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Castle Team: The New Role of Fan Feedback
Ben Ellermann 22 IX 07
My name is Ben Ellermann and I am a huge LEGO Castle fan!
This article will tell you how several lifelong Castle builders and I contributed to the new castle line.
I first joined the LEGO Ambassadors in Spring 2006.
Soon I found out that a group of Ambassadors, a Certified Professional,
and fans had just started working with LEGO to help develop ideas for the latest Castle line in 2007.
Knowing that my involvement at Classic-Castle.com gave me a good idea of what fans were looking for,
I asked to join the team.
Our team included: Nathan Wells, Paul Janssen, Robin Sather, Johannes Koehler,
Luis Baixinho, David Tabner, Lenny Hoffman, and Andrzej "Shaggie" Szlaga.
"A major focus, and the reason why we are using you guys, is you have a
huge insight into what we've done in the past what you have appreciated,
and what you haven't....you can give us a really good insight into what
really makes a good model from a pure building point of view,.......
getting an excellent building experience our from new Castle Products
is of paramount importance to us."
Matt Ashton
LEGO Castle Product Lead
Certain decisions had already been made before fans were brought on board.
This included the overall theme of good knights vs. an evil faction made up skeletons,
the undead, dragons, and wizards.
Many in the team favor traditional castle sets with two knight factions.
Others love fantasy based castle sets.
We agreed to do our best to help make this Castle line a success.
The first task was to build our own version of what the next LEGO Castle should look like.
Each model we built or designed with LDraw would be used as inspiration for the Design team.
Ideas included:
 Smaller elements over large ones
Original wall elements over new ones
Raised Baseplate vs. Built on plates
No Juniorization
Exploding wall
Well
Blacksmith
Stable
360-degree design
Foliage
Our images were printed and mounted on boards for the designers to review in Billund.
Many building techniques were used in the final set designs!
Some examples in the King's Castle Siege include the two large columns in the rear tower,
4x4 macaroni brick crenellations, rocks and folliage at the main gate,
and the 2x2x2 dark grey wall buttresses.
We know that small details are important to Castle fans.
The team was excited to give input on minifigure design, weaponry, and accessories.
We reviewed preliminary sketches and concept boards and created lists of Castle elements that fans want.
I am happy to say that many favorites such as generic soldiers,
classic short swords, archers, pointed visors and the brown horse have returned.
We suggested that less popular elements such as brightly colored armor,
large wall panels, and zwords (Knights Kingdom 2 swords) should not be used.
While we could not convince designers of the absolute necessity of pitchforks or cypress trees in the new sets,
we are very happy that the sets are full of classic castle elements and great new ones like the skeleton horse, flail, and scythe.
The Castle fan team also built mocs and gave feedback for factions other than the good classic knights.
That involvement will likely be discussed at a later date.
Meanwhile back in Billund, certain designers had worked on an early prototype for the main castle.
They were preparing for a multi-day group build session where many prototype sets would be built.
The Castle and Space product team leads decided to invite two fans to Billund for a week of building with LEGO designers.
Mark Sandlin and I were selected for the trip.
Fortunately we both were able to get time off from work in a short notice.
The Billund Trip: Saturday April 29th – Saturday May 6th 2006
I left Saint Louis Saturday afternoon at 5:30 on a short North West / KLM flight to Detroit.
After a small layover I boarded my next flight to Amsterdam.
Nine hours, several beverages, and slightly edible microwave dinner later I arrived in Amsterdam.
Amsterdam was cloudy and I had my longest layover of around 3 hours.
Flights to Billund and other smaller destinations use older "City Hopper" airplanes.
We were taken by bus to board our small jet by stairs.
The carry-on compartments are partially made of wood so the plane must be from the 60's.
The flight to Billund was a quick hour and a half.
By this time it was 2:30 in the afternoon on Sunday.
Steve was there to take me by cab back to the LEGOLAND Village.
The Village is a group of hotel rooms that open directly outside.
Each room is painted white and very Spartan.
They do have warm blankets and wonderful hot showers.
It is just the thing after 16 hours of flying.
Right next to the groups of buildings there is a small restaurant for the village and a small grocery store.
[If anyone gets a chance to go to Billund, make sure you have a debit card or credit card with a pin.
