Did you ever play with toys as a kid, I mean, really play with them.

[Isegrim]

And when I say, play with them, I mean like how it is in Toy Story, with Andy making up stories and adventures with their toys and making funny sound effects with your mouth.

I know I did. My favorite toy was a brave Reideen toy though what I really wanted was a complete Voltes V set but it was split among my siblings. I only got the Volt Lander while my brothers got the other machines. So if I wanted to play with the complete set, my brother had to be in a good mood or he'd hide his pieces somewhere so I couldn't play with the whole robot. We also had a good collection of How Wheels and Matchbox car sets and I played with them and made up stories like they were alive. I predated Pixar's concept for Cars in my toy playing but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole concept was dreamt up by someone in Pixar's staff who also played it the same way as a kid. It wasn't just the toys, I'd turn the blanket into an amoeba beast fighter for my robots to fight against, the hollowed spaces of a cabinet into a base and sometimes, I end up making stories for my sister and her hello kitty dollhouse.

In fact, there's a fair number of stories and concepts in my toy playing that I find reflected in later examples of popular media, at least in the sci-fi or fantasy genre. I really think my creative side was nurtured a lot by playing with toys in my formative years.

The reason I'm asking is my nephew has never played with toys or only for a little while when he was 5. Soon after that, it was all videogames. Most of his creative play came from videogames at a young age, all pre-packaged with it's own stories and he never got to write any of his own through toys as he was growing up. Since he's actually taking a course in game development, I wonder if he's capable of actually dreaming up something really revolutionary or just end up making...sigh...stuff that everyone else is making. I often ask him about it or challenge him on his creativity but all I get is...

To the younger members of RGT, did you play with toys?

 

[Appiplyer]

I do that everytime i play with my lego lol

i will build several building create faction and somehow play rts againts myself lol as for the stories since i love JRPG the situation was like this

The alpha team which has been the elite among elite of the Cyberran empire with Arc as their leader Hack as the team Engineer and Zoom as their pilot have been assigned to destroy the planet of Xargon and the species there was a hivemind alien (similiar to Zerg in starcraft) Upon fierce battle Arc managed to destroy the entire hivefleet at the cost of it's own self, he got infected by the parasite from the hivefleet and now his fellow friend will try and bring him down.


Or other thing i play with zoids scenarion etc lol.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Hmmmmm i'd say yes

 

[hazys]

Yeah. When I was a kid a video game was a rare prize, usually a birthday or Christmas present, and consoles as well as TVs had to be shared. I spent a lot of time playing with action figures, especially X-Men and Transformers. My favorite part was building elaborate sets out of cardboard and other materials where my stories would play out. When a character in the story "died," I'd put them in a Tupperware, fill it with water, and stick it in the freezer. Then when they "came back to life" I would take them out and defrost them in the sink, lol. A bit weird now that I think about it.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

I loved playing with my toys when I was younger! There was something truly magical about grabbing figures from mismatched sets and making them embark on & play out an adventure... Something unique and original that only existed in the confines of your own room, never to repeat itself even if someone else owned the exact same toys.

I still own a rubber dinosaur I was given when I was four... That thing and I went on so many adventures that it's honestly a miracle that it even survived to this day and age.

I'm tempted to get it down from the shelf "retirement home" and seeing what else we can come up with.

 

[sandogma sandogma]

I remember whenever I played with my action figures (Ninja Turtles, GI Joe, and the random assortment of miscellaneous figures), I would close one eye and lean my head towards the figurines in an attempt to re-enact a camera zoom effect

 

[Megarockman _1987 Megarockman _1987]

Oh man absolutely yes
I did a so long lore with my adventure time macdonald toy, super Mario toys and other random toys

Also in the past a jellies had some toys like this:

I played with them and imagine they are a patrol of super heros with super powers, and I remember the white one was a antihero (actually I still having my collection)
Then with my Legos I used to imagine epic battles and build weird stuff
And with my super Mario toys, sonic toys and I used to play soccer matches with paper goals and a little ball
Damn.... Good times...

 

[Clippy]

That's how it used to be back when I was a kid. Can't remember if I ever built a set according to the instructions way back when. Once I got my grubby hands on a few small sets invisible armageddons and fantasy wars were occurring on the regular in my bedroom and each subsequent set I managed to nag my parents into purchasing only added to the madness.

Funnily enough, I started buying Lego in recent years every once in a while but all I do now is build it to spec and put it on a shelf or in a box sequestered in some corner. How low have the mighty fallen

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

I had quite a few toy ships (mostly a bunch of mismatched pirate themed sets), and Army Men. So I often came up with great naval battles, or tropical themed war dramas, with a bunch of complicated storylines with crews betraying each other, or allying to fight someone else, or having them go free for all because they all wanted a certain treasure, having the army men be mercenaries for the pirate crews.

