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Name: Ink Machine Room
Brand: Basic Fun!
Model: 20118WM
Pcs: 265
I already went over Bendy and Halloween in the previous review, so let's skip to today's set.
Unlike the buildable figures last time, this is your typical building set, recreating the game's most infamous element: the titular Ink Machine. Like I said, I haven't played the game, so I'm not entirely sure what it does, but I assume it brought Bendy and friends to life, and allowed for the creation of all of Bendy's henchcreatures, and it's trying to convert the main character into Bendy's new, twisted world. ...Either that, or Bendy opened up a plant that manufactures those anti-theft ink bombs they put on clothing that go off if they think you're shoplifting. ...And THOSE are the real evil in this world!
Like the previous boxes, the color scheme of the box follows the same monochrome yellow-and-black aesthetics as the game, with even the bricks in the lower left corner a mix of light-and-dark-shaded yellow. As long as the actual bricks are kept the same shade and aren't bright yellow like the buildable figures, we should have a truly terrifying set courtesy of an alternate universe where Fleischer and Disney combined and brought their cartoons to life! ...It's scarier than it sounds.
With this packaging, they seem to have dropped the C3 name entirely, since the logo appears nowhere on this box. I'm sure it'll pop up again in a decade as the name for a baseball brick set, given the history of the name.
The "Works With Major Brands/You Build It!" logo from C3 construction sets is still here, so maybe C3 isn't completely dead yet. ...Though if it's still alive, it's probably on its deathbed, hooked up to a roomful of machines keeping every single fleshy bit of it going until it crumbles to dust...
There's nothing going on in the scene they chose to represent the set, with Bendy and Ink Bendy just standing in front of a deceased Boris, smiling their devilish smiles.
A far cry from the action-filled still* of the WWE StackDown Ring C3 also produced years earlier!
*There's an oxymoron for you...
Speaking of which, I pointed out in that review that the back of the box was one of the best parts of the set, with how they included shots of each of the set's gimmicks and what they could do! It was a VERY exciting box front-and-back, and got me pumped for what was inside! ...Even though the contents were more UWF than WWE...
Well, the picture on the back of the box here is just a larger variant of the front of the box, with the title shrunken and the name of the set and lineup of minifigures missing. ...Really ramping up the horror of the game this is based on, aren't they?
But it does tell us that we can download a free episode of Bendy and the Ink Machine at Bendy.io/Free! And, as of this writing, that's still true! ...Of course, now I'm wondering if, in ten years, somebody's going to unearth this review or find one of these sets, click that link, and get hit by a virus that'll wipe out their information, sell their ID to Cuba, and have their house bombarded by repurposed suicide bomber Amazon drones? ...If you're reading this in the year 2030, I warned you!
Nothing else to point out besides the usual "0-3" warning
Despite the box also saying nobody under 14 should have this.
Anyone between those ages will be tied to a chair with their eyes pried open A Clockwork Orange-style and forced to watch every movie from a 200-in-1 Horror DVD collection, until they either fear nothing ever again, or their heads blow up Scanners-style. ...More likely the latter...
Alright, let's get this thing put together and find out just what an Ink Machine is!
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And here it is! And it's very, VERY... Yellow... ...And that's about the only notable thing I can say about it...
Once again, the illusion of it being from an old-timey cartoon is shattered by most of the bricks being a very saturated yellow. I don't understand why this set and the buildable figures went for THIS level of yellow, since even old film didn't yellow to THIS degree! A tan or even just a pale yellow would have worked even better. This looks like it was built out of butter! ...Or cheese! ...Or buttery cheese!
There are even two shades of deep yellow in this set! It's probably a little hard to make out with my camera, but the floor is a deep shade of orange-yellow, while the other bricks are a more regular yellow. ...But, again, it doesn't look like a tone found in an old movie. It looks like the pieces came from an unsold Mega Construx Build-A-Minion set. ...Admittedly, not as much a waste of good plastic with this set...
You know how I like to harp on how I hate stickers? Well, EVERY decal for these bricks is a sticker! Unlike the buildable figures, there are NO custom print jobs for ANY brick. Everything has to be laboriously peeled off, stuck on, peeled back off because it wasn't applied correctly, stuck back on, peeled off again, straightened out because it's accidentally been bent, stuck on again, peeled off AGAIN to peel off the hairs that somehow got stuck to it, then stuck on AGAIN! ...At an angle where the sticker is hanging off the edge on opposite corners and it's now torn up the middle, but you've had enough at this point...
