Lego Hidden Side
Hidden Side is a Lego product line . It takes place in the fictional city of "Newbury" and links the manufacturer's play sets with an app of the same name (for iOS and Android ), with which ghosts are hunted, captured and collected according to the principle of " augmented reality ". The series came on the market in 2019 and, after the now discontinued Dimensions or Nexo Knights series, represents a further attempt by Legos to link digital and real game worlds.
History and background
In contrast to series such as Ninjago , Hidden Side does not (yet) have a closed universe or a closed background story. According to promotional material promoting the first sets, the town of Newbury was ruled by a certain Lady E. in the early 19th century , who subjugated the townspeople along with eight aides. An ancestor of the main character Jack was able to break the rule of Lady E. Since then, Newbury has been haunted by ghosts who take possession of its citizens as well as buildings and objects. The aim or main content of the series is to end the rule of the ghosts or to free citizens and objects in Newbury from the ghosts.
Location of the game action
The American city of Newbury is modeled on a North American coastal city in many ways. There is a shrimp restaurant and a shrimp cutter (2019) as well as a lighthouse (2020). However, an alligator also appears in the shrimp cutter set , which speaks more for the southern states. Despite the small-town appearance, Newbury also seems to have or has had a subway (set 70430). There is also a prison (Set 70435), a school (Set 70425), a castle (Set 70437) as well as the mentioned shrimp restaurant and of course a cemetery in Newbury. All buildings contain play and functional elements as well as (sometimes several) mechanisms that turn a “normal” building into an “owned” building - so the school font can be transformed into the face of a ghost.
In addition, the buildings contain colored markings (partly covered or movable) that play a role in the use of the app.
characters
The heroes and heroines
Jack and Spencer
Jack is introduced as a "cool YouTuber" who recently moved to Newbury. Usually he wears a hoodie and a baseball cap; the first issue of the magazine included a version with a selfie stick . There are now different variations of Jack, some of which differ in the color of the figure and some only in the position of the hat. Spencer is his "ghost dog" whose story has not yet been explained.
Parker
Parker is Jack's classmate; she is described as an outsider in school; the colored (violet) hair goes well with it.
Mr. Elton / "El Fuego"
He was or is both a caretaker of the school, a physical education teacher and a stuntman. He appears both in human form and in skeletal form. It is also available in several variants.
JB
She is Newbury's scientific authority, who discovered how the ghosts can be manipulated and trapped using the app, and mostly operates from her research laboratory.
The ghosts
The figures included in the set are "normal" citizens of the city. The minifigures can be transformed into “possessed” citizens with a second head and other supplementary stones . With the set 70437 ( Mysterious Castle ) - with Nehmaar Reem and Vaughn - ghosts are also represented as individual minifigures. The ghosts shown on posters, placards and packaging are usually "boss ghosts" that only play a role in the app and can be caught in it with the help of the respective set. They have names like Anomalo, Spewer, Hr. Nibs and others.
Sets
So far (as of July 2020) 21 regular and two promotion sets have been published.
magazine
As well as for the theme worlds Ninjago, Batman , Nexo Knights , Lego Elves and others , companion magazines appear in Germany as well as in other countries, which are distributed by the press wholesaler. The magazine appears every two months and is published or distributed by the Stuttgart publishing house Blue Ocean. A figure is enclosed with each booklet, which can be figures that were available in regular sets (such as Jack, but with different clothes) or figures that have not existed before (see above).
App
With the start of sales or a few days earlier, the mobile app for Hidden Side was available for the iOS and Android operating systems. The app has now received several updates that have increased the gaming options. Originally the app could only be played in combination with a purchased set, but it is now also possible to play without sets. Users can choose between playing as a ghost or as a ghost hunter. As a ghost one haunts together with other players , not unlike a first person shooter , through Newbury. As a ghost hunter you have the task of catching as many ghosts as possible. To do this, a set up is scanned and further elements are added to the screen via AR. Depending on the set, different ghosts appear - including a set-dependent boss ghost - which can then be caught. Captured spirits are collected and can be viewed in the app, including their short biographies. There are certain similarities with Pokemon; the gameplay is (so far) not that mature. Also, the relatively detailed representation of the spirit worlds sometimes reaches the limits of the devices; The game becomes confusing on small screens.
marketing
target group
Lego specifies an age between 7 and 9 years for the play sets, depending on the complexity of the models. According to the contextual setting - cool students who work as YouTubers, ghosts with sometimes scary faces and biographies - the series is aimed more at 10 to 12 year olds. This is also supported by other references to contemporary culture.
Series on YouTube
There is also an animated series for Hidden Side , which, however, cannot keep up with the success or quality of the Ninjago series, and which takes place in one of the available sets. There are no other official media products yet; However, similar to other brick films, fans create stop-motion clips about Hidden Side. Only in the Mysterious Castle set do armed ghosts appear.
Reactions
The reactions when the series was presented varied. While on the one hand Legos' attempt to link digital games with the traditional game with bricks was recognized, it was criticized by others - for the same reason, but because of the monotony of the app.
success
Even if Lego Hidden Side's share of total sales is not shown in the balance sheet, CEO Neils B. Christiansen expressed his satisfaction with the market launch of the new series in the press release on the annual results.
Others
Lego has come under fire in a New Zealand study in recent years because of the increasing proportion of weapons in the sets. In the Hidden Side, however, there are hardly any weapons or weapon-like objects. The conflicts with the ghosts are carried out using mobile devices; the “armament” of the main characters thus correlates with that of the app users.
In contrast to other series, no large fan community has (so far) formed around Hidden Side. There are isolated attempts to do this on the internet , the number of AFOLs that turn to the hidden side seems to be quite small.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Blue Ocean: Lego Hidden Side - Now it's getting scary!
- ↑ Lego Hidden Side: Crafting fun with augmented reality. Retrieved on July 9, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Michael Schäfer: Lego Hidden Side in the test. Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
- ↑ franziska.bechtold: Lego Hidden Side Bus in the test: ghost hunt with smartphone. Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Moritz Jäger: Lego with app: What can Powered Up and Hidden Side do? Retrieved on July 9, 2020 (German).
- ↑ With your smartphone on a ghost hunt in the Lego horror train. Retrieved July 9, 2020 .
- ↑ Stone Wars: Annual Results 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
- ↑ Ryk Thiem: Annual result: LEGO Group achieved sales and profit growth in 2019. Retrieved on July 10, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Jan Schmidbauer: Lego is getting more and more brutal: War of the Bricks. Retrieved July 8, 2020 .
- ↑ heise online: Study: Lego sets increasingly contain more weapon blocks and represent more violence. Accessed on July 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Crisis PR: Lego is getting more and more brutal. In: Faktenkontor. May 25, 2016, accessed on July 8, 2020 (German).
- ↑ YouTube. Retrieved July 8, 2020 .
- ↑ Hidden Side Wiki. Retrieved July 8, 2020 .