The MLP Arena

Pony Talk => Off Topic => Toy Box & Games Cupboard => Topic started by: Ragamuffin on June 03, 2021, 08:30:56 PM

Title: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: Ragamuffin on June 03, 2021, 08:30:56 PM
Looking at G4's playsets, they always had some sort of dumb feature like a slide, and the upcoming G5 castle supposedly has a zipline feature. I was thinking, do kids actually like this kind of thing?

G3 was my childhood generation, and luckily we didn't have any stupid slides, which is probably the worst feature you can put on a playset. Celebration Castle's weird "feature" was the elevator, which I only used like once or twice. It was clunky and not very fun to use. Just teleport to the second floor like the rest of us? And the Rainbow Wishes Amusement Park's ferris wheel wing things were weird as well. Never used the similar wing-spinny thing on the Butterfly Island set. Those wings were on flimsy little hooks, the wing accessories were better used by themselves.

One of the playset features I actually liked as a kid were the hamster tubes in the LPS houses. The magnet-related gimmicks I thought were decently done in both MLP and LPS, whether it was something to activate something or used for things like "dance floors".

G1 seems to not have very many features, which is good. Only thing I can think of is the waterfall. I guess the pool in Paradise Estate could count as a feature, but it's more of a bowl than anything. XD The Dream Castle has the pulley but it's not really a selling feature, just a small detail.

But did you guys ever like features like this, MLP or other brands? If you have kids, do they like stuff like this? What are some good, cool features you like? Features you think are dumb? (the correct answer to this question is "slides")
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: SunPony on June 03, 2021, 08:59:23 PM
Hmm, as a kid I had the G1 Dream Castle and I was obsessed with the basket that you could raise and lower on a crank.  Obsessed!  I also had the Perm Shoppe and I definitely enjoyed the water feature on that... Maybe not as much as the basket though, haha.  Not sure if it counts as a playset but I had the...rockabye bed?  It had a gimmick of a wheel you could turn to show a night scene or a day scene, and I really liked that.  I would have loved a slide as long as the ponies could actually slide down it unassisted.  Yay physics!  I can't take comment on other generations playsets, though.  My play was not very character-oriented at all, so exploring all the moving parts of a playset was...I guess higher up on my list of things to do, perhaps, than it might be for others.  Kid me would love a zipline if it was decently functional, in fact my sister and I made many ziplines for our toys back in the day...
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: Mewtwofan1 on June 03, 2021, 10:33:58 PM
As a child I kinda liked some of the features in playsets, but one thing I vividly recall is disliking features that just...felt like they were shoehorned in there. They don’t make much sense in the context of the toy (like a slide on a castle) and just feel like a cheap “heya kids! Look! Shiny!” Grab. Even as a child who these toys were marketed to, I felt they mostly were just put there for no real reason.
I do remember this one Barbie jet my sisters and I had (and still do, admittedly missing many of the parts). The plane had features I liked, like moving/reclining seats, a baggage area under the plane and storage on the roof of the plane for your carry on luggage. It had a cart for snacks that you could snap onto a track, and pretend plug in headphones for your dolls to listen to in flight entertainment on the fold out TV. It made plane noises when you pushed buttons (a seatbelt sign button and other noises) and even came with a intercom you could speak into like the captain of a plane. Overall, pretty good features. As children, we understood that these were normal plane things and were happy to have a toy that did them. The one thing none of us got and didn’t think was cool...was the pool.
The back end of the plane was shaped like a bowl in such a way that you could move it on a hinge and make a “pool” on the back of the plane. Complete with a tiny table under the sticker TV, and hanging plastic paper lanterns overhead. Now this is where the bad feature is. It just...we three all knew for a solid fact that you couldn’t rip out the back end of a plane and make it a pool. And none of us were sure on why it was put in there since we were always flying the plane to someplace warm and beachy, where a pool would be somewhat redundant. Safe to say, we used the pool as an extra space to store luggage. What? The suitcases it came with didn’t really fit any Barbie clothes even if you folded them.
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: Artemesia's Garden on June 04, 2021, 02:17:31 AM
You could change the weather vane in the Show Stable depending on the weather. But seriously, I also loved the pulley in the Dream Castle, since Spike can't fly yet but he likes to look down from above. However, not sure safe it would be for him to hop onto the battlements from there. The Perfume Puff Palace had a real perfume scent in the top when you squeezed it. I'd have loved a working Merry-Go-Round for G1 and also a Wishing Well with bucket pulley seems feasible.
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: tailrustedtealeaf on June 04, 2021, 05:04:38 AM
Thinking about the playsets we had...

The LPS hospital/doctors office that had some sort of "scale" which was fun. The other LPS house that had the hamster tunnel that actually worked quite well! The Biggest Littlest Pet Shop had a wind-up and release rotating. Thing. It was cute but not very practical for play.

There's an LOL Surprise dollhouse that has a snow blower! But the snow is little styrofoam balls that get everywhere. Bet kids love that, parents hate it.

We have a Playskool dollhouse we picked up from the side of the road that had battery functionality, but aside from incessantly ringing the doorbell we never used any of the features. Doorbell features are awesome.
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: Ponybookworm on June 04, 2021, 07:06:04 AM
The Bonnet School had the three rotating parts operated by a wheel so your Ponies could "dance"
Twinkle Twirl's Dance Studio had this with a bit more oomph & battery power
I like drawbridges which can open & shut, the G2 ovens in playsets (you wet the sponge & it takes the white off the pies), & things which open & close like they're meant to
My fave though is the swing in the Lullabye Nursery. I was always making swings for my Baby Ponies, & swinging a Baby Pony in a swing was awesome
Title: Re: "Features" in Playsets?
Post by: LadyAmalthea on June 04, 2021, 06:02:50 PM
I never had a pony playset that had a slide, but I did have a CareBear playset that had one, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever! I suppose though, the Care Bears were made of such a material that allowed for good sliding, unlike the shape and material of a pony. It also had a star-shaped swing that worked, and some kind of teeter-totter thing, if I remember correctly.
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