I still have the Army Men, I use them as minis for tabletop rpgs.

 

[Princess Viola]

I'd build layouts with my friggin Thomas Wooden Railway sets and 'narrate' my own episodes when playing with them as a kid lol.

 

[Shinobi77Gamer]

To this day I play with stuffed animals. However, in my memory, I've only ever played with toys much when there was someone to play with. It just seems very boring on its own.

 

[jon2]

Yes, not just as a kid though

I have a collection of lil figures, mostly SD, especially of Gundam and other mecha series. I play tabletop SRW with them back in highschool

 

[Dr.Kisaragi Dr.Kisaragi]

My toys are still in attic in beautiful display in cabinets
I play a lot of them my favorite is the police action figure he is always the main protagonist of my story

I also had those toy sword I remember one time I playing and almost destroy a fan I got spanked from dad because the heck I am doing

And of course plushy they still with me on my bed they never left and sometimes I do some imagination with them.

 

[DinoRexMax DinoRexMax]

I was so desperate for a MMPR Megazord as a kid, that I used to stack my dinosaurs on top of each other and pretend they were a Megazord.

 

[diapered]

View attachment 187291
That's how it used to be back when I was a kid. Can't remember if I ever built a set according to the instructions way back when. Once I got my grubby hands on a few small sets invisible armageddons and fantasy wars were occurring on the regular in my bedroom and each subsequent set I managed to nag my parents into purchasing only added to the madness.

Funnily enough, I started buying Lego in recent years every once in a while but all I do now is build it to spec and put it on a shelf or in a box sequestered in some corner. How low have the mighty fallen

Same with me! Except with knex >_> I played with knex a lot more than legos ^_^

Anyone know the joy of having these from KNEX?

Picture is a "stock knex men", but these things were LITERALLY build your own action figures! The ball joint design in combination with generic parts was so versatile! I remember making gundams, characters from anime/games or whatever I wanted to imagine and play out ^_^ KNEX was great because you could use the pieces to build something pretty quick (I felt legos took awhile to build stuff) and actually PLAY with it: yes they had their "special" sets, manuals and etc. just like lego as well, but I felt lego just wanted you to follow the instructions, had so many specialized pieces, and you couldn't really branch out too much beyond what the particular set was for, so never found them that much fun to play with

Sorry to the LEGO enjoyers, and maybe I'm just angry how KNEX was pretty much driven out of the market by them... But I think it's sad how such a fun and creative toy design, that really made you use your imagination, is now gone: knex men are not made anymore and I think they just make sets that just want you to build them as instructed like lego now Yes, they didn't look as "cool" as lego sets but with enough imagination you could play out any story you wanted ^_^

 

[brettd94]

No. I played with sticks.

 

[Luxfin]

I made towers and castles from anything I could get my hands. Hell, I would make those Lego looking swords from Johnny Test. I think that some kids would join me in playing Wizards, Knights, and Castle Conquests using any figure that we would use.

Best time in my life.

 

[Bandini]

in mid 90´s had figures and accesories of rambo, m.a.s.k, g.i joe, tmnt and transformers. most of them bootlegs. had the original spiderman figures. loved to with all of them.

 

[Sheepy765]

I did, I enjoyed taking my stuffed animals on pretend train rides, conducting an orchestra of them, and having the odd (and ever cliche) tea party. Oddly enough, barbie dolls bothered me (because of the hair, i think).

 

[Boo Man]

i wasn't allowed toys because i broke them
so i played with knives and sharp sticks and hunted rats at the dump
one time i found a harpoon gun that still worked

Post automatically merged: May 20, 2026

No. I played with sticks.

Fellow stick warrior!

 

[Badseed Badseed]

No I grew up poor, I only had 3 rocks and a stick and a child...

and apparently hammers, a lot of hammers?

 

[Priimillion]

from that title alone i was expecting something much worse

 

[Badseed Badseed]

i wasn't allowed toys because i broke them
so i played with knives and sharp sticks and hunted rats at the dump
one time i found a harpoon gun that still worked

Post automatically merged: May 20, 2026

Fellow stick warrior!

I only looked up and happened to see this now. lol
Don't worry Boo-Boy you get a pass from me for being a kiwi and being from the land
of the All Blacks!

 

[bjork]

Absolutely. It was fun to make up stories for whatever toys were present. We would do it at school too, if we'd all planned to bring toys that day.

 

[CraigJinx]

Absolutely I did. Ghostbusters figure, TMNT figures, Action Man figures, borrow my sisters Barbie's to play the damsel in distress. I went all in, shut the world off and immersed myself in the story. With gadgets these days making children have anxiety disorders they just don't seem to be able to do that.