LEGO and Pokémon are teaming up for a dozen incredible new sets that use SMART play technology. It allows you to truly bring your favorite Pokémon characters to life and become their trainer. You can even feed them and give them a little tickle, too. Fans can pre-order their sets now and look forward to their release in August.
Of course, the journey to bring LEGO Pokémon SMART play sets to the masses has been years in the making and included a ton of research, development, and careful designing. We attended a LEGO Pokémon demo event in London and had the pleasure of speaking with LEGO Group Designers Siddharth Muthyala and Mike Anderson about their love for Pokémon, what they learned from kids during testing, and Easter eggs that will spark joy.
Nerdist: I am curious about the research and development process that you went through. Take me back to how you came up with designs and worked with kids to bring this project to life?
Siddharth Muthyala: It’s been several years of development. Mike and I have been part of this project since the beginning and, at LEGO, anything we do, we play test. So each time we build a prototype or a new model, we take it to children and get feedback. It’s not so much testing and researching, it’s more like co-creation.
As we do our play tests, we’re learning from what they’re telling us and we’re also taking notes on what they want from us… We take a Pokémon and we ask, “What stories do you tell with Squirtle?” And we bring that feedback into play sets that we design. So it’s been a process of almost bi-weekly checking in with the kids, the fans, and having them tell their stories of how they would play with each Pokémon and trying to bring that to life.
Mike Anderson: Of course we are also very inspired by the original animation and the games as well. In the very beginning, we brought in a lot of the game mechanics. For example, you would like, like as a gamer, we thought, okay, you would heal the Pokémon until it was fully healed. And then you would stop because that’s what you do in the game. But then when we bring that into a kids room, they just continue. The kids see it differently. In a game, we would maybe have a limit to how many times you can heal in a battle because that’s a gaming kind of way of thinking.
But the kids are like, “I want to decide that. ” So we wanted to make this open play experience where it’s the kids that make their journey. It’s them who are controlling the narrative, the story. Do they start battle and then go training or do they do training first and then battle? It’s really focusing on how they are playing with it, what are the stories they have in their head, and how can we then bring that to life with the SMART brick and these sets.
Muthyala: Also the Pokémon universe is so rich, right? There’s so many stories you can tell. There are thousands of Pokémon and they all behave differently, they all have their own stories. For us it’s all about bringing that to life and for us we can build that.
Absolutely. Of course, these sets have some pretty iconic Pokémon like Pikachu. How did you go about narrowing down which core characters to use in these LEGO sets?
Muthyala: We have an amazing partnership with Qualcomm One Company International. The company has a lot of data and insights as well on which Pokémon that fans love. Over a couple of years, each time we brought kids in to play, we also had a little questionnaire and asked about their favorites. At the point when we had like over a hundred children coming in, patterns began to emerge and then we started choosing from there.
Anderson: We also want a lineup where there’s something for everyone together. We wanted to represent the universe. Pokémon are different types and sizes. There are some that can fly, others that can walk, some that can hover. So we were trying to create a lineup where when you start combining them, it feels complete.
I love the variety offered in the sets! During your testing phase, were there things that happened with the kids that were funny or perhaps made you think differently about future choices?
Anderson: I remember when we brought Jigglypuff into the room, kids were like, Okay, now I need all the Pokémon!” They started singing and they would lie them down to sleep… So they take the story with them into the playroom and then they play it out. It really showed that each character sort of has a universe on its own and the kids tapped into the different aspects of it.
We have seen like tests where afterwards instead of hi-fiving Sid to say thanks for playing, they go and hi-five Jigglypuff. They would say, “Can you please take care of Jigglypuff?” because they’d spent time with it.
That’s adorable!
Muthyala: For me, it was the amount of active play with the kids. We developed a battle system. There’s a lot of fun strategy in there with how you attack and defend. Children were standing up and super active and we didn’t expect that. The Pokémon would sometimes break. So we would have to go back and redesign the Pokémon. Charizard was redesigned maybe a hundred times to make sure it’s still fun even when it breaks and you can put it back together really quickly, but also we didn’t want it to break as much. So we’ve designed all the Pokémon so that they are easy to hold and play with.
I love it. What are both of your personal relationships with Pokémon? Were you able to slip some cool Easter eggs into these LEGO Pokémon sets?
Muthyala: I’m a lifelong fan. I’ve been playing with Pokémon for the past 30 years. Games have been my passion… In terms of Easter eggs, the biggest one for me is the SMART tags. Internally we call them the heart, the soul of the Pokémon. So each Pokémon has a unique SMART tag. Originally they were just a tag with Squirtle’s face as an icon, but then we added the type icons, like a little water logo in there. And then we said ‘Let’s add the Pokédex number because that’s important.’ Every design is unique to that Pokémon and they all have a little type icon and their unique Pokédex number in there. That’s sort of Easter egg-like for me.
Anderson: You should go and try and put a smart ring into Jigglypuff, who wakes up slightly differently than the others. The same with Mewtwo If you try to feed Mewtwo, just see what happens!
The post LEGO Designers on Creating Pokémon SMART Play Sets appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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