I'm making a sequel to the LEGOLAND game and am looking for volunteers to help!

[Legodudelol9a]

Project Premise: to make a sequel to the Legoland game from 2000. The original was a Lego knock off-of a popular park simulator game at the time, however I think we can surpass the original game in every area. We will be making a 3d game instead of a 2d game, unlike the original game. There will also be a feature where the player can make a character and roam around the park as if they were one of the guests and even ride the rides or have some minigames in the form of the attractions such as something akin to an arcade shooter similar to the game "Thrillville: Off the Rails". Unlike Thrillville: Off the Rails, we will not be going for being able to talk to the park guests as I feel like that would be stretching our capabilities for a fan-project, however if everyone feels that could be a feature we could add then we may revisit this at a later date.    

Characters: Like the original Legoland game there will be a story featuring the player having to clean up after the mad park scientist Professor Ignatious Voltage (Rides and attractions maker) after one of his experiments goes wrong again and decimates the parks. Other characters the player will interract with are Johnathan Ablebody (the player's helper and the narrator), JP (the mechanic), Bob Longtree (the gardener), and Rosie Brickolini (the park head cheff). We may add some new characters as well along the way as needed. 

In-Game Hires: In the original game you needed to hire Mechanics to keep rides working and Gardeners to grow and plants you planted. I'd like to expand on this feature and add Construction workers (whom are required to build things as unlike in the original Legoland game it now takes time as well as extra power to build things), and Janitors (Who will keep the park clean). Unlike the original game, the player will be able to rotate the buildings they wish to place by 90 degrees. Also, just like the original game there will be a grid where each square is 4x4 studs.

Energy System: We will also be keeping the energy system from the original game and expand upon it a bit by adding more energy sources. 

Buildable Themes: Also like the original game the themes of the buildable items will include Legoland (generic theme), Wild West, Castle, and Adventurers. However we will also be adding Space, Pirates, and Aquatic (Which will be where all of the water rides are and be like the Aquazone or Atlantis theme.).

Park Inspection Mechanic: Like the original game, there will also be the park inspector (Mr. Bimble) who will routinely come around and grade your park and if you don't pass after a certain number of times the player will lose. Unlike the original game though, there will be a tooltip to help the player be more prepared for the inspection, however it won't outright tell the player what ammounts of what are needed. Instead the tooltip will tell the player how many of what things the player has already built. That way unlike in the original game the player will know what he needs to look for to change. Depending on the map he will check the park more regularly and have tighter requirements. We'll need to play test his appearance rate.

Types of Buildings: In the original game the build categories were Rides, Attractions, Plants, Shops, Food, and Energy. We will be adding Bathrooms and Games to this as in the Legoland game arcade games for the guests like the Catapults were considered attractions. In the original game no matter what you built it would be guaranteed to attract new guests equally. This will be changed and each category will have a factor instead with the order of highest to lowest being Rides, Games, Attractions, Shops & Food, Plants, and Bathrooms & Energy. We'll need to experiment to see what these need to be set at when we get to that part.

Park Guest and Player Character Generation: There will also be a pool that randomly generated minifigure park guests will be made from where different parts and genders will be randomly selected to make the guests and this same pool will be used by the player to make their character which will not only be seen when exploring the park, but also in cutscenes. I'd preffer for the chance of assigning a gender for a guest to be the same chances as the genders of the world IRL, which we'll work out later. Certain parts from that pool when park guests are generated will also be more likely to be chosen when in certain levels. For example a park in Finland would have a higher chance of guests wearing hoods while in Egypt turbins and short sleeves will be more likely and cowboy hats more likely in Texas. The time of the year will also effect those kinds of things as well. The writers will work out what places will be chosen for the levels when we get there.

In-Game Bank: There will also be a way for the player to borrow money from the bank where the maximum amount of money you can borrow is tied to how much money you have spent on the buildings currently in the park. The player will have the choice of repaying the loan in increments that will automatically come out monthly or all at once after a year has passed. If they are unable to pay the loan at any time it will result in a game-over. If the player loses all of their money and hasn't taken out a loan yet then a prompt asking if they want to take out a loan or lose the game will appear. If the player enters the negative and is unable to take out a loan then they will automatically lose. We will need to play-test to see how many loans the player can have at once.

Project Creation Roles: The jobs here in order of how much work I expect they will do during the course of this project are: Programmers (the most important part by far), 3d Modelers (Will make the 3d assets of the game in Lego Digital Designer or Stud.IO then turn those files into usable files for the others, which I explain the process of in the discord server), Animators (Will make the cutscenes and movement of the rides), Writers (will write the story), 2d Artist (Will make the 2d assets of the game such as the Heads-up-display for when the player is in build mode),  Sound Technicians (Will make sound effects and background sounds), Voice Actors (Will voice the characters in cutscenes and background park guests when the player is in explore mode.) and Musicians (Will make the background music.) I'm thinking the programming language we'll be using will be unity. I will be regularly assigning new tasks for each type of job we have here when old tasks have been completed.

