Cette annonce-surprise a soulevé de nombreuses questions, notamment au niveau du gameplay et de l'histoire générale du jeu. On peut en effet se demander comment NetDevil, la société chargée de développer Lego Universe, va t'elle s'y prendre : les développeurs vont-ils opter pour un simple jeu de rôle dans l'univers Lego ? Le jeu s'apparentera-t'il seulement à une simulation de construction ? Lego Universe utilisera-t'il les archétypes de base des MMO, à savoir la création de personnage, les quêtes et les affrontements qui en résultent ? Et bien il semblerait qu'un peu de tout ça soit prévu.

D'après un article paru dans le magazine anglais games, le jeu tournera en grande partie autour de la construction. Vous pourrez construire vos éléments du décor, comme des bâtiments, des moyens de locomotion et même votre propre ville. Dans un premier temps, vous ne pourrez pas construire ce que vous voulez comme bon vous semble, mais des "tâches", que l'on peut assimiler à des quêtes, vous serons assignées qui vous guideront dans vos différentes étapes de construction. La possibilité de "grouper" avec d'autres joueurs sera de la partie, et sera même indispensable à certains moments du jeu.

Comme dans tout bon MMO, vous dirigerez un personnage, votre "avatar", que vous pourrez créer de toute pièce, littéralement. Des phases de combat seront également présentes, mais aucun détail n'a été communiqué pour l'instant.

Je vous invite à visionner la vidéo ci-dessous, qui vous donnera un très léger aperçu de Lego Universe.

And, as a quick side note, the game is currently set for release in Q1 2009. And if you want to try and get into beta, just sign-up for their newsletter here.

What will I be able to do in LEGO Universe?
Design your own minifigure – Upon landing in LEGO Universe, you’ll choose from hundreds of options to customize your tiny in-game characters.

Play – Creative adventure awaits as you guide your little LEGO person through an ever-evolving assortment of virtual worlds. Your minifig will be able to jump, run, bounce, build and quest in LEGO Universe.

Build – In LEGO Universe, you’ll be able to build in the virtual space with LEGO pieces—either on your own or in collaboration with other players. The gameworld will also include stacks of ways to bring your most innovative creations to life!

Socialize – LEGO Universe will be a place where you can enjoy socializing with other LEGO fans from all over Earth. Players will have chances to collaborate in adventurous exploration as well as on large-scale creations and sharing their love of playing with LEGO pieces in a safe online playground.

Does LEGO Universe include an original story?
Yes, the game features an overarching epic storyline about the origins of LEGO Universe and the minifigures that inhabit it. In the story of LEGO Universe, the minifigures can team up to quest together. If the teams are successful, they’ll uncover new game zones featuring original characters, more building opportunities, and undiscovered creative challenges!

More details about LEGO Universe’s original story will be clarified closer to the game’s 2009 public premier.

Can I get all the bricks I want?
How many bricks you can have in LEGO Universe will depend on how you play the game. Players will be able to earn more bricks by finding them, completing challenges, defeating enemies, gathering goods, discovering treasures and unlocking secrets.

Players will also be able to make their own bricks using LEGO Universe’s currency—which will be plastic. Check out LEGOuniverse.com’s archive of updates to discover more information about the game’s economy!

What LEGO sets or characters will be in the game?
LEGO Universe will feature popular LEGO play themes and characters from the past and present. Entirely new figures and storylines will also be introduced in the game, and you’ll be able to create your own original characters!

More information about the play themes available in LEGO Universe will become available prior to the game’s big launch in 2009.

Will the game feature player vs. player (PVP) battling?
While LEGO Universe is not being designed as a PVP-centric game, there will be opportunities to compete with friends and other players in a variety of scenarios. LEGO Universe will offer both cooperative and competitive challenges to facilitate fun, creativity, and inspiration for the fan community.

Will other players be able to wreck my creations?
In LEGO Universe, you will decide whether or not other players can alter your creations. Players will be able to select options designating their creations as “smashable” or not!

Oh, and even though they don't mention it here, the game does include Lego kits with a licensed IP. Lego Star Wars kit? Totally in the game.

