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When I was a kid, we couldn't really afford legos. But one year my brother got a big plastic bucket of Brix Blox[1], a lego clone (but not compatible). They we

When I was a kid, we couldn't really afford legos. But one year my brother got a big plastic bucket of Brix Blox[1], a lego clone (but not compatible). They were just as fun as Legos to us. They weren't a kit, just a bucket of bricks to build what you want. I think it might have come with a little pamphlet of suggested designs, but we made spaceships and weird little rocket-boat things and little stormtrooper-ish guys to ride them. It's kind of weird how I can picture those little guys in my mind so perfectly all these years later. Pretty sure I could build one right now exactly as we did then, if I had some brix blox. Edit: this is the bucket we had: https://www.cutetoyus.com/product_detail.php?c=town%20toy%20brix%20and%20blox&p=17 https://www.cutetoyus.com/product_detail.php?c=town%20toy%20... [1] https://www.retrothing.com/2008/07/brix-blox---leg.html https://www.retrothing.com/2008/07/brix-blox---leg.html

Brendinooo 7y ago
I've often wondered how many people prefer a bucket of bricks to the sets. I never liked the sets. I had a bucket of Lego and a bucket of Ramagon pieces and I had a lot of fun building my own stuff.
- techslave 7y ago
  yeah. in my day there were sets but after my first (and only) one, i was left disappointed. “you can only build the one thing?” we didn’t have money for it so max value meant bricks, not sets.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Well you can take it apart -- annoys me considerably that my kids just put the suggested model together and put it on a shelf. I'm like "you're doing it wrong!", but they don't want to listen and it's their choice how to play with their toys.
    - theli0nheart 7y ago
      Hah, I have the opposite "problem". I had tens of sets sitting on a shelf that I've built over a decade and my little one has been taking them apart one-by-one. As much time and energy I spent building complicated sets, I rather enjoy seeing how he reuses the pieces and components in new builds.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > “you can only build the one thing?” No you can build anything you can imagine! You don't have to build it like the front picture or the instruction book. If you even turn the box around you'll often see alternative ideas on the back.
pier25 7y ago
As a middle class kid in Spain during the early 80s we didn't have Legos either. Spain was barely starting to enter the international market after the Franco era. But we had Tente which was amazing. I spent hours and hours building stuff (vehicles, space bases, robots, etc) and making up stories about these things. See some images here: https://www.google.com/search?q=tente+toy&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=tente+toy&tbm=isch Edit: The sets were fun for like 1 hour, but in the end all the pieces ended up in a huge bucket (actually a big wooden drawer hidden under my bed) and the real fun began.
- pjbk 7y ago
  Tente! Those were amazing too. I had some space and alien sets. I could never remember the name of the company. Thanks!
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Did you guys have Meccano? On the other nice things in childhood front, I was always jealous of a country with Chupa Chups.
  - pier25 7y ago
    Yeah we did have Meccano although I never had a set myself or knew anyone who did. You didn't have Chupa Chups? I also remember eating lots of square shaped Sugus although these are not from Spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugus
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      In USA they were only available starting when I was few years old although mostly I remember their product placement in Zool
  - darkwizard42 7y ago
    LOVED Meccano - so cool to be able to build real machines and the screws and parts got a little rusty / rough if you weren't careful with them but damn I loved my Erector sets
tudorw 7y ago
If you are in a better position now, then treat yourself to some genuine Lego, I get that the fun factor is similar, but do check out the engineering tolerance on the Lego bricks, it's been sustained over decades :)
- senderista 7y ago
  Not sure about that. The Chinese-made Legos I’ve looked at have visible flash and sprue marks, which I never ever saw on the Danish-made ones.
  - criddell 7y ago
    Most of my legos growing up were made in Canada by Samsonite under contract from Lego. I don't think Danish made ones ever made it to North America. I wonder if they were very different?
  - tudorw 7y ago
    That's a real shame :(
andrepd 7y ago
You can still buy buckets of Legos. If you're unsure what to get your kids (or somebody else's) give them a bucket of Legos, or something from the City line.
- zoomablemind 7y ago
  We've been fans of City line. A lot of cheap (under $20) sets that can yield more than one design. This stimulates the creativity and flexibility of kid's mind. Executing instructions and building discipline develop fairly easily, as long as kid has some mental joy to imagine playing with finished toy. But taking the next step in combining blocks into 'own' design takes a leap. Once the kid can design, the special sets are just as well can be substituted with the buckets or mixes or blicks from the old sets. I see Lego (or similar blocks) primarily as imagination fulfilment toys, not much of finished product toys. Meant to be torn and morphed. Instructions are just an invitation!
  - peterburkimsher 7y ago
    I found a diving set from the City line that is roughly similar to the Aquanauts that I enjoyed when growing up. Even though I don't have kids of my own, I bought a set and gave it to kids in Kiribati when I went to Christmas Island for Christmas. https://9gag.com/gag/a6NBXoL https://9gag.com/gag/a6NBXoL
Spooky23 7y ago
Same here. We had a few buckets of Sears store brand legos, and spend hours and hours playing.
m463 7y ago
I remember being on the younger side of 10 we had these hand-me-down blocks from playskool. Melissa and Doug makes them for the current generation. We got a lot of mileage out of them.
int_19h 7y ago
We didn't have anything like Lego at all, but we did have a locally-produced clone of Meccano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano). This was a very pleasurable time sink, especially once you realized that you could just bend the parts into whatever shape you needed for some particular projects.
justanotherc 7y ago
Most of my kits ended up in buckets anyway! More fun to build freeform from scratch
TheRealWatson 7y ago
In Brazil, growing up in the 70's and 80's would mean your dream sets were branded Hering-Rasti. I never knew Legos existed until much later. Looking back I can see how hard they were trying to emulate Lego's designs but without the same level of quality. They were super expensive and I knew it. Some images: https://www.google.com/search?q=hering+rasti&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=hering+rasti&tbm=isch

