LEGO® Friends Review: Series 1 Play Cubes 41400-41404

One of the new concepts that LEGO® has released this year are the Friends Play Cubes - compact, portable little sets that are part of a collectible series and can be stacked together.  Each Play Cube set costs US$9.99/ £7.99/ 9.99€ and there are five to collect in Series 1.

We thought we would take a look at the complete first series of Friends Play Cubes to check out the new elements; in particular to take a closer look at the play cubes themselves.

Plant or Animal? A closer look at Plant w/3.2 Shaft

Bright Bluish Green [TLG]/ Dark Turquoise [BL] Plant, W/3.2 Shaft, No. 2 (Element ID 6262134 | Design ID 49577), known as 'Plant Thallus, Seaweed' on BrickLink, appears in LEGO® Friends underwater themed sets released this month in Europe.  I initially thought this element was depicting coral rather than seaweed, but its official LEGO name suggests it is a plant, not an animal.

Either way, this interesting new element immediately caught our eye and we thought it would be fun to take a closer look.

Such a friendly place

We have our first ever post from Gary Davis today; he's the Brickish Association's Ambassador and goes by the name of Bricks for Brains on Flickr.  When Gary agreed to write something, he didn't expect me to suddenly reappear with a massive LEGO® Friends set... 

I'm not much of a set builder - I much prefer building MOCs - so I was pleasantly surprised when Tim entrusted me to write this review of the LEGO Friends set: 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel. I've always loved the way that New Elementary focuses on new LEGO elements and on re-coloured elements, so that's what I've done for this review. If you're interested the step-by-step build of this set, please refer to the excellent review written by LostInTranslation on Brickset.

The Friends range continues to be popular with over 30 new Friends sets issued in the first half of 2015 alone (not counting polybags and 'tat'). At £99.99 (US$129.99), 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel is the highest-priced Friends set ever issued and also the one with the most pieces: 1,552. The average price per piece works out as 6.44p (8.38¢), which is not bad as it includes several large plates.

The finished model is an impressive size and is packed with features that provide plenty of playability for the 8-12 year old target age group. There's a moveable lift (elevator), a revolving door, a grand piano, baggage cart, ice cream bar and trolley, sun loungers and a fountain. There is also four-seater taxi for arrival and departure. With only two bedrooms, the hotel is quite exclusive but fortunately non-guests can use the lovely roof-top lounge area. The modular construction enables some alternative arrangements and creative builders, with suitable parts, could add more rooms.

Scrollin' along

Somewhat later than intended, here is the second of three reviews of new parts that the LEGO Group (TLG) have released this summer. First up we looked at the new inverted half-arch; today me and the gang are back to examine the...um, what to call this piece? I seem to have ended up referring to it as 'the scrolly thingy' but that's a bit rubbish... although much more descriptive than the official TLG name, 'Design Brick 1X1X2'. BrickLink (BL) are typically long-winded but accurate with theirs; 'Brick, Modified 1 x 1 with Scroll with Open Stud'. I find BL names too tiresome to write repeatedly, so I will go with my sister's exotic suggestion of 'the curlicue'.

That soft, rubbery look

How do you like the feel of a woman's soft hair? No, really, the LEGO® Group (TLG) would like to know. They are seeking feedback from fans on those soft rubbery hairpieces used in the Friends and Disney Princess themes since 2012.

Kim Thomsen from CEE explains: "Feedback can range from touch and feel to usability and play value. All is valid, we want the negative and positive feedback. The purpose is to supply LEGO Quality with valuable insights on the soft hair elements from high affinity consumers (that's YOU - our experts)."

So this is your chance to tell them what you think about such elements. The deadline is by end of play this coming Monday, 12 January 2015.

COMMENTING IS NOW CLOSED ON THIS ARTICLE.

Carry on caravanning

It's been the most pleasant and consistent summer in England that I can recall since I arrived here two decades ago, but now October is here it feels like the sun may finally be gone. So it's a great time to hang on to a little sunshine by breaking out a Friends set, 41034 Summer Caravan, which is full of my favourite Friends hue, Medium Azure.

Rich 'n' juicy

Although there are so many new summer releases from The LEGO® Group (TLG) to talk about at the moment, I didn't want to let this Friends set from last winter pass by. 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar has 277 pieces and retails for US$29.99 / GB£24.99 / €32.99, joining Heartlake City's four other retail establishments that fall into the US$25-35 price range: the bakery, pet salon, cafe and beauty shop.

