Lego Games on iPod and iPad

Our sons (3 and 5 years old) are playing more and more with Lego, which pleases me greatly as I was a Lego kid growing up. Being a hoarder I kept most of my old Lego as well we have bought several newer sets for the kids. In the last couple months the two of them have started to show more interest in the Lego than simply playing with the vehicles and sets we assemble for them. Now they are starting to build their own things… which is awesome.

The other night I decided to check the Apps store on the iPad to see if they had any interesting Lego applications. I found a few free ones:

Creationary. This is a smaller version of the full game (you can buy new puzzle packs). Basically you are shown a Lego build in progress and have to guess what is being built. The kids enjoyed this and I’ll probably buy more packs down the road.

Card Games. This is probably the most played Lego App right now… it comes with a matching game and another less interesting game. The matching game has proven itself fun for the kids though I’m sure they’ll be bored of it soon.

Ninjag…something or other. Lego has some weird spinning Ninja toys now and they put out a game for that. The kids like this game though I’m not as much a fan basically it involves them moving my iPad up and down to direct a spinning Ninja character they control. The game does have some cool things though like being able to buy upgrades for your character and choosing different clothing options and such.

Minifigures. This is probably the favorite game for them right now though in my opinion there’s little too it. Basically you choose a minifigure pack and then you play a slot machine, combining pieces to try and match an actual minifigure character. If you find a match you ‘collect’ that figure.

In general what I really like about most Lego applications (including the Lego games available for the consoles) is that you can figure out how to build some really cool things using normal Lego bricks just by watching the props used in the games (i.e., I built a landspeeder the other day). I’ve been trying to encourage the kids to look at the games in this way — having them examine the objects used and then build them with real Lego. Seems to be working so far.