Bringing more than one card is also good.
Cashiers may or may not be able to figure out how to use your card or cash traveler's checks.
I would recommend having a small amount of money converted to Danish Kroner.
This will help purchasing snacks or a drink.
During our trip, one Dollar = 5.85 Kroner]
Steve and Mark (who was working on Mars Mission) had arrived earlier in the day and visited LEGOLAND Billund.
We all decided to nap in our rooms for a couple of hours.
Several of the younger designers met up with us and we went out for dinner.
Then they took us to the Global Innovation and Marketing building.
Everyone calls it GIM for short.
All of LEGO set design magic happens in this building.
There are areas for each theme that is being developed.
It was very exciting to see most of next year's models and many for 2008 as well.
We commenced jaw dropping and drooling. After this tour we went back to the hotel and hung out and then went to bed.
Monday morning we left the hotel at 7:50 to walk to GIM.
The Danes use the term "walking distance" freely.
In America walking distance means you can see it with your eyes.
Our walk was about a mile and half to and from work each day.
Bringing comfortable shoes was important.
I brought tennis shoes and Steve and Mark wish they had.
At GIM we broke off into our own projects.
The Castle group was in a separate conference room with shelves of bricks on both sides and four groups of tables and chairs.
Eighteen people from various themes such as Creator, Clickits, Star Wars, etc made up our team.
Matthew, the project lead, divided us into several teams such as Good Knights and Skeleton Warriors.
I was assigned to the Castle Team led by Bjarke (who designed the Viking Fortress).
The team also included a younger designer Nik, a graphic designer Lauge,
and two older designers, Steen and Niels, who worked on Castle beginning in 1983 (for the 1984 product line).
Each group brainstormed in separate rooms for an hour with their ideas.
Some of my ideas were:
Create a traditional castle in an untraditional world.
This way fans that like traditional castle sets would be happy along with
fantasy castle fans that have dragons and skeletons.
The castle should be concentric.
The designers agreed that it would be nice to move away from the raised baseplate castles.
Having a multiple hinged castle on plates with an irregular polygonal shape
would be something new and different for LEGO Castle.
Make the castle modular.
Since the line will hopefully last at least several years, modular sets could expand the castle.
Ideas such as the castle kitchen, stables, armory, blacksmith, etc were suggested.
Finally I had a unique idea to increase modularity.
Why not make the actual castle itself split into individual towers with hinges, center wall sections, and a gatehouse?
This will allow a child to make a variety of different castles, large and small, with the same assembled sets.
The designers really liked this idea.
It is also good because large sets are assembled in steps.
Each section would be a step.
Fans want generic soldiers.
Make sure to have nice printed scale plate type armor for soldiers with swords, axes, and spears.
Create archers with bows and quivers instead of crossbowmen.
The castle should have four knights on horseback.
Other group ideas included:
gatehouses
crenellations
hoardings
dungeon
secret entrances
hidden treasure
princess or wizard's tower
keep
drawbridge
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brick built portcullis
buttresses
curved towers
the evil black knight
civilians
maidens
defensive siege weapons
collapsing walls or towers
traditional joust
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Each of the factions presented their ideas.
Then the castle group picked which parts we each wanted to work on.
I chose corner towers, wall sections, modular buildings, and the joust.
The first day I built a copy of my corner tower that you have seen above.
I added two wall sections that are hinged to the corner of the towers.
They are arranged to hinge over 200 degrees to allow flexibility in the castle wall shape.
I also made a curved tower with an octagonal Tudor room for a wizard or princess on top.
The designers thought it looked nice.
I like it but many too many pieces are used.
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Steen built a really neat curved gatehouse with a bridge and brick built portcullis that slides
on flex tubes instead of inside a wall groove like older castles such as King's Castle.
Niels began his water wheel powered blacksmith forge.
He worked on this for two days.
It is very impressive because the axle turns a grindstone (my idea), makes flames go up and down,
moves bellows, and makes a hammer hit an anvil.
Most of this is done with camshafts attached to the main axle.
Nik made quite a few versions of catapults that fire effectively by pulling a chain.
I explained how fans want siege weapons in moderation.
A few good siege machines are appreciated.
Marketing probably would like a catapult and dragon in every castle set,
but that is not the only thing castle is about.
