Recently, developers ClockStone and publisher Thunderful Games released a free demo for their soon-to-release title LEGO Bricktales on Steam. With the game set to release next month on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, I had to check out the gameplay myself and see if it is what I was hoping for. I am happy to say that this is the LEGO game I was hoping to play after seeing the various trailers.
Gameplay
The tutorial starts out with you visiting your scientist grandpa who called you over to check something out for him. When you get there, an accident happens that traps the grandpa on a platform and leaves it up to you to help him out while getting the power back on. This is where you get to see all the different steps of the game’s mechanics one aspect at a time.
Starting with fixing a flight of stairs, it then leads to building a bridge, which leads to building a suspended platform. With these initial builds, you will end up with an understanding of how to move pieces around, how to place them, and how to build to meet your end goal.
After you help your grandpa out, he ends up activating a portal he created that will take you into different realms. From here you will be able to access the different levels that the game will take place in and, for the demo, you start off in a jungle area.
In this new area, you will face a few more challenging build tasks and see some more of the unique ways this game is going to challenge players. Honestly, if you are a Lego master, I’m not sure this game will be too difficult for you, but if it is just a fun hobby to do every now and then or perhaps you are just getting into building blocks, this game could present some challenges to overcome.
Probably the coolest thing about the challenges themselves is that no matter how you successfully create the build, it will show up in the game world that way. This means your creativity will be directly added to the game! Of course, to be successful does depend on the task though. Some are either completed or not done yet, some will require a test that sends a robot to make sure the build is sturdy to walk on, and others could be functionality tests to make sure the machine you build functions properly.
Expectations
This game has a lot of potential to be an entertaining and somewhat challenging experience. I do hope to see them end up bringing in harder-to-use items such as gears, elbows, and more. This demo only had one challenge that had me stumped for a bit but I figured it out on my second try. With the whole focus of this game being on building things for various reasons, I look forward to seeing it get super difficult.
I like the added feature that we collect animals along the way as well. I did run into the guy that requests you bring him the gecko’s and so I look forward to seeing what the other animals will be for. Let’s hope it is light-hearted reasoning because I will not hand them over for something negative!
Verdict
LEGO Bricktales has released a solid demo that makes me excited to see the rest! I definitely plan to pick this title up and take on the challenge of building my way through the journey they have set up. While I only expect to see biome and region-themed realms, it will be interesting to see if they end up adding any of their unique locations to the game. In the end, I’m just happy to see that we have a LEGO game where we actually build stuff with LEGOs!
