Review: 41396 Puppy Playground
Posted by benbacardi,I'll be honest—until this week, I had never bought or built a Friends set. My interests mostly lie elsewhere; but I do have a three-and-a-half year old daughter, who loves all things cute, pink or purple.
Therefore, rather than reviewing 41396 Puppy Playground from my usual perspective of a 30-something AFOL, I thought I'd pass it to her and see how she did and what she thought.
Basics first, however. The set is a small 57-piece model labelled as 4+, LEGO's replacement for the Juniors branding. It comes in the usual Friends-style packaging, with the intentionally-dented edge along one side, and the colours are certainly those that would catch the eye of my daughter.
Inside, there are two small bags, a loose tile, and the instruction booklet. Aimed at the youngest end of LEGO builders, there are no stickers, and the only decorated piece is printed.
Parts and minidolls
The first thing the instructions directed my daughter to do was to put together the minidoll (Mia, the box artwork informed me), and adorn her two canine companions with bows. She found placing the bows on their heads (and the sunglasses on Mia) a little tricky, but I wasn't truly expecting her to manage the entire build completely unaided.
As an aside for the usual audience of Brickset: this is the first time either of these dogs have appeared in a set, to my knowledge (both the print and colour). Mia's torso (a purple and silver crop top tied above the waist) is also relatively rare, having only been available in two sets, both this year. Additionally, this set contains a 1x4x3 brick recoloured in Dark Purple, which is also new.
LEGO has also been generous with the spare parts for this set. You get a spare of each of the purple and pink bows for the dogs (and I've just noticed that my daughter chose two pink bows in the photo above instead of one of each!), a bone, a cookie, a flower and two of Mia’s sunglasses. For a 57-piece set, seven spare pieces feels like an unusually high percentage!
The Build and Completed Model
Once the minidoll is complete, a green skateboard and a bowl with a cookie and a bone is put together, and a simple roundabout is constructed. Being a playground designed for puppies, not children, the roundabout is topped by a bone (perhaps for them to clamp between their teeth so they don't fall off?)
The instructions are clear, with only one or two pieces being placed on each step. My daughter had little trouble with most of the directions.
After the roundabout, the larger model of a slide was put together—this was what my daughter had been looking forward to since seeing the slide piece drop out of the box at the beginning. Unfortunately it's one of the last pieces placed and she can be rather impatient!
Again, it is constructed in a very simple way, as to be expected for a set of this size and intended audience. The only printed tile (which I believe is also unique for this set) is a picture of a dog holding a tennis ball, and adorns the very top of the slide. The slide is reached by means of a yellow ladder leading from the ground. It's quite a short slide, but they are only puppies after all, and if the intention is to go down it on the skateboard then it is probably long enough!
Now the model is complete, my daughter immediately started playing, placing a dog on the skateboard and pushing it down the slide (after a small victory dance, that is, for having completed the set all by herself—-and running off to show it to Mummy). I asked her some questions about the set and build (bearing in mind that she is still half a year away from the recommended age):
Can you tell me what's in the set? We've got a slide, a roundabout, and some food for the doggies, and a skateboard for the doggy, and a person!
Did you have fun building it? Yes!
What was your favourite bit to build? The slide!
What do you like best about the slide? It goes weeeeeee!
Do you think you're going to have a lot of fun playing with it? Yeah.
What was the trickiest bit to build? The flowers because I couldn't get them on.
What do you think is the most fun part to play with? The doggies!
Conclusion
Back in 2017, LEGO also released another Friends set with the same name, 41303 Puppy Playground. Instead of a slide and a roundabout, this contained a seesaw, a hoop to jump through, and a bar to jump over. Combined, these two sets start to make a decent playground, even if each initially look a little underwhelming on their own.
This is a very small set, and one clearly targeted at a particular audience. That said, I think the final build is actually more enticing than it looks on the box, and it provides a significant play experience for so few pieces. Small animals, although common to Friends sets, are always appreciated, and I think my daughter could actually happily spend a lot of time playing with this build alone. For an RRP of £8.99, I've certainly spent more money before on less deserving toys!
Thanks to LEGO for providing the set for review. All opinions expressed are my daughter's and mine.
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14 comments on this article
It is cool getting a different opinion for once then an AFOL's. Great review
Great review. With three girls rapidly approaching that age, it's heartening to hear about kids actually enjoying Lego as opposed to video games and TV. Thanks.
This was great!
Great perspective, photos and review @benbacardi !
I care remarkably little for this theme and even less for this set, but I absolutely loved this review. It was simple, but may have been one of the best ever. Huge props to @benbacardi. The different perspective was incredibly well done and delightful.
What I don’t understand is why the review appeared and then disappeared from the site before I could comment, but then later reappeared—curious.
I like that you looked at this set from your daughter's perspective. It's so easy for all of us AFOLs to look at LEGO sets for the cool parts we want or the minifigures to collect or finding something cool to display on the shelf, and therefore we forget that they are also children's toys meant to be played with and engaging in whatever story or roleplay children come up with. Definitely makes me want to be a kid again.
@Schmopiesdad said:
"What I don’t understand is why the review appeared and then disappeared from the site before I could comment, but then later reappeared—curious."
Simply because I schedued it for 10am not knowing that DrDave would publish his review shortly afterwards. I didn't want this one being buried too soon.
Great review!!
What a lovely review, I thoroughly enjoyed reading both opinions, thank you.
Any more of these would be a treat indeed.
I usually don’t care for Friends set reviews, but I read this one because it’s from a different point of view! Very interesting!
@Huw. Thanks for the explanation as to why the initial review disappeared. I very much appreciated that. It is interesting that you schedule entries. That never previously occurred to me, which is a credit to how well you and the entire Brickset team pull everything together.
Great review. I loved the perspective of your daughter. A lot of the smaller friends sets tend to have a lot of spare parts so the number in this one seems about average.
Very much appreciated the dual perspective of this review, and it's nice to see some attention given to the smallest and simplest builds!
Nice to read kid's point of view! Because this toys are primarly for them to play