118 Lego Builder’s Journey
iOS
Developer/publisher Light Brick Studios
Format iOS
Release Out now
Things just click in Lego Builder’s Journey. It’s a puzzle-platformer dedicated to the satisfying act of snapping Lego bricks together, and captures it like no other Lego game – perhaps even no other building game – ever has. A tap of the screen picks up a brick; a few more taps rotate it. Then, a beautifully deliberate press snaps it into place, iPhone’s haptic feedback technology producing a sensation so familiar, so reminiscent of days spent sprawled out on carpets building perfect plastic monuments to childhood, that it can’t help but tug at the heartstrings.
Apple’s software and Lego’s hardware are an excellent fit. So, too, are the arthouse inclinations of Light Brick Studios – Lego’s new internal development team, formed to help broaden the scope of what Lego games can be – and the famous toy. The story of Builder’s Journey explores its nuances with quiet sophistication. You play as a father and son who are both, in their own ways, builders. The little one builds sandcastles and forts as his dad looks on proudly, in frequently gorgeous and contemplative scenes; the grown-up, however, must schlep to his repetitive job at an assembly line. Of, course, you’re the one really doing the building, and these scenes contrast brilliantly through play: the more creative efforts of the child (although more prescriptive than we’d like) inspiring joy, the adult’s rote version of building only tedium.
Inevitably, a wrench is thrown in the works, and the son finds himself having to build his way back to his father. It’s a shame that this large portion of the game, set underground in the workings of the factory that powers the assembly line, is markedly less lovely to look at, as glittering brick waterfalls and natural light give way to dark, industrial chambers that all look alike. There are moments of levity: a robot friend and rollercoasteresque path puzzles. But it’s here where the essential appeal of the brick-clicking starts to wane. The mainly static camera makes it tricky to line up bricks properly, and the ‘hold to place’ input becomes increasingly irritating, as our fingers fight to place paths correctly – even without the added time pressure of some puzzles.
Still, there are one or two standout rule-breaking brainteasers that, although simple to execute, encourage us to think outside of the box. And Builder’s Journey is brief enough that it’s hard to stay angry at its fiddly controls for long: as the story concludes, we’re left uplifted (the playable credits sequence is, for our money, the most affecting moment of the entire game). An astonishingly polished debut from Lego’s new studio, and further proof that there’s much, much more still to be made from the humble brick.