goes.
I think about Vidiyo as just another Lego theme, but instead of Space, Pirates, City or Friends, it was Music. Stages, bands, speakers, DJs, it was all there for anyone into playing out music-themed scenarios.
They're great sets in that regard. Even the printed 2x2 tiles, which were key to app functionality, are just CD cases or LP sleeves from dozens of genres.
Hidden Side is a great theme; the sets, and our version of Newbury/Hawkins regularly gets hauled out for me and the kid to play with. Sam still plays with the app, so he'll miss it when it's gone. It should have been a purchasable piece of software, because it does feel like a kick in the teeth that Lego can just decide it no longer exists... I still have games on Spectrum, Gameboy, MegaDrive etc etc from my childhood; there will be lots of games from my son's collection that will just disappear one day. Sad.
@Zoniax said:
"Every time I pick up a Mario set... I look up the pdf online. I'm not doing apps with Lego, sorry."
Woah, good point, it hadn't even occurred to me that the instructions could be disappeared...
@AndyB1 said:
"I've tried building 79003 from pdf and it is just about impossible to distinguish between green and bright green for instance. Who would have thought that making usable files from the same data source as the printer file was so hard?"
When they are originally printed, they will be CMYK files. Lego then convert to an RGB profile when exporting to the downloadable PDFs, which changes them permanently to RGB (the profile applied to 79003 is called 'LEGOGlobalStandard 300') - but they often do a truly terrible job of this. In particular, converting greens to RGB from CMYK is difficult, and in the case you highlight the two greens become exactly the same RGB colour, varying by only about 2%. They also do an appalling job on dark colours as well, usually making them much too black. And then on top of that, the images become heavily pixellated and low resolution, compounding the colour mapping problems.
Given they have a fixed colour palette, you'd think they could come up with some much more tailored profile whereby they remap the colours to remain distinguishable. They'd only need to do it once and then re-export all the previous PDFs, then update it each time a new colour is added to the palette. I think it's beyond time they recreated many of the older ones at higher resolution anyway.
@elangab said:
"Vidyo was 100% app based."
It really wasn't though.
It was a range of music themed Lego sets; a range of collectible minis, a range of collectible minis in display cases, and a range of live music stages and music video props. Without the app to attract all the hate I think a much bigger section of the AFOL community would have lapped it up.
As many have already voiced, I hope Lego stop making app tie ins for products. For me Lego is something to get me, and the grandkids away from their screens and computers etc. Having to use an app to interact with the product and you might as well do away with the product entirely and just make a stand alone computer game/app. I know my grandkids if they want to play with their lego want to build something and play with actual physical blocks, not have to point their phone at something to play a thing on their screen which was the biggest flaw of Hidden Side.
To me if they're product testing these toys, I think the focus groups they use must be filled with families of 'yes men' who say they like it just so they can keep getting invited back to do it, rather than giving their genuine opinions of things.
@OneIsLit said:
"the biggest problem was the disconnect between the sets and the story. My children and I would watch the Hidden Side series on YouTube, build the sets, and then play the game. But the game play did not continue the story in any meaningful way."
That's very true. I imagine for non-app themes the set designers make the sets, then the TV cartoon team gets told to make a series which features them.
The same probably happened with Hidden Side, but the TV cartoon team seemed to have been working totally isolated from the app team. Ultimately, both the series and the app were just adverts for the sets, hoping to push sales, but they had very little in common beyond that.
@RaiderOfTheLostBrick said:
"I have to draw the line at VIDIYO; with 99.999999% of the experience being based around the app."
Wow, this seems to be a really common viewpoint... which I happen to totally disagree with.
The presence of the app takes nothing away from the Lego Vidiyo sets, which are boxes of bricks and minis on the theme of music. Except, it does seem to have taken something away in the minds of a lot of AFOLs.
I wonder if the lack of any kind of given backstory or narrative adventure for the Vidiyo characters has contributed to this apparent 'blind-spot' of Vidiyo as a Lego Music theme. Sets+app is the same with Hidden Side as it is with Vidiyo, but one has a given storyline and one doesn't... so Hidden Side without the app 'makes sense' and Vidiyo doesn't?