Admittedly, I'm not as upset about these stickers as I usually am. Despite the flaws of using stickers, these are actually REALLY well printed, high quality images that almost seamlessly blend together! They're made of good material that won't tear or unstick easily, they have actual images and patterns on them and not just stock shapes, and the coloring actually matches the old movie aesthetics better than the bricks do! I'm quite impressed, and almost tempted to give these a pass and ignore my hatred of stickers at least this once!
...Unfortunately, they're stickers that are applied across several bricks, meaning that they'll be ruined as soon as I take this set apart... I was this close to liking you, stickers. ...THIS close!
Still, I do like the detail the stickers give the set. On one, we have a poster of a fictional Bendy cartoon: "Bendy in 'Sheep Songs!' with Boris the Wolf!" ...And, based on the picture, I'm guessing Boris was an antagonist in the Bendy cartoons that Bendy always thwarted. ...And that took a macabre left turn when they were brought to life...
On another, we have "Who's Laughing Now?" scrawled over some papers in ink-blood. Based on what I've seen of the game, this is a recurring image, possibly left by Bendy in retaliation for decades of people laughing at him and his cartoons. ...Except, if he's the protagonist, wouldn't the cartoons end with him laughing it up, as well? Why is he getting revenge for sharing a good time with the audience?
Besides the wall stickers, the set also includes a torture table, comprised of a number of flat pieces with a sticker applied over it to simulate wood. ...Very clean wood, given what happens on these tables...
It's here where you'll usually find a decaying corpse of the many Borises of the game, his chest ripped open and his eyes in cartoonish "X"s, all in the name of Alice Angel, another antagonist in the game. ...Though if the Ink Machine can create these characters, then couldn't she just use it to create what she needs from Boris as opposed to the entire Boris? ...And here I am, trying to assign logic to cartoon psychopaths...
The table is also the only feature in the set with any articulation. ...But with how little area the table is given to move around in, you have to ask if it was necessary?
The one custom brick of this set is this little ink splatter, which I assume is supposed to be a pool of ink-blood pooling from the dead Boris. ...Except, if that's the case, it's at least a foot away from the table! ...It's almost like they didn't think the room's setup completely through and they simply reorganized a few things without fixing the problem...
BAM! Fixed! ...Except now we're left with a disturbingly empty space right next to Boris...
BAM! Fixed! An outdoor cafe dinette set spruces up ANYTHING!
And here's the titular Ink Machine, which takes up a good quarter of the set's space! ...Glad you saw it? ...A little underwhelming for me, too.
It doesn't even look finished! It's mostly just a blocky stack of yellow bricks, with the occasional gray brick for contrast. I guess I can make out a funnel on the front, but if I didn't know this was supposed to be an Ink Machine, I wouldn't have thought it was supposed to be ANY machine! It looks like one of MY creations, it's so basic and rushed! Except, I have to quickly put together props and settings for my videos to get them out in a reasonable time. What's their excuse?
And yes, this is it. There's no gimmick to it! You can't push a button and have a character or a few black bricks pour out of it, you can't store things in it, you can't even move it! The funnel is completely inarticulate!
There's not even a black sticker to suggest ink comes out of it! You could have told me this made spaghetti and I would have believed you!
And, as a topper for everything, it's too low to the ground to convince me it produced these characters... Bendy and the Ink Machine? Try "Bendy and the Third-Grader Science Fair Model!"
Overall, not too impressed with the set itself. Let's talk characters.
They were nice enough to include THREE different figurines with this set: Bendy, Ink Bendy, and Dead Boris. ...And they're a huge change-up from the last set we saw from C3/The Bridge Direct/Basic Fun!.
While the wrestler figures in the StackDown set were slightly reworked Minimates
These Bendy figures copy the OYO Sports design for their minifigures, simply given more elaborate heads. I also briefly mentioned OYO in the StackDown review, but I won't go into full detail until we feature something actually from them. I'm guessing Basic Fun!, or whichever branch of the newly formed company produced these sets, found some OYO molds lying around from their licensing deal with OYO, and, because this figure form would work much better with these characters than their Minimates knockoff form, they went with a different unoriginal figure mold than usual. ...Keeping true to form, I guess.
