LEGO New Business Group
LEGO Life of George
LEGO System A/S
LEGO Life of George
LEGO Life of George
Life of George – Build. Scan. Score!
The world’s first interactive game combining real LEGO® bricks with apps for your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. Follow George around the world as he challenges you to a series of fun building tasks. Build as fast as possible. Scan your model with your iPhone/iPod/iPad camera. Get scored on how fast and how accurate you build.
The box consist of :144 basic LEGO bricks, 1 PlayMat that works as a “green-screen” for scanning your models, 1 George Sticker.
The App “LEGO Life of George” is free to download from the app store.
Kids are moving away from physical toys at a younger age than ever before. One of the biggest competitors to classic LEGO play is found in the growing industry of casual app based games. Life of George combines the best of both worlds making it cool for older kids to keep playing LEGO even though they might consider themselves too old for it.
3. The Intent: What point of view did you bring to the project, and were there additional criteria that you added to the brief?When starting up the development the market for “app toys” was close to non-existing and made up of more gadget-like experiences. But even from the first prototypes the excitement around George grew quickly because of the strong focus on basic LEGO builder. It was important to the design team to keep this focus on the LEGO core values of building and creativity but at the same time deliver it in a new format.
4. The Process: Describe the rigor that informed your project. (Research, ethnography, subject matter experts, materials exploration, technology, iteration, testing, etc., as applicable.) What stakeholder interests did you consider? (Audience, business, organization, labor, manufacturing, distribution, etc., as applicable)Life of George is developed by LEGO New Business Group. Focusing on a fast to market approach to product development the LEGO New Business Group is set up an internal start-up company. Life of George was initially developed a pilot project and therefore also only launched in a limited number of stores: LEGO Brand Retail and Apple Stores (Europe).
The technology:
The play experience is based on a patented brick recognition algorithm developed by EyeCue™.
The Style:
With the help from design agency Hello Monday a new graphical identity was created for Life of George.
This new LEGO play experience has been extreme well received across age and gender. From age 8 to 80 people are playing and challenging each other to be the fastest builder.
Apart from being an addictive game experience Life of George is also great for training your motoric and creative skills.
Combining the newest technology with one of the most traditional toy we have created a completely new play experience but also ignited a new category in the toy market: App Toys.
So nice to use Lego as fiduciary marker! Very smart. And with lots of potential that could be taken further than this. But this is nice and simple concept. I can see potential of playing Lego with my kids when I’m away, this way. Good to reinforce physical interaction and haptics within digital orchestration. As with Teagueduino, lots of flexibility and adaptation, though less hooks – but then a different audience. – Dan Hill
A neat product output, and nice use of lego bricks as AR. Although I donÃt build with lego only in 2D, I wanted it to work in 3D too. – Jack Schulze