I remember watching my young nephew play Lego Island and the introductory video where the camera flies around the island is amazing. But then he was totally baffled by the 'main menu' when some excited lego guy babbles instructions at you in flowery hard-to-follow language, and you had to do abtract things like write in a book or drag icons onto the map before you got to do anything fun like racing cars. I think he could have clicked around that screen for hours and never realised he had to drag the people onto the map.
Great game but they wouldn't make it like that now. Its like a grown ups idea of an interface that a young child would like, rather than something actually tested.
brettermeier 1 hours ago [-]
I also struggled and quit after 10 seconds or something not getting onto the island ^^
msgodel 36 minutes ago [-]
You have to click the red arrows a couple times then go through the rotating door.
I don't remember struggling with it much as a kid tbh.
I've thought about what I used to do with computers before and realized I used to have way more patience with them than I do now. I remember suffering a lot of the stupidity in qbasic and Turbo Pascal when I was 11. I don't think I would tolerate that today. Lego island seems similar.
msgodel 8 hours ago [-]
Holy cow that's incredible. I remember playing this when I was ~6 on Windows 95 and being able to walk around and everything was so cool. Now it runs in the browser.
The decomp approach seems surprisingly effective. I know someone else did this with starcraft to get it to run on ARM and said it was the wrong way to do it although I think he did it all in assembly instead of trying to get something sane out of it.
this is one of those games that lives in my head. the quirky narrator and the personalities of all the characters felt really unique at the time.
seeing stuff like this, and backyard baseball, again in browser or modern apps just doesn't hit the same though
skibz 2 hours ago [-]
This is impressive on so many levels. What an absolute nostaliga trip! Thank you for this.
ycombinatrix 9 hours ago [-]
Incredible! Was this based off MattKC's decompilation?
Klaster_1 8 hours ago [-]
Yes, MattKC mentioned this is his last LI video.
iqandjoke 7 hours ago [-]
It hangs after I try to inspect elements...
foxtacles 7 hours ago [-]
It has trouble with regaining focus at times. Try switching back and forth between the game and another tab/window and it will recover eventually (the hanging is just the game being paused when it goes out of focus)
ranger_danger 8 hours ago [-]
How is this legal? Specifically, distributing copyrighted assets and using their name/logo without permission.
perching_aix 3 hours ago [-]
It isn't. It will stay up only until they get sent a strongly worded email/letter by LEGO. Experience it while you can.
ktkaufman 7 hours ago [-]
TL;DR: it's in a gray area, but nobody with power actually cares (at least for now), so it's effectively fine.
As I understand it, Lego is aware of the project (there's been a significant increase in interest in Lego Island in the past few years, with attempts to obtain the original source code) and simply does not care. It's an ancient IP and can't realistically compete with anything new, at least not in a way that would significantly affect Lego's revenue. This is not unlike the way several other companies have acted when their respective older games have been given the same treatment; if a fan project is not actively causing problems (reputational, financial, etc.), most companies will just leave it alone. For companies that actually seem to care about public opinion (as opposed to, say, Nintendo), I think it's fair to assume that the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project, however legally justified it might be, far outweigh any possible benefits.
debugnik 4 hours ago [-]
> the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project
Just last month LEGO shut down Masks of Power, the Bionicle fan game. They were really close to a release and LEGO had allegedly met the team and given them permission in the past.
I'm increasingly convinced that fan projects should be developed quietly and announced right on release, so they at least exist somewhere on the internet if they get shut down immediately after.
rincebrain 6 hours ago [-]
Specifically, I would assume the calculus is about "how much damage does this do by existing" versus "how much risk is there that we attempt to shut it down and sue and set a precedent by losing", and because for most projects the first value is tiny and the second value is potentially enormous, companies leave them alone.
When either value changes drastically in scale (e.g. a project does something making it very cut and dry which side of legal precedent it falls on, or to massively increase the damage to The Brand(tm)), that's when you get worried.
WA 5 hours ago [-]
Nintendo and Lego are on the same level when it comes to sue people for trademark violations. There are several cease-and-desist orders against YouTubers for calling no-name bricks legos.
indigo945 11 minutes ago [-]
Off-brand toy bricks are a direct threat to LEGO's bottom line, which is in the business of selling toy bricks, and only has its popularity as a moat.
Copies of old LEGO games floating around online are effectively just free LEGO advertising, so the situation may be quite different here.
stuaxo 3 hours ago [-]
I don't know why, but the US invention "legos" is incredibly grating.
