Lego Bricktales Preview: Snap Bricks and Chill

Arriving at these obstacles gives you the option to enter a dedicated construction interface. Once selected, you’re told what to build – without any instruction manual – and given a selection of Lego bricks to make it happen. An early conundrum, for example, required I strengthen the supports under a platform in order to ensure it was strong enough for me to climb it. This boiled down to me stacking various Lego brick types from the ground all the way up to the underside of the platform until it was sturdy and stable.

Of course, you can’t just haphazardly snap bricks together and call it a day. Structural integrity and physics are factored into the equation, elements that can be assessed throughout construction. At any point during the building process, you can run a simulation to test out your structure. The game will then drop weights on your precious project or send a robot rolling through it to see if it actually works. If it’s up to snuff, you can then pop back into the game world and leverage your newly crafted build to progress or complete a task.

While projects must follow the laws of physics, they needn’t be aesthetically pleasing. One of the game’s cooler touches is that it displays your workable constructs in the game world, warts and all. They don’t need to look like the polished photos adorning the boxes of retail Lego sets – they just need to get the job done.

Getting the job done isn’t always simple though. I was able to fashion those structural supports, as well as a staircase and some other jungle-based builds with moderate effort, but making a complex canopy bridge took me more time than I care to admit. Couple the lack of any sort of step-by-step instructions with a large selection of Legos staring at you, and some of the challenges can be a bit daunting.

It doesn’t help that an occasionally finicky camera can make it difficult to place bricks with the precision that’s sometimes required. These issues are by no means deal-breakers, but there was a moment or two when building felt about as satisfying as stepping on a Lego brick while barefoot. Personal injuries aside, I wouldn’t mind seeing an optional hint system in the final game.

My time in Bricktales’ toy jungle wasn’t just spent crafting bridges and staircases, as the game nicely varies and mixes up its projects and objectives. At one point, for example, I needed to construct a duplicate version of an ancient monkey statue, while my demo’s final challenge tasked me with building a gyrocopter. The latter, one of the demo’s most rewarding puzzles, saw me fashioning a makeshift fuselage, attaching a seat and propeller to it, then praying it wouldn’t crash and burn once my robot pal took it for a test spin.

When not mastering my building talents, Bricktales saw me performing skills that wouldn’t seem out of place in a more traditional action game. I acquired a bullwhip – accompanied by a cheeky Indiana Jones joke – as well as a ground pound-like ability, both of which granted some construction-free traversal and puzzle-solving options out in the plastic jungle.

Overall, Bricktales impresses with its more cerebral take on Lego gaming, nicely mimicking the creativity-driven experience, satisfaction, and rewards that come with playing with the popular toys. The camera could use some fine-tuning and the steeper challenges would benefit from a hint system, but minor gripes aside, it’s hard to beat the feeling that comes from using your brain to build something that’s actually functional.

I look forward to diving back into this virtual tub of bricks when the game lands later this year.