I should probably hold off on an overview of the figure design until I feature an OYO set, but, since this review's going to be shorter than usual otherwise, I might as well give a comparison of these figures to regular Lego minifigures here. For starters, OYO/Basic Fun! figures are almost the same size and proportions as a regular minifigure, elevated slightly by the fact they have raised, articulated feet.
The necks on the OYO figures are also slightly smaller than Lego minifigs, so a Lego head will loosely attach to an OYO figure, but not an OYO head to a Lego body. ...Just in case you were planning to play mad scientist with these figures. ...Or you're 5. We all switched the heads of our Lego figures, then forgot which originally went where at that age, didn't we?
Since OYO figures are designed to be posed for dramatic sports stills, they have a bit more articulation in the legs and arms. The feet on these figures are hinged, allowing them to bend back without bending the waist.
Though the waist also bends back much further than a regular Lego minifigure.
However, bending them at the feet make them the limbo champions of the universe!
The arms contain the most notable difference between these figures and Lego. As well as normal minifigure arm movement, they're capable of swiveling in a circle at the elbow, and they're stuck at much more of an angle than regular minifigs. Add the fact the hand peg is permanently bent as well, and you have a figure with perma-broken arms.
Both arms are also at different angles, with the right arm at a much more Lego-ish angle than the other. ...And I can't stress enough how much this arm build doesn't work with a regular figure!
With the regular OYO sports figures, it works, since the angles give you the ability to actually pose them holding things and winding up to throw or catch the balls.
But getting one of these figures to hold a regular object... Doesn't quite look right. Going back to my broken arm comparison, it looks like he tried to tie a splint onto his arms to straighten them out, then tried to hold the items straight. ...Kind of reduces the terror factor when it looks like his arms will turn to noodles if he tries to stab you...
That was an overview of the basic build. What about the figures themselves? ...Well, there's not much to say.
First up is Bendy. And, since each figure is given its own custom head as opposed to the standard or slightly-tweaked Lego minifigure head, I guess I was lying earlier when I said the black ink splotch was the only original piece.
The heads ARE nicely sculpted, with some professional decal work and a well-scaled version of the original Bendy's face! ...I guess they could have used Bendy's face from his buildable figure, shrunken down to fit, but it's nice they went to this effort anyway.
He's also given a rubbery, detachable bow tie that fits around the neck. It looks nice. What else to say?
Besides the head, there's nothing else to say about the body. It's just a solid black color with no other details. ...Still, that's Bendy's form in the game, anyway, so I guess I can't get too mad at it. ...I can get mad at the overall figure design, but I already did, so let's move on.
Next up is Ink Bendy, fresh from the machine! ...The machine creates characters, right? Not just ink? ...I really need to play this game...
The head mold is the same as Bendy's, simply with the top half covered in ink. Therefore, he's completely blind! ...And he's a threat to the protagonist, how?
Oddly, instead of the tie accessory Bendy has, Ink Bendy's tie is painted on. I guess it's meant to look crooked and it would be too much of a hassle to make two different bow ties for the set. ...But I suddenly miss their creativity...
Ink Bendy and Dead Boris also have much longer legs than the first Bendy, making them considerably taller than most other figures. ...And clearly, this was done to reenact the hidden Can-Can option from the game! ...Normally, I wouldn't pass up a chance to do a little animation like that, but I'm running out of time if I want this out by Halloween...
Finally, we have Dead Boris! ...It's always nice when they package a figure of a dead guy in a set. Now you can pose him... Lying there, stiff as a board! ...Ok, you can probably make him a zombie or pose him in awkward positions to make his death all the more unfortunate, but still. They gave you a character who's supposed to be DEAD! Not many options unfold to use him in if you want to take his state seriously.
Like his buildable figure, they clearly put the most time and effort into Boris' mold, compared to Bendy. His long snout, his protruding cheeks, the "X"s over his eyes, and his rubbery ears all make this the best figure out of the lot!
...He might want to get that gaping chest wound looked at, though. That'll eventually ruin both his professional and personal lives if left unchecked...
And this figure even has knees! And they didn't need to use stickers! What madness is this?!
However, the back is completely black, with no sign of the straps holding his overalls up. So close, Boris. SOOOOOOOO CLOSE! ...Still, A- for effort!
And there you have the Ink Machine brick set, with three of the Bendy characters! ...Admittedly, a bit of a step down compared to the buildable figures, but, if you need a reproduction of the Ink Machine with some nice wall details but not much else, Basic Fun! has you covered! ...After all, they're your only choice when it comes to this specific line of brick set...