Its like a whole country called spaghetti "basgetti" as kids and just went with it.
al_borland 1 hours ago [-]
This is how I feel when I hear or see people use the word “maths”, but I simply accept the cultural differences in language.
Though I don’t think throwing an “s” on a word to make it plural, even if technically incorrect, is on the same level as “basgetti”. Adding an “s” to words to make them plural, is generally a good rule, there are just some exceptions, and not that many people are deep enough into Lego to know it’s one of those exceptions.
themaninthedark 45 minutes ago [-]
Don't worry, at least we don't call them legi
perching_aix 3 hours ago [-]
Not really a US invention, pretty sure countless other languages will transform the word the same way. I know mine does, being an agglutinative one.
voidUpdate 4 hours ago [-]
Probably because they are "lego bricks", not "legos", in the same way that you don't call a bag of rice "rices"
Y_Y 1 hours ago [-]
> you don't call a bag of rice "rices"
Well I didn't until now
tempaway43563 3 hours ago [-]
Absolutely nothing should be getting called "legos", dear god, its "lego" or "lego bricks"
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 6 hours ago [-]
Note that companies usually ignore fan projects like this and don't mention them at all. If they would mention and tolerate them, it weakens their intellectual property in a future lawsuit.
Once fan projects get too much traction, companies have to cease and desist them because that's the way intellectual properties work in the law. It usually has nothing to do with whether it was a cool project or not, it's just that there's way too much money at stake when not defending your IP.
Krutonium 5 hours ago [-]
Amusingly I actually have Video of Atari's Lead of Marketing playing OpenRCT2 on Stream, giving away RCT2 Keys to promote RCT World. To this day, Atari has left us alone though, so yeah it's pretty much not worth it to them to try anything.
eskathos 5 hours ago [-]
Is there any way for a company, Lego in this case, to adopt a fan mod or remake, to make it legitimate IP/copyright wise?
Krutonium 5 hours ago [-]
Absolutely. They just have to license it, and that license can be for a nominal (think $1) cost.
That said, Lego doesn't own the game, so if it came down to it, they could strip all the references to "Lego" from it and probably be fine.
Great game but they wouldn't make it like that now. Its like a grown ups idea of an interface that a young child would like, rather than something actually tested.
I don't remember struggling with it much as a kid tbh.
I've thought about what I used to do with computers before and realized I used to have way more patience with them than I do now. I remember suffering a lot of the stupidity in qbasic and Turbo Pascal when I was 11. I don't think I would tolerate that today. Lego island seems similar.
The decomp approach seems surprisingly effective. I know someone else did this with starcraft to get it to run on ARM and said it was the wrong way to do it although I think he did it all in assembly instead of trying to get something sane out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUNdWnI5BTk
seeing stuff like this, and backyard baseball, again in browser or modern apps just doesn't hit the same though
As I understand it, Lego is aware of the project (there's been a significant increase in interest in Lego Island in the past few years, with attempts to obtain the original source code) and simply does not care. It's an ancient IP and can't realistically compete with anything new, at least not in a way that would significantly affect Lego's revenue. This is not unlike the way several other companies have acted when their respective older games have been given the same treatment; if a fan project is not actively causing problems (reputational, financial, etc.), most companies will just leave it alone. For companies that actually seem to care about public opinion (as opposed to, say, Nintendo), I think it's fair to assume that the bad optics of taking legal action against a random fan project, however legally justified it might be, far outweigh any possible benefits.
Just last month LEGO shut down Masks of Power, the Bionicle fan game. They were really close to a release and LEGO had allegedly met the team and given them permission in the past.
I'm increasingly convinced that fan projects should be developed quietly and announced right on release, so they at least exist somewhere on the internet if they get shut down immediately after.
When either value changes drastically in scale (e.g. a project does something making it very cut and dry which side of legal precedent it falls on, or to massively increase the damage to The Brand(tm)), that's when you get worried.
Copies of old LEGO games floating around online are effectively just free LEGO advertising, so the situation may be quite different here.
Its like a whole country called spaghetti "basgetti" as kids and just went with it.
Though I don’t think throwing an “s” on a word to make it plural, even if technically incorrect, is on the same level as “basgetti”. Adding an “s” to words to make them plural, is generally a good rule, there are just some exceptions, and not that many people are deep enough into Lego to know it’s one of those exceptions.
Well I didn't until now
Once fan projects get too much traction, companies have to cease and desist them because that's the way intellectual properties work in the law. It usually has nothing to do with whether it was a cool project or not, it's just that there's way too much money at stake when not defending your IP.
That said, Lego doesn't own the game, so if it came down to it, they could strip all the references to "Lego" from it and probably be fine.