Kristin bought me the LEGO Pac-Man set earlier this year, and last week I assembled it. I went into this set ‘spoiler free’, and it was a delight to discover it’s special feature!
You first built the (removable) character display on top, which features Pac-Man and two pursuing ghosts. At the push of a button the all turn around to replicate what happens when Pac-Man eats a power pill. It’s a nice trick, but just a side dish to the main act. Oh and see those tiny Pac-Men and ghosts at the bottom? They’re printed tiles:
The main cabinet took me several overs over a few days and was an intriguing build because for a while I couldn’t see how the set was coming together. As mentioned I was initially oblivious of the special feature so half-way through the build of the main ‘screen’ I had no idea why I was adding a chain drive:
Then adding an axle attached to a crank on the back made it clear this set had hand-powered animations:
But I still wasn’t prepared for how smooth the movement was once finished, and how good the ‘screen’ looked:
Pac-Man, all the ghosts and the cherry all animate in some way, moving in various cycles around the board. There are two chains and a lever attached via different gears to the crank axle, so they don’t even all move at the same speed. It’s incredibly well done, and needs to be seen in action to appreciate it. I’ve made a lot of legos over the years, including some gigantic technic sets, but the engineering on this one surprised and impressed me more than any I’d ever seen.
There’s a few other nice little touches, like a moving joystick and light up ‘coin slot’, and even a cute little diorama hidden behind the back panel:
One interesting aspect to this set was that it’s slightly on the ‘harder’ side as far as assembly was concerned. A few steps required a second or even third look to make sure I was doing them correctly, and I was extremely careful for the screen part itself since errors there may have taken a long time to fix! Overall assembly was fun, and I the only real negative I can think of is the usual one: I wish LEGO stopped using stickers entirely.
The success of this set is just how great it looks assembled, and how smooth and wonderful the movement is when you turn the crank. This is one I’ll be happy to leave on display for many years to come 🙂
