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Genre: Puzzle-building sandbox
Developer: ClockStone
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Release Date: October 12th, 2022
Edited by AlexKnight2005
I’m sure many of you readers have played with some form of LEGO in your life at some point. In my younger days, I was practically obsessed with the various sets. The joy of following an instruction manual to build a cool contraption or item on the box, or the wonder of forgoing it entirely to create an amalgamation of your own design, the possibilities remain endless. Sadly, I have not been able to build any such sets recently, which is a shame because they’ve been coming out with some incredible ones.
Never mind, we have something here that could fill the void in some way. Enter ClockStone Studio. The Austria-based development studio has been around for more than a decade, starting with the ARPGs Avencast: Rise of the Mage and Greed: Black Border, before becoming somewhat known for their Bridge Constructor series, a puzzle game series of bridge construction (what else?) which ranged from middling to good in terms of general quality. However, their most recent titles in the franchise have seen them have the opportunity to integrate the famous intellectual properties of the Portal and The Walking Dead franchises.
LEGO Bricktales thus sees ClockStone working with yet another intellectual property. It is published by Thunderful Publishing, which acquired ClockStone’s long-time publisher Headup Games. Thunderful is probably more well-known for their development studio, which created the Steamworld franchise, but their acquisitions signal an intent to further make inroads into indie game publishing.
So, in a similar yet different vein to the Bridge Constructor series, LEGO Bricktales has you roaming an assortment of worlds, using a certain allotment of specific brick types to solve puzzles. Compared to the various other LEGO games (at least on Steam), Bricktales isn’t a LEGO-based rendition of a movie franchise, but it does retain the series’ penchant for flippant humor.
As the story goes, you’ve been called upon to visit your grandfather, a genius inventor whose amusement park is in danger of being shut down due to it being run down. Armed with a trusty robot buddy that was apparently upgraded by aliens, you set out across multiple LEGO diorama worlds to find “happiness crystals” to restore the amusement park to its full glory.
In total, there are 5 worlds featuring multiple hand-crafted dioramas. It should go without saying that if you enjoy the general aesthetic of LEGO, then you’ll quickly take to the aesthetic of this one. The attention to detail of the world is excellent and rich, and the creativity and construction nous of the developers is on full display here. (The soundtrack, though thematically appropriate for each diorama, just sort of blends in and ends up not being extremely notable.)
Each world features its own self-contained story to progress through. The first world, the Jungle world, features a plane crash landing, and you have to help the crew of the crashed plane to regroup and explore the jungle. The second world, set in the Desert, sees an earthquake occurring at a bazaar, and it is up to you to figure out the cause and put a stop to it (while curiously noticing that the area is filled with cats). Discovering the rest of the stories is an exercise best left to the buyer.
In accordance with the trademark LEGO humor, each story is presented humorously and flippantly. LEGO games are very light-hearted in tone and tend to be way less serious than any ‘normal’ counterpart. The NPC quips never stray far from being rib-tickling. Even your main character walks in such a silly fashion that you can’t help but laugh at the perennial absurdity.
As for the gameplay itself, it revolves almost entirely around world exploration and puzzle solving using LEGO constructions of your own design from a limited series of bricks. A series of tutorial puzzle environments at the start of the game teaches you the various controls first. The actual puzzles themselves, then, are a mix of mainly gap-crossing puzzles where you have to build bridges (so, similar to Bridge Constructor then) and, to a slightly lesser extent, aesthetic puzzles where you have to assemble structures with some stipulations.
Each world also gradually affords you more powers with which to navigate the world or reveal interactables. This is important as some areas in each diorama are gated off until you acquire a certain power, necessitating world revisits that are best done at the end of the game. There are also other fun side quests, like collecting a certain breed of animal for a certain NPC and opening chests to gain a world-specific currency to buy more customization options for your character.
Here, the variety of puzzles never disappoints. You don’t always get a certain type for too long in a row, which is good as the gap-crossing puzzles tend to be the more challenging main group. Since you have to physically walk over it in the overworld, you need to ensure the physics is sound and doesn’t fail the stipulated simulations. When you don’t get these, you get the other type, which tends to be the more fun ones as you try to design a structure, only limited by your creativity. My own creativity is severely lacking, so I’m happy to report that as long as your buildings are functional enough to pass, then it’s no problem.
But, for those with the actual creativity, beating a puzzle will unlock a sandbox mode where you get an additional series of bricks to spice up your creations. Even that is also slightly limited in a sense, but at least it’s completely optional and only for if you think your creations are lacking. With how the puzzles, in general, are structured, though, I’m more than happy enough to skip these.
This leads nicely to my main gripes with the game. Though I eventually figured out how to solve puzzles, I feel it would sorely benefit from a hint system. The physics-based nature of the gap-crossing puzzles necessitates strong foundations; the limited building area can also throw a wrench into things, and there are just some times I will take quite a while to figure out what’s the best way to build the best series of supports, so the bridge doesn’t disintegrate. Perhaps offering a hint after a certain period of time would be nice; not necessarily a be-all and end-all build, just suggestions for a series of bricks to place first and build upon.
Struggling to figure out how best to bridge a gap is one thing. Struggling to figure out how best to build the actual bridge is another. The main flaw with LEGO Bricktales is how awkward and fiddly it is to place the bricks. There are a ton of controls to bear in mind from all the tutorials. I still can’t remember them all, compounded by the tendencies for bricks snapping to things in weird manners (as well as the wrong things altogether), depending on the camera’s perspective. Is there any better way to do this? I am not really sure, but what I am sure about is that it doesn’t feel perfect yet.
Though minor, my last gripe is with the overworld. It eschews a mouse-controlled manner for a camera that simply just turns whenever you reach specific areas, making overworld navigation annoying at times. You’re only really allowed to turn the camera if you bring up the pause menu.
Pros:
- The LEGO-based aesthetic never disappoints
- Good variety of puzzles
- Extra avenues for creativity
- Joyous and flippant
Cons:
- Placing bricks precisely is a way too fiddly affair
- Lack of hint system
- Uncontrollable camera in the overworld
- Pricey
K3W3L gives LEGO Bricktales a Drastik Measure of 7.5 out of 10.0 (75)
I played LEGO Bricktales on Steam, but it is available on multiple other platforms if you so choose. Unfortunately, I balk at the price, which is $29.99, before the discount. Granted, LEGO games appear to have a more ‘premium’ pricing, so this shouldn’t be a problem for those that buy many LEGO games regularly — but for those that don’t, I’d personally suggest waiting for a sale.
Overall, LEGO Bricktales is a fun and chill casual brainteaser to sink your time into. It does make me miss the real thing sorely, though.