I'll admit, a lot of my family's initial time with Vidiyo was focused on exploring how the sets worked with the app, but after that, it's just a great music-based theme.
Maybe Vidiyo sets needed to include tv hosts, panels of judges, music journos and record company execs for the theme to make sense to people without the app.
I think TLG will do more app-linked themes. They may just need to be careful not to put too much of the marketing focus on the app functions, as it seems to detract from the sets just being Lego sets.
They may even need to go as far as adding to the message "Hate apps? No problem, look at all the cool features of this set straight out of the box!"
If Hidden Side had been presented as a simple Ghostbusters/Stranger Things-type theme, with transformable buildings and vehicles, with townsfolk getting possessed and local kids saving the day, it might have received a lot more love. The app took over though, and must have been a big part of why the insane box designs came out the way they did, which I think lead to shoppers asking "what am I looking at here?" in the toy aisle. Never usually a problem with Lego.
@gylman said:
" @Rimefang
I've tried building sets with PDF based instructions. I hate it, especially for large sets. It's one of the reasons I plan to reduce my purchase of Bricklink Designer sets going forward. "
Hmmm interesting. I exclusively build with digital instructions; even when I buy new sets, I put the booklet to the side and use my laptop.
At least some of the motorized sets they're making now are not reliant on an app to control them - this summer, the City trains, the Ideas lighthouse, and the Technic Airbus helicopter used a 'dumb' battery box and some kind of direct physical controls. I do worry about the future-proofing for the Control+ app.
I never got any sets from this line but my understanding is that they tended to be perfectly good on their own, and the app integration was not essential and more like if the lego.com Flash games of years past could interact directly with the models. Good decision to take this one down after sufficient time has passed whether than try and keep it up-to-date with newer devices, and after the plug was abruptly pulled on VIDIYO, I'm expecting that one to go away sooner
The online was shut down at least a year ago, this is not a shocker.
What a surprise! LEGO shouldn't do apps as they're clearly not into maintaining those they've already offered. But they don't care and don't learn, so we will see more dead apps as time progresses.
Vidiyo's problem wasn't just that it was app-based. Oh, that was a big part of it. But Vidiyo's problem was that the whole experience was hideously expensive. The bigger sets were absurdly over-priced. The beat-box sets (containing just one figure) weren't much better. The collectable aspect was Lego's first foray into blind packaging. The whole thing screamed of pure cash-grab.
With sets like Star Wars or Harry Potter, we understand that the price involves the license. But -- much like Unikitty -- Lego owned the licenses to all the characters and concepts involved, so what the hell were we paying for? You can only hood-wink your customers for so long before they wise up to you.
I loved the music-aspects to Vidiyo, and I collected as many of the figures as I could, because I absolutely adored them. But the whole thing still felt like a manipulative cash grab, based around an app that, from all accounts, was barely functional.
Hidden Side worked because the sets were worth buying just by themselves. The monster-gimmick for most of them was lovely, and the sets were interesting and different (and had a very unique theme and look).
Although I agree with the comment upthread. One of the worst parts of the Hidden Side sets was the box art. It was terrible. You really had no idea what you were actually buying -- unlike, what, the last 40 years of Lego sets? Hopefully they learned a few lessons from that.
The one thing that I did really like about the Hidden Side sets is that some of them made for really good additions to a city layout. All LEGO buildings are so clean and neat and bright and shiny. But the Hidden Side sets exhibited a significant amount of wear and tear into their designs. Not all buildings in a city look like they were built yesterday. At least not in my hometown. E.g. the shrimp shack makes for a great, run-down looking wharf and the shrimp boat is a perfect match. The high school is the best school set that LEGO has ever made. I neglected to buy the lighthouse, and I was really disappointed since I very much wanted to add it to the seaside area of my layout. However, the forthcoming lighthouse trumps it by far. And two lighthouses is a bit too much.
Can't help but wonder when this becomes a problem for lego mario. You need the app to download software updates to the figures.
Despite getting the entire first two waves of Hidden Side, I never even used the app. Shame I'll probably never bother with it now!
I hope some media experts manage to make archives, pirates, and/or hacks of these apps at some point. I'd hate for the experience to be lost forever! You'd probably still need to hunt down a phone from the era if you wanted to play it in a decades time, but I'm sure a database with the actual code could help.
