Great things have small beginnings, even small things.
The story of LEGO begins in a small carpenter’s shop in the Danish working town of Billund. It specialised in the mundane, providing the local community with modest homes and simple furniture. But after a series of unfortunate events, including a fire and a recession, the company re-focussed, producing smaller pieces of furniture. The new items were prototyped by the carpenter, Ole Kirk Christiansen, using miniatures. And it was while painting one of these tiny models that he realised this was the future of his business: toys.
Piggy banks, pull-toys, wooden houses, and painted trucks followed. But it wasn’t till after the Second World War and the advent of injection moulding that the company was able to file a patent for its most famous product: ‘Automatic Binding Bricks’. Thankfully the name didn’t stick but these hollow cubes of stud-crowned plastic, which can be indefinitely stacked and interlocked, would go onto to define the company. In 1953, they were renamed LEGO bricks.
Today, LEGO is everywhere. And one of the most interesting recent developments is the emergence of CUUSOO, a site that allows users to submit ideas for consideration by the LEGO company. The world has begun to think in bricks. People provide an overview of their desired set and imagery to illustrate how it would be constructed and how each minifigure would be brought to life, while other users are able to register their support. Once a design reaches 10,000 backers, it goes to the board. To date, in the five years CUUSOO has been active, only five sets have received the green light.
The first two were highly-detailed models, originating from Japan: the Shinkai 6500 submarine and the Hayabusa spacecraft. Next came a set based on Minecraft, submitted by Mojang itself after a flurry of amateur projects were submitted. Currently in production, and scheduled for release later this year, are sets based on the time-travelling Delorean from Back to the Future and the Mars Curiosity Rover.
Currently awaiting review is a set based on The Legend of Zelda. You might have already seen it – if not, you really should take a look at it now. It’s a great labour of love, made by someone who evidently cares passionately about both Zelda and LEGO. That person is Ruben B. Nerheim, a 22-year-old animation student from Norway, who also goes by the artistic alias ‘Ragaru’.
“I first got the idea for the Zelda CUUSOO Project in the beginning of December 2011,” he tells me. “Just about a week's time or so before Michael Inglis (or Mingles as he is called) had his Zelda project published.” That project, which can still be viewed on CUUSOO, failed its review because it required too many custom parts to make production viable.
Mingles’ set, depicting the Iron Knuckle encounter, draws heavily on the Ocarina of Time aesthetic – bright, colourful, a more elven Link. And while it was tempting to revisit the most popular and highly-regarded instalment in the franchise, Ragaru initially had something much grander in mind for his set. “Originally, I did not want to restrict myself to just one game and style alone. I had this ambitious idea of making a generalisation of the entire franchise, so that we could have elements spanning over the 27-year history of Zelda in one single-set interpretation.”
Zelda distilled: a condensation of its many incarnations. Speaking to Ragaru, it’s clear he doesn’t really perceive them as distinct games. “To me Zelda is like an organism where all the games are part of the essence... everything from every era is part of the entire continuity defining each other across time, with chapters that are yet to be told and expand the history. That is the beauty of the Zelda franchise.”
But the magnitude of this alchemic task quickly became apparent, and Ragaru decided to embrace the look of Twilight Princess for his designs. “It would require one universal visual style for the minifigures and set designs, and being an artist with an obsession for details, I felt that basing it on the detail level of Twilight Princess would add more to the minifigures and set designs alike.
“It was of course a personal preference, but as LEGO has introduced increasingly more unique and detailed figures thanks to licensed themes over the past years, I also felt that it would be an opportunity to get truly detailed LEGO Zelda minifigures and items.”
That balance – between otaku obsession and thoughtful design – is struck perfectly in the construction of the set itself."
So he plumped for Twilight Princess, not because it’s his favourite Zelda, but to create the best minifigures possible. And this is something you quickly realise speaking to Ragaru – there’s always reason behind the details, and behind that, an overflowing love of Zelda. That balance – between otaku obsession and thoughtful design – is struck perfectly in the construction of the set itself.
“I decided to check the average piece count based on the released CUUSOO sets, which ended up at 425, but I also noticed that the Hayabusa set had the substantially lowest piece count and was the only one with a minifigure,” he observed. Minifigures greatly increase the cost of a set, so his original plan to have both Link and Ganondorf, as well as their horses, was way too ambitious. So Ragaru decided to focus his efforts on Link, ensuring the rest of the set could still be decently sized.
