Today, this lifelong LEGO fan takes a big step...I purposely bought a non-LEGO brick product! In reality, this shift in my thinking has been slowly coming into shape. For a few years now, I've bought non-LEGO lighting bricks for my Winter Village display. Now, thanks to the constant rise in prices on LEGO, plus my newfound appreciation for lighted kits, I'm giving one FUNWHOLE (aka Lumibricks) a try!
A lot of LEGO purists will probably look at the above minifigures and scoff at their design. However, when you have them in hand, they are actually kind of cool. The one downside that I can see right away, though, is that they don't have any anti-studs on their butts, so you will have trouble keeping the minifigures seated in vehicles (at least, if you build vehicles the same way you might for a LEGO minifigure). That's not a worry for this set, though, as there are no vehicles to be found.
My main concern with a non-LEGO company is the build experience. Would the bricks "feel" right (i.e., would they feel like I was assembling a LEGO set)? The answer here is unequivocally "yes, they felt great." It didn't take me long to feel like I was building a LEGO set, and at no point did I feel like the FUNWHOLE bricks were cheap. In fact, the set includes a pair of printed pieces plus a few specialized pieces that make hiding the wires for lighting easier. In that sense, you might even say the bricks in this set were better than those of a typical LEGO set of this size!
As I said, the set was a freebie, so it's hard to complain about value for money. Instead, I found myself comparing it to a typical LEGO freebie; if you do that, it's clear this set is the winner. Three minifigures, an electric light for the torch, a pair of printed elements, and several nice bricks (including some masonry bricks)...you can't beat that for a free set!
This set is basically a platform for displaying minifigures, so the play value score has to be low. At least two of the three minifigures can be removed easily (the third would need to drop the torch first, or else you'll rip out the wires for the light)!
Overall, I was impressed by my first experience with a FUNWHOLE/Lumibricks set. As I said at the top of the post, I have a small, proper set to build next (plus a larger set whenever it stops being lost in the postal service)! Given my experience with the freebie set, I'm now even more excited to build the other two sets!
About a week or so ago, I placed an order on Lumibricks webpage for a pair of sets (one large, and one small). In doing so, I also qualified for a free mystery gift set. As of the time of this posting, my large Lumibricks set seems to be lost in the mail (?), but both the small set and the free set have arrived (all three were sent in separate packages).
The first set I decided to build was the free "Mysterious Gift" as it's titled on the box. You can think of this set as being equivalent to one of the LEGO Company's free gifts with purchase. Also, if you prefer fewer words in your reviews, check out my Instagram, where I've shown off the images and done much less typing!
The box for the free gift has the FUNWHOLE logo on it, but from my understanding, that name is being replaced by the more modern-sounding (and much less dirty-sounding) Lumibricks.
What is to be found are three minifigures. Two of whom are dressed in adventurer's garb, while the third is a shill for the FUNWHOLE company. I like the two explorers, but I'll admit that I don't necessarily understand why this set has two explorers and then a guy in bright orange.
The only downside to the set is that it requires a pair of circular "watch" type batteries, which I don't have at hand. I'll need to get to the store at some point and buy some so that I can see how the lighted torch looks. Even so, this set is a winner in my book - and a great freebie!
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