Would especially love to see a hack of the Vidiyo app that lets you import custom songs and doesn't require re-scanning your band every time you start a new video. Wouldn't have anywhere to upload them of course, but if LEGO ever shuts it down I can't imagine they'd care much about us rejigging it to be more user friendly.
I've argued this for a while and the evidence just keeps coming. Sets with a focus on apps DO NOT WORK. They always fail, due to the technology moving faster than Lego can keep up as others have said, similarity with cheaper non-Lego products (i.e Lego then has to compete with other apps), and poor marketing.
When will Lego stop making the same mistake over and over and just get rid of apps?! Lego doesn't need apps in their sets. The popularity of Lego as a non-screen based toy has actually grown in recent years, all thanks to the brick. Lego should be a rare opportunity to get kids, especially young kids, AWAY from screens and they should market themselves that way.
One of the greatest tragedies of The Lego Group in the 21st century has been the decline of original themes and the emphasis on apps in the few original themes that do get produced.
@OneIsLit said: "The one thing that I did really like about the Hidden Side sets is that some of them made for really good additions to a city layout. All LEGO buildings are so clean and neat and bright and shiny. But the Hidden Side sets exhibited a significant amount of wear and tear into their designs."
Yeah, the Hidden Side sets had such a unique design and feel to them. Everything was old and rusting and dilapidated. The train was absolutely brilliant, it was one of my favourite sets that year. Gorgeous train with carriages, cool station building, and the monster gimmick was really cute.
I have zero doubts that they’ll try again. They’ll have some PR schmuck suggest another one because “everyone is doing it” despite the failure that has been apps+LEGO.
I wish they would revamp HS without the goofy colors & the app.
Honestly kind of surprised the app hasn't already been discontinued. The theme itself's been dead for at least 2 years.
This is why I don’t like app-based controls. Control+, Spike, latest Generation of Mindstorms, all going to be useless within 5-10 years. At least you can still find 20-year-old Power Functions sets and get the full functionality. (Although, it’s getting harder and more expensive to find authentic PF parts.)
@TheIronBadger said:
" @lytly said:
"This is why I don’t buy motorized Technic sets."
Correction: why you don't buy motorized Technic sets anymore."
You can buy 42145. The set is future-proof: i.e. no need of apps or things like that - basically a very expensive "power function" power-up setup.
@andyh1984 said:
"This is why I will not buy any app based sets either system or Technic. Lego can render the functionality useless whenever they feel like it."
Why? The sets can still be enjoyable without the app. I can speak highly for HS in this case. I have about 8 sets & I thoroughly enjoyed building the sets, no app in sight.
There is certainly a time and place for apps, but as any parent would say, the goal is less screen time, not more. While my son was intrigued by the Hidden Side sets, I never considered buying them simply because I knew there would be a desire to use the app.
I think in the case of Mario sets the app is useful as it is used to teach Mario new features that couldn’t have been imagined at the time of the original sets release. It’s primarily a way of updating firmware. Yes, one day it will stop being supported in the same way that the NES stopped getting supported, that’s electronics for you. Yet you’ll be able to continue to play with Mario until he breaks, and even then, the Legos will last forever.
I did purchase Star Wars Boost as I thought it would be a great introduction to coding, but was rather disappointed that it offered zero educational value. It didn’t teach my son how to code, it simply required him to follow instructions in building code and having no idea why we were doing it. I do think that if it were actually educational and actually required you to think critically and build your own code it would have real value, but sadly it became just another excuse for more screen time. Luckily my son has mostly forgotten about it.
@Vindicare said:
" @andyh1984 said:
"This is why I will not buy any app based sets either system or Technic. Lego can render the functionality useless whenever they feel like it."
Why? The sets can still be enjoyable without the app. I can speak highly for HS in this case. I have about 8 sets & I thoroughly enjoyed building the sets, no app in sight."
The Technic sets are useless without the CONTROL+ app.
LEGO should stay away from everything digital. The apps and games are really bad.
I dont and wont buy sets that arent self-sufficient, that depend on crucial additional, external component to be 100% (C+, City Missions, etc). Those will be (at best partially) obsolete rather soon, compared to how you can still use sets 10, 20+ old just fine.
