Evolution and Blending of Toys

When my brother and I were kids, between 7 and 10 maybe, we would regularly play with our action figures. While my grandma called them "dolls for boys," we called them "Guys." 

But we wouldn't necessarily say "We're going to go play with our Guys," we'd say, "We're going to go play Guys," as if the title of the toys themselves was also the title for the activity---generally mega-battles that would overtake sections of our living room or front yard and last for hours.

It was around this same era that video game consoles were taking over America, with Nintendo and Sega home consoles exploded on the scene. We didn't have one of those; when we were younger, our folks picked up an Atari, and later we were gifted a Commodore 64, and we definitely played games on that.

But, Guys and video games, two kid playing activities. Guys seemed to use more imagination, while video games sharpened eye-hand coordination.

But now, these two activities have been blended. My son was given a gift card for his birthday last year, but he got it months late due to his birthday party getting canceled because we all got COVID and then not seeing the dude for a while. The...we lost track of the gift card for an even longer time, but just recently he settled on spending it (along with a pinch of our money) on a nifty Mario Lego set:

It took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Above, if you look at the Mario figure, it looks like he has open eyes with blue irises and white corneas and all. This figure actually takes two batteries, and once turned on, makes noises, blinks his eyes, and has a display screen on his chest. The "noises" I just mentioned include, but not limited to: 

• The sound of Mario walking from the video game;
• The sound of Mario jumping from the video game;
• Various Mario phrases that you could guess if you're familiar with the franchise;
• The sound of going down a pipe;
• The song itself, and the song sped up when the time gets close;
• The boss/Bowser song;
• The ?-box sound;
• Collecting a coin;
• The "Completing a Level" end music;
• Being invincible from a star.

It's pretty damn complete, considering it's a oddly shaped Lego Guy. But it's so much more. It has Blue-Tooth capability so it can link to a phone or tablet. But you don't need Blue-Tooth to play with it, or 'play it.'

In the picture above, I've arranged all the items that this "starter pack" came with that have QR codes/barcodes attached. Mario has a scanner on his underside, and by jumping on these scanners, the various sound effects start or are activated. Here's how the gameplay is designed to go:

An eager kid sets up the Lego track to look however they want. Items with the codes get placed anywhere along their track, with the start at the beginning and the flag/ending at the end. In the above picture, the green pipe just right of center is the Start, and the code on the Bowser flag on the left is the End. When your Mario is turned on and placed over the pipe's code, the music from the first Super Mario Brothers starts, a 60 second timer starts to count down, and you're off. At ten seconds remaining, the tempo increases, just like the game as time is running short. When you place Mario on the code with the flag at the End, the level complete music plays, and you're shown on the screen how many coins you picked up along the track.

Cass's max so far was 89 coins, but that may have been an experiment to see how often you could defeat Bowser Jr, the enemy that came with this starter pack.

And yes, there are tons of expansion packs to this thing.

This activity blends Guys and video games into something new. It's fascinating.