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The Making of LEGO Island: Difference between revisions
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The | ''[[The Making of LEGO Island]]'' is an incomplete memoir written by [[Wes Jenkins]]. | ||
The memoir details some of the early creation of ''[[LEGO Island]]'', particularly the conception and pitching of the game to [[LEGO]]'s US executives in 1995, as well as an opening chapter recounting LEGO's "Childhood Experience", an internal exhibit designed to evoke the feeling of growing up to new LEGO recruits. | |||
The memoir was never finished before Jenkins' death in 2017, and cuts off shortly before the team travelled to London to pitch LEGO's Denmark executives. The text contains evidence of being a first draft, such as occasional spelling and grammar errors and repetition. These errors remain uncorrected in this reproduction. | |||
== The Making of LEGO Island - Wes Jenkins == | == The Making of LEGO Island - Wes Jenkins == | ||
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Next day we took a short flight from Denmark back to London. In the lobby of the Danish airport was a rack of schedules. The Danish word for “Speed” is “Fart”. We all grabbed a | Next day we took a short flight from Denmark back to London. In the lobby of the Danish airport was a rack of schedules. The Danish word for “Speed” is “Fart”. We all grabbed a | ||
handful of “Fart Schedules”. I | handful of “Fart Schedules”. I mean, wouldn’t you? I still have a framed “Fart Schedule” hanging in my bathroom. Somebody asked if Americans think farts are funny. Apparently, body sounds are a universally funny to kids everywhere. It’s another common denominator of childhood. | ||
Once In London, I packed up and headed for home. What was consistent and slightly humorous was that every time I went back and forth to London, my wife would pack my luggage. On my | Once In London, I packed up and headed for home. What was consistent and slightly humorous was that every time I went back and forth to London, my wife would pack my luggage. On my | ||
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being a human. He was known as Greno. I was obviously thrilled because I get to continue to do what I really wanted to do and, in fact, simply had to do: tell stories and draw silly pictures but you already knew that. I eagerly started thinking of an approach. I decided that it might be cool, given the age it’s really intended for, to leave it open like a toy: a toy with gaming features. The program shouldn’t have any rules or a specific direction that you have to go to with fear of death. There’s no end to the game. You should be able to go where ever you want to and come back. Building and knocking down stuff seemed important. What if you check into a hotel and you can just go into town or the woods and just meet people and- I don’t know- do something. It should be a toy because kids just want to play and Lego seems to be about just messing around and making up things. | being a human. He was known as Greno. I was obviously thrilled because I get to continue to do what I really wanted to do and, in fact, simply had to do: tell stories and draw silly pictures but you already knew that. I eagerly started thinking of an approach. I decided that it might be cool, given the age it’s really intended for, to leave it open like a toy: a toy with gaming features. The program shouldn’t have any rules or a specific direction that you have to go to with fear of death. There’s no end to the game. You should be able to go where ever you want to and come back. Building and knocking down stuff seemed important. What if you check into a hotel and you can just go into town or the woods and just meet people and- I don’t know- do something. It should be a toy because kids just want to play and Lego seems to be about just messing around and making up things. | ||
I enthusiastically spent night and day just thinking about Legos. I started sketching out little scenes and options. Here’s how you can knock down things. Maybe a big foot kicks it over, or you can blow it up with a dynamite brick. Then I drew a guy checking into a hotel...No, wait- what if you’re the Lego character so you're at eye level and you check into the hotel. Another one was a guy walking along a street with another guy approaches him on a street with part of building in the background. I took these sketches and finalized them with markers on vellum, mounting them on Foam core with the obligatory flap. This was a presentation that varnishes with a coating of credibility. Put a company sticker on the front of the cover sheet and it looks like it’s real. In between doing this, I did have other tasks, of course, working on a Mario Deluxe project making little building of different countries which was actually fun. We had to go to the library and find out how different houses and villages looked in other countries. One of my fellow art cave neighbors showed me some cool rendering tricks in the now archaic software. I had fun drawing some cool buildings or at least I was happy with them. It also gave me the | I enthusiastically spent night and day just thinking about Legos. I started sketching out little scenes and options. Here’s how you can knock down things. Maybe a big foot kicks it over, or you can blow it up with a dynamite brick. Then I drew a guy checking into a hotel...No, wait- what if you’re the Lego character so you're at eye level and you check into the hotel. Another one was a guy walking along a street with another guy approaches him on a street with part of building in the background. I took these sketches and finalized them with markers on vellum, mounting them on Foam core with the obligatory flap. This was a presentation that varnishes with a coating of credibility. Put a company sticker on the front of the cover sheet and it looks like it’s real. In between doing this, I did have other tasks, of course, working on a Mario Deluxe project making little building of different countries which was actually fun. We had to go to the library and find out how different houses and villages looked in other countries. One of my fellow art cave neighbors showed me some cool rendering tricks in the now archaic software. I had fun drawing some cool buildings or at least I was happy with them. It also gave me the opportunity to keep thinking about Lego as well as I moved pixels around. The company started hiring more artists. A new kid in town was hired since the workload was increasing did a really cool couple character sketches. Several more artists joined the core team now. The new kid was pretty cool and really talented. He had a friend from the same art school he went to who was a pretty unassuming kid and then in came a rather peppy girl who was rather a “good- looker” as my Grandfather use to say back in the ol’ days. Finally, a really good friend of mine from Art school got hired. I felt rather proud because I recommended him and really proud because he was the best illustrator I ever met. H’s name was, or still is, Jim, We called him Jimpy because his E-mail name was Jim P. The guy was great. He still is, I assume. The art cave was expanding. | ||
opportunity to keep thinking about Lego as well as I moved pixels around. The company started hiring more artists. A new kid in town was hired since the workload was increasing did a really cool couple character sketches. Several more artists joined the core team now. The new kid was pretty cool and really talented. He had a friend from the same art school he went to who was a pretty unassuming kid and then in came a rather peppy girl who was rather a “good- looker” as my Grandfather use to say back in the ol’ days. Finally, a really good friend of mine from Art school got hired. I felt rather proud because I recommended him and really proud because he was the best illustrator I ever met. H’s name was, or still is, Jim, We called him Jimpy because his E-mail name was Jim P. The guy was great. He still is, I assume. The art cave was expanding. | |||
Sometime in between doing Mario Art, I received the news that we’re going to London. I was thrilled and excited since I've néver been overseas and there’s a possibility we’re in the finals and I made the team. I spent some of my summer college years exploring America when most people I knew in the 60’s did the European backpacking thing. I did discover that we have actually about 50 countries in our country though. | Sometime in between doing Mario Art, I received the news that we’re going to London. I was thrilled and excited since I've néver been overseas and there’s a possibility we’re in the finals and I made the team. I spent some of my summer college years exploring America when most people I knew in the 60’s did the European backpacking thing. I did discover that we have actually about 50 countries in our country though. | ||