Playmobil Interactive is a brand name used by German company geobra Brandstätter for releasing video games and, less frequently, DVDs or short movies based on its Playmobil toy line. Development and publishing of the games was usually delegated to various other companies.

History

Playmobil video games were first conceptualized by Ubisoft as early as 1995. Ubisoft's then-vice president Alain Tascan went on to present these concepts to Playmobil owner Hans Brandstätter at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in February 1998, leading the latter to cancel ongoing negotiations with another game development studio. While the identity of that other developer is unknown, it was rumored to be Psygnosis Limited. The two companies hoped, among other things, for synergy effects in marketing. Development of the Playmobil Interactive series was then closely monitored by geobra Brandstätter, with the company intending to ensure that the games stuck closely to their real-life template. For example, part of the license agreements stipulated that the shape and color of each individual digital Playmobil element had to be approved. After the release of Playmobil Pirates (2012), the label was largely abandoned for undisclosed reasons. Although other video games based on the toy line (mostly casual games such as endless runners for smartphones or browser games) were released after this point, all with the exception of 2015's Kaboom! removed the “Interactive” brand name from their titles, logos and advertising material.

List of video games

Ubisoft trilogy

The first games using the "Playmobil Interactive" brand name, produced by Ubisoft with highter budgets than successive titles.

"Laura and Alex" adventure games

A series of comparatively simple Point-and-click adventure games, in which the two Playmobil children Laura and Alex explore various scenarios based on different Playmobil sets together. The games share edutainment elements as well, often aiming to convey knowledge about the real-life inspirations behind the playsets. The games were later rereleased in 2010 as 4-in-1 or 2-in-1 bundles by JoWooD.

DS platformer

Three two-dimensional platform games exclusively published for Nintendo DS. Players have to traverse side-scrolling levels to collect resources and finish missions for NPCs in order to progress further through the games.

Free advergames

Around the late 2000s, the official Playmobil catalog included several discs containing additional advertising material for new sets in digital form. These were usually short films, coloring pages or a product overview. Although all of these discs were labelled as part of “Playmobil Interactive”, only the following were considered video games, as evidenced by them receiving an ESRB, PEGI or USK rating:

Miscellaneous