Inventor: Lego secrecy like CIA

BILLUND, Denmark, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The inventor of Danish company Lego's latest best-selling toy says the secrecy surrounding work on the project was akin to joining the CIA.

Cephas Howard, the British inventor of Lego's build-your-own board games, said he worked on the project for three years in a secure lab in the basement of the company's headquarters in Billund, Denmark, British newspaper The Mirror reported Thursday.

Howard said the process was so secretive he couldn't tell his friends and family home what he was doing.

"I'd just landed my dream job working for Lego but I had to swear not to tell a living soul," he said. "I couldn't even tell my wife when I got home. I think she wondered if my Lego story was a front and I was actually working for the CIA."

Flemming Ostergard, director of Lego's concept lab, said secrecy is necessary in the toy business.

"News travels fast in the toy industry," he said. "The fear wasn't that our competitors would create a better game, but that they'd create a worse one, so when we brought out our games kids would have been put off and wouldn't buy ours either."