Speaking of the buildable figures, let's check on them one last time before we wrap this Halloween up!
...Well, where'd they go? I know I left them on this section of table! Maybe they wandered off?
...BENDY...!
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Quality: Unlike the buildable figures, I didn't come across any pieces that had a hard time fitting together, so maybe they upped their quality control since then? It's again C3-brick quality, which is most similar to Mega Bloks/Construx, so, despite a loose, rubbery feel to the plastic, everything snapped into place. Besides that, the stickers were high quality and very detailed, the characters were well built, and there was no scratched paint or broken pieces. On the whole, much better quality in this set than the previous! ...Which, since you're more likely to play and interact with the buildable figures than this set, is unfortunate...
Design: The overall look of the set is, unfortunately, quite bland. It just looks like a room. A square room that they threw a table and an unidentifiable machine into. There's a large amount of empty space they could have filled up, and they put the torture table on the side where the ink-blood spot wouldn't make much sense. And the machine is so generic, I hesitate to even call it the "Ink Machine"... The figures aren't originally from Basic Fun!, so I can't give them points for originality, and, like I said, for figures you actually want to play or animate with, as opposed to pose like with their sports sets, the arms are awkward to pose and get to hold accessories. The custom heads are nice, and they match their game counterparts, but that's about as out-of-the-box designed this set gets! And, of course, the yellow bricks are WAY too yellow! It looks like a scene set in banana pudding, not an old-timey film strip! Plus, the stickers are applied across several bricks, so if I try to take this set apart, the stickers will likely tear or otherwise lose their stickiness. I've seen worse designed sets, but, when they had the horror and imagination of Bendy and the Ink Machine to work with, I expected a little more of both...
Creativity: Again, the room's very bland. The machine's shapeless, there's a lot of empty space, and the characters don't have much detail(except for Dead Boris.) The colors aren't very interesting either, simply being either a deep yellow or a brownish gray. I wouldn't criticize the colors if the bricks made something interesting, but since the setup is as interesting as the colors, it just adds to the set's overall uninterestingness... With how much I like to tear apart the stickers for these sets(both figuratively and literally), the stickers were the most interesting part of the whole thing! They were high quality, they actually showed wooden wall patterns as opposed to flat shapes and colors, and the little details like the poster and the ink-blood writing looked great! The custom head molds for each of the characters were also appreciated, especially Boris' highly detailed noggin! ...However, the rest of the figure features were solid black, which isn't the most creative of colors or decisions... On the whole, where there's creativity, there's a LOT of creativity! ...There just isn't a lot of creativity spread across the entire set...
Readability: Thankfully, there's a book included instead of the fold-out piece of paper, making for a much easier read. With the pieces being one of two colors, it was a little difficult to follow along and know which pieces I hadn't already placed. Luckily, the new pieces were separated by bright orange outlines, making it a little easier to know where I left off. Since most of my complaints are about the set's monochrome scheme, and that's not the manual's fault, I suppose I'll say the instructions did their job.
Packaging: It's a box made of thin cardboard with the same still picture on both sides. ...That's the long and short of it. I guess it's a pretty good quality box, but when it comes to selling me on the product, there's not a lot going on... If I didn't know about Bendy and the Ink Machine and didn't want to do an overview of some construction sets, the box wouldn't have convinced me to buy it, otherwise.
Compatibility: All the pieces are standard bricks you'd find in most sets, save for the ink blot and custom heads. While the custom heads may make it hard to stack bricks and other accessories on, everything else will work fine with anything. ...In fact, using it with anything else might give it a much needed splash of color and creativity...
Overall:
It's a pretty good quality brick set with a good amount of custom figures, but there's not much to it. The design's standard, and the creativity is severely lacking. It needed some other kind of gimmick to it to make it really stand out, like a lever that releases ink bricks or an ink figure or something along those lines. If you're a fan of the game and need a cheap, bare bones model for a project or to play with, this will do fine, I guess. ...You'll just need to add your own ink and horrors to it...
And with that, October has drawn to a close! Go out and celebrate, don't get so sick on sugar and booze, you're regret it tomorrow, and have a Happy Halloween! ...Me, I'm just going to eat candy and watch Over the Garden Wall!
And with November comes our next theme month! What will it be? POKEMONTH! Generation 2! Tin and Pyrite editions! ...Actually, they were made around the same time as the ones we already looked at, so no next-generation toys. ...But still a lot of variety and oddness! Stay tuned!
