A more creative take on Lego in video games - Should you play Lego Bricktales?
Ever since the release of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game way back in 2005, British game studio Traveller’s Tales has made a name for itself on the back of more than twenty subsequent Lego game releases, the vast majority of which follow a similar formula of basic platforming, puzzle-solving, and brick-breaking chaos. Those games are simple but fun; heck, I just praised one of the more recent entries, 2018’s Lego DC Super-Villains, in my collection of best games based on DC Comics!
Lego Bricktales is a new and very different take on a Lego video game, though. ClockStone, the Austrian developer behind the well-liked Bridge Constructor series of physics puzzlers has asked a very simple question: What if a Lego game was more about actually doing what we do with Lego in real life? What if a Lego game challenged us with building?
THE STORY
In Lego Bricktales, you step into the shoes of the grandson of a brilliant but clumsy scientist-slash-amusement park operator. You must help grandpa fix up his amusement park while also navigating new areas accessed through a series of portals opened up by a strange alien robot. Don’t overthink it too much; the lighthearted plot is mostly just an excuse to go to cool settings and build cool stuff with Lego bricks.
PLATFORMS
Lego Bricktales is available on most non-mobile platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC (Linux, Mac, and Windows), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and the Xbox Series X and S. I played it on PC, both on my desktop computer and Steam Deck, and it ran beautifully on both. Also while there isn’t a mobile version available as of yet, ClockStone did eventually release Android and iOS versions of its Bridge Constructor games, so hopefully there’s still a chance of that showing up down the line.
TIME PLAYED
I’ve spent five hours in Lego Bricktales, which was enough time to get through the opening tutorial, finish up the story objectives in the jungle zone (the first of six themed zones), and spend a lot of time looking for collectibles and doing optional challenges.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Actual Lego building. From creating a functioning helicopter to perfectly building out an arm on a statue so that the crystal it holds falls into a beam of light and opens up a secret door, the puzzles in Lego Bricktales are all based around building using two tools: our imaginations and the same types of bricks we all had as kids. Even building a simple set of stairs comes with its own challenge, as the game tasks you with realistically considering the effects of weight and gravity on the structure you’re putting together.
• Exploration. While building is the star of the show, Lego Bricktales also features small but inviting levels presented as little Lego dioramas. They reminded me of the levels from the supremely underrated Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. These levels are packed full of treasures and secrets to uncover, and you even have a progression of tools that allow you to access new areas, such as a whip for pulling yourself across gaps and a robot-powered ground pound for clearing trees and other obstacles out of your path.
WHAT SUCKS
• The camera. Both in the building and exploration sections, the only major annoyance I encountered was just trying to see things from the right angle. I don’t envy the developers of Lego Bricktales in trying to figure this out—providing a smooth way to rotate, zoom, and shift the camera to carefully place Lego bricks in 3D space is no easy task. But whether I was playing with the Steam Deck controller or with a mouse and keyboard, I never quite felt comfortable with the camera in this game.
SHOULD YOU PLAY IT?
If you’ve got any fondness for Lego—whether you played with them as a kid or still collect sets as an adult—Lego Bricktales is well worth checking out. The way that it rewards using your imagination is extremely gratifying and feels true to the real-life experience of putting together castles or cars or bridges or boats with these beloved colorful bricks. I’m not even a huge fan of physics-based puzzles, but when you work in Lego, it all just clicks into place. So to speak. I can only hope that ClockStone gets the opportunity to expand on this concept more from here!
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