Brick by click: Lego uses hands to build virtual worlds

Billund, Denmark – Lego has released Lego Fusion, a new platform for children aged seven and older that integrates physical play with a digital game.

Players create structures with typical lego blocks, building them on top of a ‘capture plate’. Using an app, players scan their creations, which digital workers then build in a companion game world to match the size and colours of the real-world structures.

‘Smartphones and tablets have recently become a popular platform for empowering game mechanisms that kids love,’ Ditte Bruun Pedersen, senior design manager at Lego Future Lab, said in a statement. ‘Lego Fusion brings these two favourite play patterns together in an experience where real-life Lego builds come to life in a virtual game.’

The game is designed to feature missions that continually send players between the virtual game world and the physical blocks, easing the concerns of some parents that their children are spending too much time on screens. Four products are now available, offering players different building materials and game story lines, each priced at $34.99 (€26.36, £21).

For more on how the youngest generation plays, read LS:N Global’s Generation I tribe report.