If any bit of buildable plastic has my heart, I have to say it’s Warhammer, but when it comes to Lego and video games, I’m always a fan. Recently, I got the chance to spend the end of an afternoon checking out Lego Voyagers.
The latest game from Light Brick Studio, Lego Voyagers isn’t all too far away, launching on the 15th of September. I, alongside another journalist who’d stayed up until 2 A.M. in his home country of Australia, ventured through the beginning of Lego Voyagers.
In this co-op adventure, one of you plays a red piece, and the other a blue piece. You can connect yourself to each other, to the floor, and jump around to complete puzzles that let you traverse to the next area in each game. Think a lighter Split Fiction or It Takes Two if you will, a game that felt like the perfect way to end a long day. Winding down with the beautiful mix of some realistic graphics and some wonderfully remade Lego flora was a treat, even if it was a notably short one. Our demo only lasted around 20 minutes, but we could go through the same content again if we wished.
I call Lego Voyagers Split Fiction-lite because you don’t need any real fast reactions or gaming ability to pick it up and play it. Lego Voyagers is perfectly designed for a gamer to bring a non-gamer into their world, and that feeling is advanced further by the warm and inviting visuals of the game as well as its simple but effective plot and charming character design. We start with two little Lego pieces who live in adorable Lego houses watching a rocket take off. When the rocket launch doesn’t go as intended, they set off on their voyage across the pieces of the rocket and the wider Lego world.
There’s a great spirit of adventure to the tale, and as mentioned the simplicity really works at the core of everything Lego Voyagers offers so far. Most of the puzzles we encountered were about building bridges or finding the right spot to attach to. You’re never stuck somewhere for long and therefore don’t feel like the natural flow of the gameplay is broken up.
It is quite difficult to go into detail on Lego Voyagers with so little time in the game, but from what I’ve seen so far it looks like a sweet adventure to take up a good chunk of time as the nights slowly start creeping back in and dreaded Autumn rears its ugly head. The way in which the characters move around is a lot of fun, the music (including your own singing which you can produce as you travel) is a lovely accompaniment to your adventure, and I am certainly interested in where these two little bricks can go. There’s plenty of potential in the mechanics we’ve not yet seen, but from one small puzzle which involved shaking Lego fruit off a Lego tree in order to combine it with our own Lego forms and roll up a hill, it’s clear Light Brick Studio has a lot of creative ideas on how these two small pieces can make a big impact.
Lego Voyagers, from the brief experience I’ve had with it, has great bones. Everything about it is designed to bring a smile to your face and act as that sweet gaming release from a long day where you really get to kick back and enjoy something. Its simplicity might end up becoming somewhat monotonous, but I’ve taken the short time I’ve spent so far, it seems Lego Voyagers won’t be an odyssey and will instead offer more of a brief but hopefully memorable adventure.