LEGO: Life of George is a very interesting new iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, iPad 2 title that uses Virtual Reality (VR Games) and a physical gameboard playmate and real Lego Blocks to play.
The game costs $30 dollars at retail (also sold in Lego shops and Lego Shop online) and releases on October 1st, 2011 alongside a free iTunes App. The game ships with 144 bricks and a special playmate.
The goal of the game is to build specific Lego creations shown on the screen of the App, and then compete with others to see who can build what is shown on the screen with the included Lego bricks most accurately.
Here is the game’s debut trailer.
You then place what you’ve physically built and put it on the included Lego Life of George Playmat, which acts as a green screen for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad camera which uses specific “Lego Brick Recognition Software” to score you based on how accurately and how quickly you built what was shown on the screen. You are then scored appropriately.
You can even build your own things and have the game use them thanks to the playmate and cameras.
LEGO Life of George is a 12-level game that can be played in novice or expert mode. Each level showcases an adventure from “George”, around whom the game revolves, and is comprised of models of varying difficulty based on the number of bricks needed and the building techniques required to replicate them. Builders are challenged to physically recreate the virtual models from George’s photo album using the LEGO bricks included with the game; once they have successfully completed all 10 models the next level will be unlocked.
In addition to Game Mode which can be played alone or against one competitor in a pass-and-play format, a Creation Mode called “My Life” enables users to design and capture their own models in the App’s virtual Scrapbook.
“We understand consumers’ powerful connection to casual gaming, and we have seen how successfully the LEGO brand can translate to a virtual experience, so we pursued development of a fun way to combine both physical and virtual play into one product,” says Paal Smith-Meyer, head of new business at LEGO Group. “Life of George is a result of our desire to provide an innovative way for existing and new fans to play with LEGO bricks and interact with the brand.”
So who is George?
George is a software engineer by day and adventurer by night! His main hobbies are travel, photography and numbers, and has a fun storyline for players to follow and engage with via his very own Facebook page, I Am George. Fans can expect to see updates and photography from George on his travels as well as hints to new game levels and App updates through his posts.
What do you think of Lego Life of George? I think this is an absolutely awesome idea, and a great way to use mobile gaming! I hope we see more stuff like this in the future. Sounds really fun!