Basicamente, cada jogador cria sua própria versão online e interage com os outros. Os cenários urbanos terão muitos tijolinhos e as florestas bem menos mas também aparecem aos poucos.

Assim, as crianças brincam mais e mais em novo estilo enquanto a Lego continuará fazendo sua história de sucesso.

Isso tende a criar estreita ligação entre o mundo físico e o virtual, mas nunca substituirá a experiência física. Os blocos de plástico continuarão fazendo grande sucesso. E o Lego Universe será adendo à criatividade infantil.

Jogos virtuais Lego terão também seu caráter educativo assim como hoje os blocos de plástico.  

Despite the fact that the game is supposed to be released sometime this summer, little is known about LEGO Universe. The premise seems to be some virtual world in which players can express creativity via legos.

Anyway, if you thought it was cool to get your World of Warcraft character turned into a figurine, Lego Group has a factory set up that'll be able to turn your characters and other creations into real products. No word yet on the price rates, though.

Utilising the Lego Group's original manufacturing business is the key distinguishing element for Lego Universe said development director Mark Hansen, with the company confident of entering the expensive MMO market following feedback from its loyal user community.


"That's what our supply chain is geared towards. It's about the customisation. We have the Lego factory in Denmark so we built the whole back-supply chain first before we built the game. From 1999, until now, we've been developing this concept," said Hansen...


"We're very proud of that because there's no one else that can do that."

Hell yes. Playing with a children's toy that's modeled after something you made in an MMO that's based on that same children's toy might be reaching a new level of nerdy, but at least I have a reason to play with Legos again.

You can read the whole article, once again, over at GamesIndustry.biz

How did the concept of a Lego massively multiplayer experience come about? Did you look at the success of social networking and MMO games and realise it would work for the Lego brand, or was there more to it than that?


Our learning really started back in 2001 when we had a strategy of building up in the digital space with a project within Lego called Darwin. We worked a lot with developing a personal brick for users. This digital brick that we have, we built an application called Lego Digital Designer, where through an application users can build models brick by brick. We knew there was more to it at the time but the technology wasn't there to build any kind of MMO. We've been working with digital technology, looking at how to get a better rendered brick, get better lighting and so on. Now the technology is right but there are not many developers that we felt could deliver what we wanted. It was quite an extensive search to find a partner that can pull this off.


Also, the community that we have is very strong and they are involved with their own digital tools so we had to find a way of bringing in their digital tools to work with ours, which we've done. So we can import and export from our tools and their tools. For us as Lego, we can see that we can really pull off a premium, immersive world for thousands of people to play with at any one time.


Are you concerned about the competition and the costs in the MMO and social networking markets? If you're not competing directly with a game like World of Warcraft then you will be competing with Habbo Hotel or Club Penguin...


We're definitely aware of them but I think our game is a much more unique offering, it's a different selling proposition, it's a more 3D immersive world but it also builds onto our physical product which really makes a difference. There is a lot of competition but the market is also very big. It's not about cannibalising one product in order for another to be successful, it's about adding to the market.


So you work in the console space with TT Games, Lego.com provides your casual games, and you're working on the MMO with NetDevil – is Lego looking to continue growth in other areas of the videogame market?


Definitely. TT Games has hit a recipe and it is spot on. We want to build in the MMO space and in the internet gaming space and on mobile technology because it's the natural way for kids and adults to experience interactive content. Lego Star Wars appeals to adults as much as kids, people want to play casual games on the train. And we definitely want to expand.

You can head over to GamesIndustry.biz for the full article. But... the rest mainly talks about online Lego communities which, as funny as that sounds, it's not terribly interesting to read about.

One of my favorite toys growing up were LEGOs and just last month LEGO celebrated their 50th anniversary. When I was a kid the LEGO craze was somewhat limited to small plastic bricks. Now there are LEGO theme parks, LEGO conventions, and, of course, LEGO video games.

I've heard a lot of buzz about the LEGO video games, in particular, and I've been meaning to pick up a copy of LEGO Star Wars for my Nintendo DS, but I might just have to hold out because two great new games are coming - LEGO Indiana Jones (for console systems - and hopefully DS) and LEGO Universe (a new online virtual LEGO world).