The proposed set is a charming amalgamation of Zelda past and present, deftly blending iconic locations and specific moments into one representative diorama. “It is a temple-like structure, drawing inspiration from the Sacred Grove/Temple of Time,” says Ragura, as he walks me through it. “But also a little from the Hyrule Field as I wanted to combine the overworld traveling with the dungeon exploration. In the end it turned out to be a hybrid location where you would find the Master Sword. I also decided to include a brick built Deku Baba plant and one of the skeletal Stalfos warriors to get some interesting enemies to fight.”
So will this happen? Will this design ever exist outside of Photoshop CS4? It’s possible, but the CUUSOO process isn’t straightforward, and like the archetypal Zelda dungeon it’s full of obstacles to overcome. Some of these are practical concerns. LEGO won’t greenlight a project if it will tread on the toes of something it already has in the works. The recent Modular Western Town project, for instance, was passed over because LEGO already had Lone Ranger sets in the works. It’s entirely possible that LEGO might have a new fantasy series in development, scuppering the Zelda set.
“Minecraft is about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine in the virtual world. You can build anything you imagine with LEGO bricks in the physical world."
Profitability, of course, is also another big factor – is there really enough interest in the set not only to cover the cost of production, but to make a profit? Ragaru believes Zelda is a strong enough brand to pass this test, and cites Hyrule Historia topping the New York Times’ booklist in the first week of North American release as a sign of its continuing popularity.
Passing the CUUSOO review is also a question of ideology. Ragaru explains that “the model design itself has to be appealing and represent the theme and nature of the concept it is based on.” The last CUUSOO set to be released was Minecraft, and it perfectly illustrates what Ragaru means by a set embodying the ethos of its source material.
“The Minecraft set based itself on a modular structure where the focus was to build using 1x1 plates and bricks, representing the topography of a Minecraft landscape, making it more of an interactive display model in the spirit of Minecraft’s gameplay.” The experience of Minecraft has been approximated by the type and arrangement of bricks used.
Similarly, Ragaru has tried to channel the spirit of Zelda into his set. “I tried to put in as much of the adventurous dungeon and temple exploration feeling as I could, by focusing on a set design featuring a balance of ancient ruins and wild growing forest around it.” It’s a much harder sensibility to capture in LEGO form. Mojang faced a much lower hurdle, as indicated by what the developer said on its application, “Minecraft is about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine in the virtual world. You can build anything you imagine with LEGO bricks in the physical world. Minecraft and LEGO were meant to be together.”
There’s also the ever-so-slight problem of Nintendo itself. The company has been traditionally protective of its brands, but that’s changed in recent years. “Just now in 2012 we saw a sudden appearance of high quality Nintendo-based action figures from the Japanese Good Smile Company,” he tells me. “They have released a Samus Aran figure from Metroid: Other M and a Skyward Sword based Link figure in their 12th scale Action Figure line called Figma. And there are more coming…” The brand affinity between Nintendo and LEGO is an additional source of hope – both are known for making high-quality products for similar audiences. It’s not impossible.
I hope for Ragaru’s sake that Nintendo is sympathetic to his cause, because talking to him about potential future designs is hugely exciting. “I’d love to make big sets based on individual temples, featuring items, traps, and bosses. It would also be interesting to condense a temple or dungeon into a single set, especially some of the more iconic ones. I could easily imagine an Ocarina of Time-inspired Water Temple set with a Dark Link Battle, lots of confusing corridors and rooms going everywhere, and the Boss Chamber with Morpha…”
Going back to LEGO’s origins, it was Christiansen’s son Godtfred who truly recognised the potential of those little plastic bricks and how they would kindle the imagination of the young. It was a system to support creativity. He believed that “children should not be offered ready-made solutions; instead they needed something different that would strengthen their imagination and creativity.” A blank page is overwhelming, even paralysing. But if a system is already in place, then the imagination doesn’t feel quite so apprehensive. This is how I’ve always regarded toys – catalysts of the imagination, creating fantastical worlds on table tops and living-room carpets.
When I first saw Ragaru’s project, I thought it was cute to see the vast world I’d visited throughout my life miniaturised, constructed out of those familiar blocks. But now the kinship between Zelda and LEGO seems obvious, and this is why I have hope for the project. Before entering production a CUUSOO design must demonstrate that it reflects the values of LEGO. Minecraft’s kinship with LEGO might be more obvious, but Zelda also rests upon a system of play, a set of rules and procedures that excite the imagination and foster creativity. I think Godtfred Christiansen probably would’ve been a fan.
As the projects approaches review, Ruben is still busy working of the LEGO of Zelda. He even kindly shared the below poster with IGN to accompany this feature. Yeah, it's quite brilliant.
Daniel is IGN's Staff Writer. You can be part of the world's most embarrassing cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.
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