K’Nex Robo Creature series offers junior builders, architects and designers a next step in their trek among the many building sets that have dazzled and occupied them in the past. I guess the key words here might be “different” and “new fun.” Not chunky and cubist like Lego, nor as exact and scenario focused as Playmobil, nor as “ship-in-a-bottle” delicate and precise as Nanoblocks. Each creature in this K’Nex Trio (Robo-SMASH / STING / STRIKE) has about 150 pieces. The components are colorful and more organic and skeletal by design. The “block” thing is not happening here, no limitation of just straight up or down, or just 90 degree turns. Special joints, trusses, gearing gives you more free-natural positioning and movement in 360 arcs. The pictures on the boxes are the first clue. The creations look like Cooties on steroids. Squint your eyes and see the outline of a scorpion, stare closely and you see a network of curious connectors that look like they might be transformed into anything. THEN THEY START MOVING. Wonderful creepiness! Spooky perambulation! Movement means life, action, personality, and these toys have it. Very different parts, newer shapes and connections, fascinating finished products will excite a different set of neural circuits in the organize-build-play-fun process. That, and I have not mentioned the fact that you can combine the three creatures in a super-SMASHERSTIGERSTRIKER which for me, is almost too daunting a destroyer to even think about. We like this trio of K’Nex creatures because the newness and variability and motion of their set creates a different construction experience. All that differentness, and the additional manageable complexity that comes with it drags a lot of language in all phases of the fun. WARNING: Combine all these three at your own risk, you may hardly have words to describe what you end up with ; )
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Bob Artemenko contributed to this review.
