Brains meet bricks
Lego Builder’s Journey wants you to come up with creative solutions.
There are lots of Lego adventure games for consoles and mobile devices, including the current hit Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. However, the latest game is less about action and more about puzzles.
Lego Builder’s Journey isn’t a brand-new game. It first came out for Apple devices in 2019 but has since crossed over to Switch, Xbox and now PlayStation consoles. Each level is a puzzle built from Lego bricks. Your job is to get from its start to its finish by using those bricks to build your path and get past obstacles.
It’s like a Lego version of the popular Monument Valley mobile games, with gameplay that is relaxed rather than stressful. Working your way through the game’s levels can be as quick or as slow as you like. You can race through and complete it in a few hours or take your time coming up with creative solutions to each puzzle, rather than using the most obvious ones.
The controls have been designed to make brick-building with a joypad easy, as you flip and rotate blocks then snap them into place.
It means you can focus your attention on the puzzles, rather than getting tangled up in the controls.
Even when you complete the game, that’s not the end. A new “Creative Mode” lets you build your own Lego models and scenes, either starting with a completely blank screen, or themes that give you a head start (like a half-finished car, for example). When you make something you’re proud of, you can switch to “Photo Mode” to line up the perfect screenshots of it to share.
This can never be better than building with real Lego, but there’s one advantage: clearing up afterwards is as simple as turning off your console. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about stepping on a left-behind brick and hopping about in agony.