For Christmas I got a very cool surprise: LEGO PAC-MAN Arcade set 10323.
I purposefully decided to build it slowly, sharing steps with my son and only doing 1-2 bags per evening. There were 14 pre-organized bags containing over 2,600 pieces. Sounds like a lot but it's not a jigsaw puzzle. It's a very relaxing and sometimes surprisingly joyful experience as you follow along the exceptionally illustrated instructions.
By tag-teaming we spread the build across about a week. My son and I have built multiple large LEGO sets in the past 5 years including two different VW vans as well as a much smaller Back 2 the Future Delorean set. This Pac-Man set was more in the realm of the VW vans in terms of intricate details and complexity. And that's really nice because a lazy designer could have simply made a basic arcade cabinet and slapped some branding on the sides. (And it still would have sold.)
I really appreciated some of the very small details that were added along the way, including the Inception-esque arcade that exists inside the thing if you take off the back panel. There's a girl holding a coin/token standing next to a tiny (her size) Pac-Man arcade game that she's about to play. There's even a dollar change machine behind her and some fun 80's "carpet' to tie it all together. Something no one else will ever see unless I pop the back off to show them.
Even the enormous manual is gorgeous and includes occasional trivia blurbs about Pac-Man's origins.
Speaking of Pac-Man, have y'all seen the fantastic free to play in-browser Pac-Man inspired game Paku Paku? I find it much easier to play on my phone. My current Hi-Score is 4,276.
Note: Sorry about the portrait video up above as it's a requirement for creating YouTube shorts.
