LEGO® Hidden Side Review & MOCs: 70437 Mystery Castle

Today we welcome new contributor Caz Mockett (BlockHeadUK), well-known for her Micropolis builds that have even graced the Masterpiece Gallery of LEGO House. Her first New E assignment is well-timed for the spooky week ahead! She examines LEGO® Hidden Side 70437 Mystery Castle before using some of its parts to create MOCs. If you're buying this set, consider using our affiliate links: USA LEGO Shop at Home, USA Amazon, UK LEGO Shop at Home, UK Amazon. New Elementary earn from qualifying purchases. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.

70437 Mystery Castle is the largest set in the current LEGO® Hidden Side releases for 2020. The castle is approximately 31cm wide, 27cm deep and 33cm tall in its closed configuration and 45.5cm wide by 26cm deep in its open position. It contains 6 minifigures, 1033 parts and is priced at £89.99/ US$99.99/ €97.47. The price per part is reasonable value at 8.7p/ 9.7c/ 9.4c respectively, especially when you consider that quite a few of the parts are quite large pieces such as corner panels, windscreens and moulded roof elements.

LEGO® Hidden Side: Eli Willsea's creations using new parts from 70430 & 70432

We've discussed LEGO® Hidden Side sets quite a bit this year and now it is time for a different take. We sent the talented US builder Eli Willsea (ForlornEmpire on Flickr and Instagram) a copy of 70430 Newbury Subway and 70432 Haunted Fairground to see what original creations he could come up with, also using his own LEGO parts. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.

First off let's take a look at some of the newest elements included in these sets that I used in my creations. There were several recolours of existing parts as well as a few new elements that immediately caught my eye.

LEGO® Hidden Side 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000: Design Process with Niek van Slagmaat

One of the LEGO® Hidden Side designers, Niek van Slagmaat, recently shared some of his design process for upcoming set 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000 in a series of fascinating tweets. Rather than scroll through the twittersphere trying to take in all the details, we have unrolled (and lightly edited) the threads here for you, with permission from Niek.

Niek: The new Hidden Side fire truck was my favorite Hidden Side set to design so far! With it releasing soon, I thought it would be cool to share some of my process on this set. It's important to make it VERY clear that this, as with all LEGO sets, was a team effort. I worked closely with a variety of people to make this vision work, from digital development teams to sparring partners, to quality and building instructions developers.

LEGO® Hidden Side Review: 70418 J.B.’s Ghost Lab

With so many amazing Parts Festival builds pouring out of our talented builders, let's just take a little break – and round off our reviews of LEGO® Hidden Side sets! Ben Davies takes a look at 70418 J.B.’s Ghost Lab.

To complete our coverage of LEGO Hidden Side, today we will be examining the smallest of the retail sets, 70418 J.B.’s Ghost Lab. As the set name would suggest, this set depicts the laboratory where scientist extraordinaire J.B. studies the ghosts that are haunting Newbury, and tests out the latest ghost-hunting gadgets.

LEGO® Hidden Side review: 70423 Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000

Continuing our examination of the new LEGO® Hidden Side theme, Ben Davies (ProfessorBrickkeeper) takes a look at 70423 Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000 which is now available priced £54.99 / $59.99 / 59.99€.

For all the different LEGO® buses produced over the years, there’s been surprisingly few depictions of school buses. Historically, LEGO has instead opted to reproduce public transport and tour buses. With the launch of LEGO Hidden Side 70423 Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000, they have finally rectified the situation. The Paranormal Intercept Bus 3000 is modeled off of a typical American school bus, retrofitted with various gizmos and gadgets to help heroes Jack, Parker, and J.B. defeat the ghosts of the Hidden Side.

LEGO® Hidden Side review: 70419 Wrecked Shrimp Boat

Our third LEGO® Hidden Side set review is one of the cheaper sets, 70419 Wrecked Shrimp Boat. It has 310 elements, four minifigures and one sticker sheet with 15 stickers. It retails at £24.99 / US$29.99 / 29.99€.

Let's take a look and see if this set has any interesting new elements to float the boat of New Elementary readers.

LEGO® Hidden Side review: 70422 Shrimp Shack Attack

Hidden Side is a new LEGO® theme for 2019 featuring brick-built sets that combine with augmented reality (AR) to give a physical and digital aspect to each set. The Hidden Side range features eight building sets and interaction is via a smartphone app which reveals a hidden world of interactive mysteries and challenges to solve, using AR.

We are taking a look at a few Hidden Side sets and following 70425 Newbury Haunted High School, our second set up for review is 70422 Shrimp Shack Attack. This set has 579 pieces, one sticker sheet with 16 stickers, five minifigures and retails at £44.99 / US$49.99 / 49.99€.

LEGO® Hidden Side review: 70425 Newbury Haunted High School

We interrupt your Parts Festival to bring you the first of our reviews of LEGO® Hidden Side sets, of which we will examine five over the coming weeks. Jonas Kramm takes reviewing duties of 70425 Newbury Haunted High School.

Hidden Side is the new LEGO® theme in town, and brings us eight new play sets. To start we’re exploring the biggest one: it’s not a new Elementary School, but Newbury’s Haunted High School.

Opening the box reveals nine bags containing 1474 pieces, one big instruction booklet and two sheets with 44 stickers to apply. The biggest interest for me is always what new parts are included so let’s take a look what treasures are buried here.