The upcoming toys-to-life game, Skylanders Imaginators, will have a companion app called Creator that will let players create custom characters and have them 3D printed.
Creator will allow players to either import characters from the main game, or create new ones entirely. Once they’re happy with the creation made from unlockable parts hidden in chests, they can have them turned into a 3D printed toy, card or T-shirt.
Skylanders Imaginators, and all other games in this genre, use an external peripheral attached to the console to read toys usually bought in stores via NFC. With these custom creations, both the 3D printed toy and card will retain this ability.
Now this all sounds great, but there are, of course, many drawbacks.
The first one is price. That 3D printed toy will cost you a $50 (R681), which is as much as many full games and more than twice that of a regular R300 character you can buy for the game.
The card is a cheaper option at $15 (R204) that achieves the same thing as the toy minus, well, the toy. Finally, the shirt is $25 (R240) but does nothing special.
But even if you have more money than you know what to do with, you may still be out of luck. On the official Skylanders Creator there are warnings about availability, citing territories and limited quantities. As you may have guessed by the US dollar pricing, it will be available in America. Forbes reports that popular 3D printing service Shapeways will be will be handling the creation of the toys.
As for country-specific availability, we’ll have to download the app when it’s available on October 16th to check, because there’s no mention of this in the FAQs. Even if the app is released in your country, you may not be able to order any of the custom goodies. If I was a betting man, I’d lay down a lot of money on this service being excluded from most of the world – and South Africa most definitely excluded.
Despite the problems, this is still another great addition to this new genre of game that we desperately wish we had growing up. The concept of a creature you create being turned into both a physical toy and a playable character in a game is something we could have never imagined.