You're lucky, he's lucky, I'm lucky, we're all lucky!

The largest set in Friends' winter 2014 range with over 700 pieces, 41039 Sunshine Ranch has some exciting basic new parts, plus some useful new elements (by which I mean existing parts in new colours). I settled down this Easter to build it and play with the new parts.

When tigers chillax

The Friends 'Collectables' range launched one year ago and since then nine cute, small and affordable bagged sets have been released featuring animals in little environments. I've mentioned them once or twice in the past thanks to the appearance of unique elements, and indeed the new one that I am discussing today - Tiger’s Beautiful Temple - got a mention in a recent post (so I'll try not to repeat myself).

Curls and swirls for little girls

The 2014 excitement keeps rolling in, thanks to Walmart in Canada who have naughtily posted a lot of 2014 LEGO® box pictures in the last few days. You can catch up with them all on Brickset and I'll be pointing out some of the interesting new elements over the next few weeks. Today I've chosen three decorative elements that are appearing in several of the new Disney Princess sets as well as in Friends. It's a great time to be a LEGO Girl.

The first is a new plant! It can be seen clearly here on 41050 Ariel's Amazing Treasures. It reminds me of an unraveling fern, yet also works well in this underwater scene. There's something a little odd and creepy to me about the way it curls like that. It feels a little alien... and in fact, I've literally just spotted an Olive Green one in 75037 Battle on Saleucami (yes, there are Star Wars set leaks too). This plant seems to fit any scenario... in this forthcoming Friends set, 41026 Sunshine Harvest, it makes me think of a young corn plant.

Back to basics

When I started this blog I was fearful there wouldn't be enough in the way of new elements to keep it going. Quite the reverse is true... I still have elements I obtained in June waiting for their moment of glory! This really comes down to the time involved in each post - researching, playing with the new parts and making some tablescraps from them, photography, Photoshopping (I don't like dust)... oh yeah, and writing.

So today I figured I would play a little catch-up, by listing a few of the new elements released recently that frankly don't need any tablescrapping from me... you know what they do already, 'cos they're plates and bricks. This is not a complete listing, I just wanted to bring some of the cool stuff on my "to-do" list to your attention, in the hope you have need of some of these.

Hidden treasure in North America? [Nope.]

[edit 1st Aug: Spoiler; it is Dark Pink and NOT Medium Lavender! Feel free to read on nevertheless.]

If you live near a LEGO® Brand Store in the USA or Canada and have nothing to do at 5pm tomorrow the 1st of August 2013 and have a daughter aged 6 to 14 (or a son to be applauded), keep reading.

That's most of the caveats out the way; now look at this picture and tell me what you can spot? I think I know what I see. New element. Oooooo. I'd love to know if I'm right.

The box is mostly made of what I think is Medium Lavender, and I'm pretty certain those are some 1X4 Bricks in there - which are not listed anywhere as yet appearing in sets. It feels odd for an element to appear in promotional builds before actual sets. TLG don't just make new elements willy-nilly, certainly not just for a polybag that is available for a couple of hours on one continent. I would make a guess that this new element was included in a set 'first' in terms of TLG's development timelines, and the shorter development time required to make a wee model like this means that in the end it got released earlier than the set.

Cool for school

Stand by, fellow colour geeks, as a previously rare hue is back in basic bricks; Bright Light Yellow as it is named on BrickLink, but I personally prefer TLG's official name Cool Yellow. That sounds way cooooooler. Once again we have the Friends range to thank, and the great news is that you’ll get a lot of Cool Yellow basic bricks by buying just one set; 41005 Heartlake High, which went on sale today in the UK, and the US is this Thursday 1 August.

Bow Selector

LEGO®'s summer release sets are beginning to appear and I've been inspecting what new elements will be amongst them. What first struck me is the number of curved slopes or bows as LEGO call them. So to begin my first ever proper post, we have an amazing new element! I get pretty darned excited when there is a new part that could really add something different to your MOCs.

Brick 1x4x1 Inverted Bow

Element ID 6034043 | Design ID 13547
Colour Olive Green

This completely new part is essentially the reflection of an existing part. Previously AFOLs have had to use SNOT techniques to create the effects that inverted parts like this offer with ease. (Now of course, we can use this new element with SNOT for even more crazy effects!)