by Burbie52, HSM team writer

Earlier I speculated what this year would hold in the way of innovation in Home, with 2012 being the Year of the Game and 2013 the Year of the Locomotion. What would 2014 be known as?

Everyone I spoke to agreed that what Home needed now was interactivity, not only in personal spaces but public ones as well. The ability to interact with your environment is a big deal in Home; it always has been. No sooner did this suggestion pop up than who should already have something in the wings waiting for us? Lockwood, of course.

Lockwood is known for bringing all of us innovative ideas and spaces — and their newest one, Polar Rush Tundra Lodge, is no exception.

We wanted interactivity, and this new space gives it to us in spades. Though the space itself is beyond enormous, the actual area you have to decorate in the way of a house is small and very pleasing to the eye. The house is built of wood and glass with extremely modern lines and a lot of open space just outside of it, made of a series of wood decks. Some of the decks are built with walkways that go over open-water areas and lead you under a small cave. It looks like the house was built with the environment in mind, so that it blends in without being too dominant. There are outside lights here and there, but they are lost in the daylight and it makes you wish there was a way to turn it into night. But that probably has to do with memory constraints.

There are wood floors throughout the interior, with little touches like lights that run along the stair edges and built-in lamps on the walls. You can place up to six wall hangings in the downstairs area — and that is the one thing I wish was a bit different: having a few upstairs and down would have been nice. With such little wall space to place furniture against, using most of it to hang things on makes you choose not to use hangings at all, or at least not use all of them.

One of the rewards – an ice tub.

The outside area is what makes this space so unusual, though: it is panoramic and beautiful, that is a part of it, but what I found to be so engaging was the built-in game for snowmobiling. You have the option of buying the space with the LMO snowmobiles as a bundle or just the space itself, but you don’t have to buy the snowmobiles to participate in the game at all; it is free for you and your friends to play at any time, and it is really fun. You can do jumps and tricks, similar to the ice skating they added to the Abbey Hill winter space, but you are not confined to a small space to do it — you can ride your snowmobile all over a huge area, and it is a real gas.

The really great thing about the game, though, is that you can get off your snowmobile anywhere in the space and walk. In fact, they encourage it by giving you areas to discover and explore out in the tundra. There is a small campfire with built-in log seats, and also a small wood log way-cabin with a roaring fire to warm yourself in after a long day of snowmobiling. All of this is made even better by the fact that you can do all of this with your friends and still see each other participating. Not only that, but you can board your snowmobile again right where you left it and continue your journey. There is a barrier that won’t allow you to add any furniture past the perimeter of the personal space, so no way to add anything to the cabin or fire area. probably because of the game.

Having a blast doing tricks

This is exactly the type of interactivity I spoke of before: being able to participate in a game with your friends and seeing them having such a good time is what we need. The more that can be done to promote friendship and collaboration in Home, the better. My friends and I have been having a blast racing around the tundra outside, trying out our new toys. As usual there are rewards given each day in the form of spinning Lockwood tokens. There will be nine in all, furniture for your space, but they don’t make finding the tokens easy; you really have to use your snowmobile to find them, and look everywhere. This is a smart move, as it encourages you to play the game.

The personal space alone only sets you back $5.99, and you can also purchase it with a set of snowmobile clothing in two color choices and four snowmobile LMOs for $9.99, or just the four-pack of snowmobiles with the space for $8.99. They have separated the clothing bundles into male and female this time.

Lockwood spent a lot of time and thought here; they saw what we wanted and gave it to us once again.

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