Legality: If you're worried about Lego coming after the project know that I have contacted them and asked them if this project can proceed and they directed me to their fair use page on the official site and said that as long as we follow it then we'd be in the clear. In short we have to use Lego as an adjective, not use their logo, and make it abundantly clear that we're not offiliated with them in any way. Here's where you can read it for yourself: https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play

If you'd like to help with this project then please direct message me so I can send you a link to the discord server.

Edited July 10, 2024 by Legodudelol9a
Added an update on the legality section.

[Murdoch17]

I think the lawyers from LEGO would take issue with you using LEGO-branding, LEGOLAND, and their bricks without permission in a video game...

[Legodudelol9a]

Legally speaking as long as no money is being made, including donations, there shouldn't me any issues, which is why this is a volunteer only thing. I do appreciate the concern though. If we do end up getting a cease-and-desist then of course we'd do as we're told, but I think that's unlikely since we won't even have an option for people to donate to us like some other projects have done.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Legodudelol9a
clarification

[Legodudelol9a]

1 hour ago, Murdoch17 said:

I think the lawyers from LEGO would take issue with you using LEGO-branding, LEGOLAND, and their bricks without permission in a video game...

Legally speaking as long as no money is being made, including donations, there shouldn't me any issues, which is why this is a volunteer only thing. I do appreciate the concern though. If we do end up getting a cease-and-desist then of course we'd do as we're told, but I think that's unlikely since we won't even have an option for people to donate to us like some other projects have done.

[Murdoch17]

21 minutes ago, Legodudelol9a said:

Legally speaking as long as no money is being made, including donations, there shouldn't me any issues, which is why this is a volunteer only thing. I do appreciate the concern though. If we do end up getting a cease-and-desist then of course we'd do as we're told, but I think that's unlikely since we won't even have an option for people to donate to us like some other projects have done.

I don't think that's how rights work... LEGO has gone after people for less than what you're describing. They recently sued a European company (HA Bricks) that was using LEGO parts and installing ball bearings for train use, won against them and told them to cease operations and give over list of customers or a lot of money would be owed than what they already were forking over. The word 'LEGO' was used without permission, (among other things!) from what I understand. They are very, very, very protective of their bricks, reputation, logo and copywrites.

I personally wouldn't touch this if I were you!

Edited July 9, 2024 by Murdoch17

[Legodudelol9a]

2 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

I don't think that's how rights work... LEGO has gone after people for less than what you're describing. They recently sued a European company (HA Bricks) that was using LEGO parts and installing ball bearings for train use, won against them and told them to cease operations and give over list of customers or a lot of money would be owed than what they already were forking over. The word 'LEGO' was used without permission, (among other things!) from what I understand. They are very, very, very protective of their bricks, reputation, logo and copywrites.

I personally wouldn't touch this if I were you!

I have however seen Lego fan games that were made and didn't have any issues with the Lego Group, so this should be fine. Besides, the example you gave was a company using Lego's stuff for their own gain and making money off of it while this fan project won't be getting a single cent from it, thus I doubt they'd come after the project due to non-profits being under the fair use section of international copyright law.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Legodudelol9a
Added clarification

[Legodudelol9a]

Just to double-check and remove any and all doubts I have emailed the Lego company explaining my fan project and asked them if it's cool with them if I make it and that if I don't hear back from them in 4 months then I will take it as confirmation that they're okay with it.

[Legodudelol9a]

I just heard back from the Lego group and they directed me to this page that explains their fair use policy and said that as long as the project complied with it we can proceed! https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play

22 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

I don't think that's how rights work... LEGO has gone after people for less than what you're describing. They recently sued a European company (HA Bricks) that was using LEGO parts and installing ball bearings for train use, won against them and told them to cease operations and give over list of customers or a lot of money would be owed than what they already were forking over. The word 'LEGO' was used without permission, (among other things!) from what I understand. They are very, very, very protective of their bricks, reputation, logo and copywrites.

I personally wouldn't touch this if I were you!

I heard back from the Lego group and they said that as long as the project follows their fair use rules I'm in the clear and they sent me a link to the official web page for it. I've linked it in the main post.

[Legodudelol9a]

I'm still looking for the described roles if anyone is interested.

[Legodudelol9a]

12 hours ago, ellencarnallajya99 said:

By the way, there are platforms like VolunteerMatch or Idealist, where people look for interesting projects to participate in. You can try to find out there.

Huh, didn't know that was a thing. Thanks for the idea!