"Thank god that was over" is never something great to feel from a short experience. LEGO Builder's Journey is a game with a wonderful first hour but then rapidly overstays its welcome.
Firstly, the game is gorgeous. Even on iOS this is a very pretty experience. It feels warm and cosy, like memories of playing with LEGO bricks. It is also realistic enough to give you the feeling that you could just reach into the screen and pick up the bricks for real.
The story is told in a way that is reminiscent of something like Thomas Was Alone, with our characters portrayed by a short stack of bricks (a child) and a taller stack of bricks (a parent). The story is very wholesome, and the ending is a tearjerker, though sadly I had to refer to YouTube to see the ending as I couldn't power through to the finish any longer due to certain elements of this game wearing thin.
The controls are frustrating to say the least. Over on iOS I initially gave the touch controls a go, and after about 15 minutes I quickly connected a controller because it was awful. Using a controller was a slight improvement, but still felt clunky. The button to place down a brick is the same you use to rotate a brick or pick up a brick, often leading to easy mistakes. If you accidentally pick up the wrong brick, cancelling out doesn't put it back, rather it just drops it - this is incredibly infuriating. The sense of depth of these LEGO dioramas also makes manipulating and placing the pieces in a 3D space quite tricky.
Despite spending the whole game fighting with the controls, I was quite enjoying the variety of (fairly easy) puzzles. That is, until roughly the 90-minute mark when the game runs out of ideas and starts repeating itself over and over and over. I really pushed through, knowing this game was short, and every single time I thought I'd reached the end it threw another puzzle at me that I'd completed a dozen times already. It felt like they were playing for time and trying to stretch out the experience rather than adding worth to my time in the game.
The puzzles were eventually repetitive, but perhaps a further issue was how easy they were. Most of the challenge in this game came from fighting the controls and ensuring a brick went in the right place, rather than figuring out what to do.
The price could also be a contentious issue. I played this on Apple Arcade, but was shocked to see this game sells for £16 on Steam. Personally, I think this sort of game is a perfect fit for a Netflix-like service like Apple Arcade, and is in no way worth £16.
Buy this on a deep sale, I do think it's worth a play. It's pretty, and very wholesome, and it gave me a warm feeling inside. I can forgive the lack of difficulty, I just wish they stuck the landing and tightened up the controls.
Firstly, the game is gorgeous. Even on iOS this is a very pretty experience. It feels warm and cosy, like memories of playing with LEGO bricks. It is also realistic enough to give you the feeling that you could just reach into the screen and pick up the bricks for real.
The story is told in a way that is reminiscent of something like Thomas Was Alone, with our characters portrayed by a short stack of bricks (a child) and a taller stack of bricks (a parent). The story is very wholesome, and the ending is a tearjerker, though sadly I had to refer to YouTube to see the ending as I couldn't power through to the finish any longer due to certain elements of this game wearing thin.
The controls are frustrating to say the least. Over on iOS I initially gave the touch controls a go, and after about 15 minutes I quickly connected a controller because it was awful. Using a controller was a slight improvement, but still felt clunky. The button to place down a brick is the same you use to rotate a brick or pick up a brick, often leading to easy mistakes. If you accidentally pick up the wrong brick, cancelling out doesn't put it back, rather it just drops it - this is incredibly infuriating. The sense of depth of these LEGO dioramas also makes manipulating and placing the pieces in a 3D space quite tricky.
Despite spending the whole game fighting with the controls, I was quite enjoying the variety of (fairly easy) puzzles. That is, until roughly the 90-minute mark when the game runs out of ideas and starts repeating itself over and over and over. I really pushed through, knowing this game was short, and every single time I thought I'd reached the end it threw another puzzle at me that I'd completed a dozen times already. It felt like they were playing for time and trying to stretch out the experience rather than adding worth to my time in the game.
The puzzles were eventually repetitive, but perhaps a further issue was how easy they were. Most of the challenge in this game came from fighting the controls and ensuring a brick went in the right place, rather than figuring out what to do.
The price could also be a contentious issue. I played this on Apple Arcade, but was shocked to see this game sells for £16 on Steam. Personally, I think this sort of game is a perfect fit for a Netflix-like service like Apple Arcade, and is in no way worth £16.
Buy this on a deep sale, I do think it's worth a play. It's pretty, and very wholesome, and it gave me a warm feeling inside. I can forgive the lack of difficulty, I just wish they stuck the landing and tightened up the controls.