I really loved the Hidden Side sets and should try to get more of them before they disappear. They're great sets. I never bothered -- nor would have -- with the app [not that my device could handle it]. They only had a nominal bit with the (colored flat plates here and there to orient triggers for the app). It's a shame they dropped the theme because of the expense of the app.
I am shocked, SHOCKED to find them discontinuing phone apps for products that haven't been sold in two - nearly three - years. Shocked I say!
(In case anyone couldn't tell, this is a attempt at a reference to the film "Casablanca")
@Murdoch17 said:
"I am shocked, SHOCKED to find them discontinuing phone apps for products that haven't been sold in two - nearly three - years. Shocked I say!
(In case anyone couldn't tell, this is a attempt at a reference to the film "Casablanca")"
Murdoch17, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Maybe I'm being shortsighted or thinking selfishly, but I wish that LEGO would focus energy in the software development space on applications like Studio. Focusing on building is what brought them back from the brink in the early '00s. Should that not also be the focus where your software is concerned?
@OneIsLit:
Sounds like Dimensions did it better, with lots of unique puzzles and game-mechanics that required interaction with the physical components to solve. Other gameplay involved the usual spread of controls seen in other LEGO video games.
@Zordboy:
All LEGO Movie original characters were at least partially owned by Warner Bros, which would include every character that appeared in the Unikitty show.
@OneIsLit:
In the Great Lakes region, lighthouses aren't always spaced several miles apart. They were built where they were needed. If you had a river that was large enough to use as a harbor, that would get a lighthouse (sometimes two, so you could line up with the angle of the entrance). Headlands and islands might also get them, as they both posed navigation hazards. Some areas can have a cluster of them. For instance, the entrance to the Detroit River has one on each shore (Windmill Point in the US, and Pelee Passage in Canada), and a third forming a neat triangle on the upriver end of Belle Isle (William Livingstone Memorial). These three are within 1.5 miles of each other. Further downriver, Detroit Lighthouse Depot and Tricentennial State Park are about one mile from each other on the US shore. Cheboygan, Michigan has five lighthouses. The river has a front and rear range light, there's a ruins of an old lighthouse on the nearby peninsula, and two lighthouses on reefs offshore. The two that are furthest from each other are less than three miles apart. There are five lighthouses by Chicago, five by Toledo, five by Buffalo...
@Vindicare:
Depending on how long the company lasts, it's almost a certainty. The current team may have learned their lesson, but somewhere down the line, a new hire is going to have this "genius new idea" for "something we haven't tried before".
@Martin_S:
The console games (largely licensed to actual game developers) have been very popular and mostly problem free. It's just the Toys To Life genre that has them leaving a forehead print in a brick wall lately.
@Draykov:
Stud.io is Bricklink's deal, and they're operating as a separate company right now. Until they get rolled into the mothership like LEGO Direct did ~20 years ago, Billund isn't likely to involve themselves in the development of that program.
I hope they will develop more successfully in the field of applications.
@Agnew said:
" @gylman said:
" @Rimefang
I've tried building sets with PDF based instructions. I hate it, especially for large sets. It's one of the reasons I plan to reduce my purchase of Bricklink Designer sets going forward. "
Hmmm interesting. I exclusively build with digital instructions; even when I buy new sets, I put the booklet to the side and use my laptop."
Out of curiosity, why? I find it muck easier to work with a booklet and flick backwards and forwards than scroll around on a tablet or laptop. It's also easier to position a book than a laptop, for me... What makes the experience better for you?
Incidentally I think I'm the only person who preferred stapled booklets to "perfect bound" instructions, they were by far the easiest and best for me because they would open flat..
@Brick_Master:
They would open flat…ter. I would still have problems with them rolling shut when I was at the first few pages. Certainly not as bad as perfect-bound, and I don’t remember having problems nearing the end. On the other hand, the staples tend to rip through the inner pages over time, especially on larger booklets.
Personally, the theme had nice sets but the app; not so much. I really think that the sets by themselves were pretty good, but the app seemed kind of unnecessary.
This sort of thing just erodes consumer's faith in future products with app-based tie-ins.
Granted, I never even used the app for the few Hidden Side sets I bought.
