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Pharaoh's Quest alternate model instructions


PeabodySam
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Back in the old days of Adventurers, LEGO would always release a ton of building instructions for alternate models.  In addition to those already provided in the set's enclosed instruction booklet, you would occasionally see more instructions released through LEGO Mania Magazine, including Mummy's Transport, Jungle Explorer, Adventurer HoverCraft, and HelioRaptor.  There were even online instructions, such as Secret of the Jungle Shrine and Race to Burning Mountain... but unfortunately, due to the spotty nature of the Wayback Machine (particularly in LEGO.com's earlier days of insisting on cookie-accepting browsers with Flash player), a few of these online instructions have apparently been lost forever, such as Rudo's Creepy Crawler advertised in this LEGO Mania issue (I still wonder if LEGO has the files backed up somewhere).  Still, an abundance of inspiration models without instructions would... well, inspire kids and challenge them to reverse-engineer these models without instructions.

 

Flash-forward to 2011, and this practice is (in my opinion, very unfortunately) largely abandoned.  Sure, you occasionally see instructions for some model in the LEGO Magazine or on the LEGO website, but they're nowhere near as abundant or frequent as they used to be, and are usually restricted only to the really popular stuff like Ninjago.  The Pharaoh's Quest line sought to recapture the same magic as Adventurers and I'd argue that they succeeded in many regards, but there was a conspicuous lack of alternate models with instructions to complete the experience.

 

Or was there?

 

While I was browsing Brickshelf the other day, I noticed this LDraw screenshot in a folder of official combiner and alternate LEGO models.  The filename indicates that it's an alternate model for 7326 Rise of the Sphinx.  One Google search later... and the only thing I can find is this post by Christian Maglekær (the same guy who made the Brickshelf folder) saying that it "was featured in LEGO Club/Brickmaster magazine". 

 

I've never seen this model before.  I just checked my collection of LEGO Magazines from 2011 and could not find any reference to a Pharaoh's Quest alternate model... however, I am missing the March/April issue and, for all I know, it could be in there.  Does anyone else know about this?  And if you have the instructions, could you please scan them and upload them to Brickshelf or something?

 

Otherwise, I suppose I could create an account on that LDraw forum and try to contact Christian Maglekær himself via PM.  But, it would seem silly to create an account on a forum I wouldn't visit just to ask one question to one guy.  Especially if the answer to that question could be easily found by another forum of nutty LEGO maniacs such as ourselves.

 

Also, while we're on the subject of Pharaoh's quest alternate models, the November/December 2011 issue's comic featured this Pharaoh's Quest mech, and I could've sworn that I remembered seeing instructions for it somewhere... but that doesn't seem to be the case, since I can't find any reference to instructions anywhere.  Does anyone else remember anything about this?

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I definitely don't remember that being in the magazine either, but if someone reminds me in a couple of weeks I might be able to check my March/April issue while I have access to it, just to be sure. Are you in the US? Different countries will have variations on the magazine a lot, so it may have been only in the UK edition of the magazine or something like that.

 

Instructions for that mech do sound kind of familiar, but not enough that I'd vouch for their existence.

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On 11/24/2016 at 1:28 PM, Pereki said:

Are you in the US? Different countries will have variations on the magazine a lot, so it may have been only in the UK edition of the magazine or something like that.

 

Yep, US is the version I have.

 

Interesting that they would still have different editions of the magazine; aside from small things like regional differences (e.g. language, local events, or what sort of hat Santa would wear), you'd think that, if they went through the trouble of making instructions for alternate models, they'd at least publish them worldwide.  But apparently, that's not necessarily the case, even in the 2000s (in the 90s, region-exclusive magazine content was a lot more common).  Browsing the Netherlands 2008 issues of LEGO Club magazine revealed some Impulse combiners that I don't recall seeing in the US release.

 

Fortunately, the same website also had scans of the Netherlands 2011 issues, including March/April.  Unfortunately, the alternate model in question does not appear anywhere in the magazine, let alone its instructions.  Of course, this does not rule out UK, Germany, or other countries, but this website is not so comprehensive in other regions.

 

It's times like these where I am reminded why we really, really need a comprehensive online archive of all LEGO magazines.  Brickmaster, World Club, Adventures, you name it.

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  • 2 years later...
Jacob Hanshew

I do remember this, but I could've sworn it was a combiner model and not just an alternate. It was kind of like a wall with a sliding door in the center, as a bit of a temple entrance.

 

Perhaps it was in a 2010 or 2012 issue? LEGO will sometimes release a model early or hold it back to drum up/bring back interest for a theme, for example Shadow Titan Makuta used parts from both 2015 and 2016 BIONICLE sets.

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I've come across the same problem searching old mags for inspiration and the like. Poor documentation. Given that LEGO has a vault of every set released, I'm _sure_ they've got a back up of these things somewhere, right?

 

Regardless, I'm pretty bummed LEGO doesn't do a lot of alternate builds anymore. I'm happy LEGO Movie 2's sets have been bringing it back a bit though.

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