Brendinooo 7y ago

I've often wondered how many people prefer a bucket of bricks to the sets. I never liked the sets. I had a bucket of Lego and a bucket of Ramagon pieces and I had a lot of fun building my own stuff.

techslave 7y ago
yeah. in my day there were sets but after my first (and only) one, i was left disappointed. “you can only build the one thing?” we didn’t have money for it so max value meant bricks, not sets.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Well you can take it apart -- annoys me considerably that my kids just put the suggested model together and put it on a shelf. I'm like "you're doing it wrong!", but they don't want to listen and it's their choice how to play with their toys.
  - theli0nheart 7y ago
    Hah, I have the opposite "problem". I had tens of sets sitting on a shelf that I've built over a decade and my little one has been taking them apart one-by-one. As much time and energy I spent building complicated sets, I rather enjoy seeing how he reuses the pieces and components in new builds.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > “you can only build the one thing?” No you can build anything you can imagine! You don't have to build it like the front picture or the instruction book. If you even turn the box around you'll often see alternative ideas on the back.

pier25 7y ago

As a middle class kid in Spain during the early 80s we didn't have Legos either. Spain was barely starting to enter the international market after the Franco era. But we had Tente which was amazing. I spent hours and hours building stuff (vehicles, space bases, robots, etc) and making up stories about these things. See some images here: https://www.google.com/search?q=tente+toy&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=tente+toy&tbm=isch Edit: The sets were fun for like 1 hour, but in the end all the pieces ended up in a huge bucket (actually a big wooden drawer hidden under my bed) and the real fun began.

pjbk 7y ago
Tente! Those were amazing too. I had some space and alien sets. I could never remember the name of the company. Thanks!
selimthegrim 7y ago
Did you guys have Meccano? On the other nice things in childhood front, I was always jealous of a country with Chupa Chups.
- pier25 7y ago
  Yeah we did have Meccano although I never had a set myself or knew anyone who did. You didn't have Chupa Chups? I also remember eating lots of square shaped Sugus although these are not from Spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugus
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    In USA they were only available starting when I was few years old although mostly I remember their product placement in Zool
- darkwizard42 7y ago
  LOVED Meccano - so cool to be able to build real machines and the screws and parts got a little rusty / rough if you weren't careful with them but damn I loved my Erector sets

tudorw 7y ago

If you are in a better position now, then treat yourself to some genuine Lego, I get that the fun factor is similar, but do check out the engineering tolerance on the Lego bricks, it's been sustained over decades :)

senderista 7y ago
Not sure about that. The Chinese-made Legos I’ve looked at have visible flash and sprue marks, which I never ever saw on the Danish-made ones.
- criddell 7y ago
  Most of my legos growing up were made in Canada by Samsonite under contract from Lego. I don't think Danish made ones ever made it to North America. I wonder if they were very different?
- tudorw 7y ago
  That's a real shame :(

andrepd 7y ago

You can still buy buckets of Legos. If you're unsure what to get your kids (or somebody else's) give them a bucket of Legos, or something from the City line.

zoomablemind 7y ago
We've been fans of City line. A lot of cheap (under $20) sets that can yield more than one design. This stimulates the creativity and flexibility of kid's mind. Executing instructions and building discipline develop fairly easily, as long as kid has some mental joy to imagine playing with finished toy. But taking the next step in combining blocks into 'own' design takes a leap. Once the kid can design, the special sets are just as well can be substituted with the buckets or mixes or blicks from the old sets. I see Lego (or similar blocks) primarily as imagination fulfilment toys, not much of finished product toys. Meant to be torn and morphed. Instructions are just an invitation!
- peterburkimsher 7y ago
  I found a diving set from the City line that is roughly similar to the Aquanauts that I enjoyed when growing up. Even though I don't have kids of my own, I bought a set and gave it to kids in Kiribati when I went to Christmas Island for Christmas. https://9gag.com/gag/a6NBXoL https://9gag.com/gag/a6NBXoL

Spooky23 7y ago

Same here. We had a few buckets of Sears store brand legos, and spend hours and hours playing.

m463 7y ago

I remember being on the younger side of 10 we had these hand-me-down blocks from playskool. Melissa and Doug makes them for the current generation. We got a lot of mileage out of them.

int_19h 7y ago

We didn't have anything like Lego at all, but we did have a locally-produced clone of Meccano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meccano). This was a very pleasurable time sink, especially once you realized that you could just bend the parts into whatever shape you needed for some particular projects.

justanotherc 7y ago

Most of my kits ended up in buckets anyway! More fun to build freeform from scratch

TheRealWatson 7y ago

In Brazil, growing up in the 70's and 80's would mean your dream sets were branded Hering-Rasti. I never knew Legos existed until much later. Looking back I can see how hard they were trying to emulate Lego's designs but without the same level of quality. They were super expensive and I knew it. Some images: https://www.google.com/search?q=hering+rasti&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=hering+rasti&tbm=isch