Lauge drew ideas for shields and weapons for each new faction including maces,
war hammers, lance tips, pole arms, swords, and spears, and rough weapons for the bad guys.
On Tuesday I designed my castle stables, which turned out nicely.
One of my main design problems was the lack of the classic
2x5x6 castle wall panel.
I had to brick build these.
It was annoying and caused us to run out of grey now and then.
That was a bit funny since it is common for castle builders to have this problem.
The stables include two stalls, hay, gates, a soldier, a horse handler, various supplies, and a hinged roof for play.
I also began my castle kitchen.
This had a tiled floor, oven with a cauldron, bread oven, cutting table, and shelf with spices and food.
A couple of the women designers thought the bakery was a very good model.
I am sure girls would like it but retailers probably do not want a kitchen.
Perhaps sets like these could be on shop at home.
Steen spent much of the day building his hoarding so archers could fire out of it in multiple ways.
He also built a variety of great architectural details such as buttresses.
I showed him the 1x3 and 1x1
round wall technique.
He loved it.
We then discussed how LEGO should make 1x2 bricks with rounded corners so we can make large round towers and curved walls.
On Wednesday we had the morning to build and gave presentations in the afternoon.
I built a jousting set in the style of
6060 Knight's Challenge
including a market food stall,
weapons racks, knights and fence, and knight tent. I also built a small well.
Niels made a tower fortress with a hanging ghost that suddenly appears, small catapults, and a few other nice features.
He has a knack for moving functions the way that Steen can make small details.
Bjarke had been working each day on his castle.
It had a gate tower, side towers, polygonal shape, and a back keep/throne area.
I enjoyed that it was all brick built but did not like the train windows he used instead of arches or snot arrow slits.
The shape was also nice but locked into place like the Viking Fortress instead of being hinged.
I really hoped that a hinged design would be chosen for the final model.
That afternoon we all presented to each other and the castle marketing team.
The baddies had several fortresses/towers.
My favorite looked like a big skull with a drawbridge shaped like a jaw.
It had lava flowing on it and a perch for a skeleton dragon.
The skeletons ride none other than the famous skeleton horse piece that fans have seen on brickshelf.
They also have a spiky cart/chariot to ride around in. This group was highly creative.
The good news is that almost everything designed was worthy to be a set.
The bad news is the line had to be cut down to 6 sets.
This means some factions may be eliminated or pushed off until the following year.
Price points must be met so some fantastic models may not have a place in the product range.
The sets must also relate to each other.
Hopefully that can be done easily without creating a gigantic story like the one that was so detrimental to Knight's Kingdom II.
Children know the story line of the good knights and bad skeletons.
Many of the designers and I do not see the need for retelling a story kids already know.
The theme should be more about the building experience than specific story driven play that does not allow much creativity for a child.
The next steps for the designers were meetings with the legal department,
choosing the six models, developing those models, and then testing to see if the kids like them.
After that the models were finalized, instructions and boxes designed, and then produced.
On Thursday Mark and I attended a couple of meetings with various groups and people inside of LEGO.
We also took the factory tour, talked to Jorgen Vig Knudstorp and Kjeld, and saw the set archives.
We went to Kolding, a city about an hour away, to meet up with one of the designers.
The town has very nice 16th century architecture including many timber frame buildings and a brick church.
It was a nice change of pace from Billund, which is a relatively small factory town.
On Friday I helped on Mark's project most of the day.
We went to the company store to buy gifts for our families and ourselves.
I was also able to meet Jan Beyer for the first time.
He is a really cool guy.
We spent the evening having dinner with Tormud Askildson and discussing our trip and the status of the online community.
Later we packed and talked about the trip.
At 4 am on Saturday we woke up and took a cab to the airport at 5.
I said goodbye to Mark and Steve because they were flying back to Frankfurt.
My plane left Billund at 6:30 am.
Sixteen hours later I had been back to Amsterdam, had a layover in Minneapolis,
and finally arrived in Saint Louis dead tired.
It was a wonderful experience and I hope many other fans will get to do this one-day.
I have a new found respect for the difficulties of designers with so many restrictions.
The insight into the design process was great.
I hope Mark and I made a positive influence with our design teams.
We appreciate being invited more than we can say.
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