I am worried my 42100 Liebherr 9800 will just become an unusable $450 brick one day.
it was fun at first before they made it mandatory multiplayer. i and my kids enjoyed it prior to that.
@KaiserCoaster said:
"This sort of thing just erodes consumer's faith in future products with app-based tie-ins.
Granted, I never even used the app for the few Hidden Side sets I bought.
I am worried my 42100 Liebherr 9800 will just become an unusable $450 brick one day."
Not trying to worry you, but it will be "brick" someday. All apps (technology in general, really) have a natural life / death cycle and eventually, Control+ will die too. Hopefully someone will come up with a third party app to replace it, but I don't have a crystal ball to tell you if / when that happens. Don't count on that happening, though... LEGO might have proprietary software or something to keep anyone but the official app out forever. (I don't know that for sure, but I wouldn't doubt it.)
Sorry to be the cloud of despair raining on your parade!
@Murdoch17:
They did that with the RCX. It didn’t take long for the AFOL community to break in and replace it with better software. The LEGO designers recognized it as such, and actually invited five of them to help develop the NXT kit, which even resulted in part 55615 (aka the “Hassenplug”).
Things do work out for the better sometimes. I can’t say for sure that tinkering would be embraced this time, but Sony tried for years to keep people out of the PSP, and each time they patched it, they spent longer patting each other on the back for a job well done than it took the homebrew community to crack their way back in. One time they even got in by hacking the battery. The US government only manages to do as well as it does because they hire/threaten to imprison the people who did get in to help keep others out.
They did update the app within the last few weeks. When they say discontinue, does that mean they are just going to stop supporting it or completely remove it from the app store(s)? I thought the game was pretty fun, and my son loves it, but it stopped working a while ago. We haven't had a chance to see if the recent update actually fixed the scanning issue.
The sets were also pretty cool too. Unlike most of the Vidiyo line, they were complete sets; the app just added extra play value.
It did have an annoying flaw though...it doesn't save your progress to any cloud infrastructure (whether that be LEGO's own servers, Google, Apple, etc.) so if you get a new phone or uninstall the game, your progress is lost.
@Murdoch17 said:
" @KaiserCoaster said:
"This sort of thing just erodes consumer's faith in future products with app-based tie-ins.
Granted, I never even used the app for the few Hidden Side sets I bought.
I am worried my 42100 Liebherr 9800 will just become an unusable $450 brick one day."
Not trying to worry you, but it will be "brick" someday. All apps (technology in general, really) have a natural life / death cycle and eventually, Control+ will die too. Hopefully someone will come up with a third party app to replace it, but I don't have a crystal ball to tell you if / when that happens. Don't count on that happening, though... LEGO might have proprietary software or something to keep anyone but the official app out forever. (I don't know that for sure, but I wouldn't doubt it.)
Sorry to be the cloud of despair raining on your parade!"
I realize it won't last forever, but should have specified maybe that I'm worried it's much much sooner than later.
Also, there is actually a third-party javascript library on GitHub that can interface with PoweredUp devices! It's been on my list for a few years to play around with for possibly controlling/automating trains, but just haven't gotten around to it.
@PurpleDave said:
"Stud.io is Bricklink's deal, and they're operating as a separate company right now. Until they get rolled into the mothership like LEGO Direct did ~20 years ago, Billund isn't likely to involve themselves in the development of that program."
Even if that's true, it doesn't change my feeling that their software (whatever application that might be) should focus on a complete and positive virtual building experience.
@Vindic8ed:
Is it possible to have your progress ported over if you initiate a phone transfer from one device to another? Probably not, but it's worth checking into.
@Draykov:
Eh, I use MLCad anyways.
I wish Lego would start open sourcing some of their digital assets as it would help allow some life to continue with little to no effort on their part.
@lytly said:
"This is why I don’t buy motorized Technic sets."
New new Airbus helicopter uses a good old fashioned battery box. Maybe Lego have seen the light?
@PurpleDave said:
" @Vindic8ed:
Is it possible to have your progress ported over if you initiate a phone transfer from one device to another? Probably not, but it's worth checking into.
@Draykov:
Eh, I use MLCad anyways."
I never tried so it's possible. If there's physical damage to the phone then that wouldn't be possible though (which happened to the first save).