Additional details about the new LEGO Universe were released last week at the Game Developers Conference. Massively.com has a great post about what they learned at GDC on their blog here.

In LEGO Universe, you have an in-game "avatar" that takes the shape of a traditional LEGO person. As a player, you'll be able to customize the face and body of your LEGO minifigure as well as gain accessories, weapons, tools, and custom pets that will make your character unique in a virtual world filled with other LEGO people. And when the game launches (not for over a year), players will also be able to purchase traditional real-life LEGO sets of whatever structure they build using virtual blocks in the game. Very cool.

The LEGO Indiana Jones game should be coming out this summer. They haven't announced what platforms the game will be for, but I anticipate that they will have a DS version. Check out the very cute game trailer here:

I'm looking forward to seeing how these games come out. In the meantime, I've pulled together a list of LEGO links that may just blow your mind:

BrickJournal - A magazine spotlighting the LEGO community.

The Brick Testament - A co-worker of mine pointed out this site to me. It is the largest and most comprehensive illustrated bible in the world with thousands of LEGO images depicting stories from the bible.

LegoLand - A theme park dedicated to the world of LEGO in Carlsbad, CA.

Lego Factory - Design, share and buy your own customized LEGO models online.

BrickWorld- An annual LEGO fan convention. This year BrickWorld will be held June 19 - 22 in Weeling, IL.

LUGNET - The International LEGO Users Group.

Flickr LEGO Photo Pool - Tons of LEGO photos.

ILTCO - International LEGO Train Club Organization

Brothers Brick - A blog dedicated to LEGOs. Check out their blogroll for a TON of other LEGO blogs.

My wife was off at a trade show and my daughter and I were on our own.

The weather was nice and the Simpsons were in the theater, but my daughter has a summer cold, so we stayed home.  We couldn't have any real friends over, so we found some plastic ones instead.

We played with LEGO most of Saturday.

We kicked off the day by opening up my new LEGO set, the X-Wing Fighter (kit 6212).

In fact, my daughter was so excited about this kit that I had to open it up and start assembly at the kitchen table while I was eating breakfast.

First things first of course.  We had to get out the mini figures so she could play with those while I worked on assembling the X-Wing.  This kit comes with Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, Wedge Antilles, Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca.

Here they are in and around the assembled X-Wing.

Assembling the X-Wing was not too difficult.  It did take a while, but the instructions were pretty well laid out, even for LEGO instructions.  Unlike the instructions in some of the other sets, the X-Wing instructions showed which pieces were used with each step and was pretty good at showing where they went.  Some other sets, like The Krusty Krab kit, make you play "guess what changed" on nearly every page.

This may have been the most intricate LEGO model I have ever assembled.  There is a worm-gear mechanism inside the hull of the ship that is driven by a knob on the back which moves the wings of the fighter so that you can have the wings in the "X" attack position, or in the cruise/landing position.  It reminds me very much of an F-14 Tomcat model I made when I was a kid.

Here is the fully assembled X-Wing.  Catwoman is lurking in the background, no doubt planning to steal this technological marvel.

Of course, getting the X-Wing assembled lead to a day of LEGO play and repair.  Unfortunately, the X-Wing is a bit fragile, like so many intricate LEGO models, so I spent some of the day re-attaching engines, landing gear, and cockpit accomidations.   Still, in the hands of a five year old, it held up pretty well.

Generation Gap Warning: My daughter kept referring to Princess Leia as Queen Amidala, Padme being more well known to her that Leia. 

And this day of LEGO play culminated in my daughter and I watching "Star Wars: Episode IV," during which we acted out as many of the scenes as we could with the mini figures and the X-Wing.

It was a fun day.

And at the end of the day, after the movie and when she was getting ready for bed, my daughter announced that we really had to get more Star Wars LEGO kits because we did not have enough characters or props to act out all of the scenes in the movie.

My wife groaned.

I grinned.

I will have to see what they have up on eBay.  I am not going to buy that LEGO Death Star or the new Millenium Falcon kit, but a couple of the smaller kits would be fine.

So the X-Wing has joined the rest of our LEGO kits, which includes three of the SpongeBob SquarePants kits and the one of the Avatar kits.  My daughter seems to be primed for LEGO Universe when it shows up.