Here we are, friends!
The final piece of this making of series. I hope you enjoyed my musings so far and are looking forward to playing the real deal. Today we'll have a look at the in-game world of LEGO® Bricktales, the underlying story, the different biomes and the beautiful visuals that come along with it. Have a look at the end of this for some exclusive new shots of what awaits you.
Story writing for games is interesting. I suppose if you look at a novel for example as a narrative piece that's untethered from outside dependencies, a game story almost seems to swing the opposite way. Here we have to consider its marriage to all the other elements of a game, whether they are apparent to the player or just behind-the-scenes details. How does the story justify the game mechanics? What are technical limits we have to deal with? What can we communicate through graphics, animation or audio? What do we want to show? Story, no matter how much or how little emphasis you put on it, is just one wheel in the machine of a game and you have to make sure it fits right. So what does that look like for Bricktales?
Remember our vision? Now make it make narrative sense.
The groundwork for Bricktales' story was very much utilitarian, since the bigger key points of the vision have been established beforehand. So first it was a matter of rounding up the boxes that we wanted to tick:
- You control a minifigure, building is a central game mechanic
- There should be multiple different worlds with a contained narrative each
- There should be an overarching narrative to wrap around everything
- We wanted the freedom to visit a variety of LEGO themes that are very contrasting
So launching off these initial considerations, we arrive at the next few stepping stones:
- You are a hero of sorts who travels to different places and helps people through building with LEGO bricks (albeit without the typical comic book underpinnings of spandex and cape)
- How do you travel to different places? A portal!
- How do you get a portal? Your scatterbrained inventor grandpa built it!
- Why do you want to travel around and help people? Your scatterbrained inventor grandpa needs happiness crystals to repair his neglected theme park!
Wait, happi.. what? This is were we got to play with the synergy of underlying story themes, values of the LEGO Group and the circumstances that the game was made in. Broadly speaking, LEGO products always had an undercurrent of playful humor and wholesome entertainment. In contrast to that, the entire world went through a pandemic as we were developing the game.
Clean energy by helping people. If only it were so simple.
In the wake of this we felt like we really wanted a game that simply exudes a wholesome vibe, like a little haven of positive energy. So we ended up fully leaning into the story conceit of having a very direct gain by helping others, in this case actual raw energy that manifests itself in a crystal. It's very reminiscent of Pixar's Monsters Inc. in a way. Be kind to each other, that’s the mantra.
Now the stage was set to venture out into different worlds, so where to? And more importantly on our side, how the heck do we build all those worlds? Let's start with the latter point. I've alluded to the fact that committing to full LEGO dioramas would be quite a step. To illustrate, an average diorama would be about 70x70 knobs in size, some of bigger ones even getting close to 100x100. If you were to build one in real life they would span up to 1m into each direction.
Very early tile system prototype.
We've never crunched the numbers, but the count of bricks easily sits in the multiples of ten thousands. If you were to place all the bricks by hand, a small change like moving a building just a bit to the side could turn into a week-long odyssey of taking entire chunks apart and painstakingly reassembling them.
We'll probably delve into the tech more deeply at another time, but in the end we spent a good portion of a year with developing a tile-based approach to building dioramas to make iteration at a reasonable pace possible. But even with the tech in place, our artists (highlighting our chief builders Nathalie and Stephan here) had to learn how to design aesthetically pleasing LEGO constructions, at a scale and quality that goes way beyond any childhood creations of theirs. It's a bit like pixel art, or Minecraft. LEGO bricks create a unique visual appeal by simplifying shapes and adding a level of abstraction that spurs your imagination.
How it started – how it’s going. There’s levels to this.
But conversely, LEGO bricks offer a myriad of parts to build with, so designing with them is a skill that is distinctly unique. How do you balance the mix of knobs and smooth surfaces? What parts and techniques do you choose to achieve just the right rounding of a piece of terrain? What limits do you have with how thin or broad you can make a road, or a tree branch or just about anything else? How do you present any shape with the blocky bits that you have? Composition matters, and can get incredibly complicated as LEGO enthusiasts all over the world can attest to. Their incredible work certainly has been a great source of learning and inspiration for us.
But never mind the tech and the skill involved, we still haven’t answered the question which worlds we wanted to show then? Well, in some way we were spoiled for choice because there are so many possibilities, so many distinct locations one could travel to. I can't say where the portal might lead to in the future, but here are the biomes we ended up with for now.
Theme Park
Your hub and home base so to speak. A disheveled theme park that you restore to full glory as you go (and design the different rides along the way).
Jungle
If you are taking a trip far away, why not go into nature and surround yourself with greenery? Preferably without plane crashes and potential mountain spirits, but you have to take what you get.
Desert
Bright yellow desert, scorching heat, ancient tombs, a looming curse and… oh hey, look, a cat! Here, kitty, kitty!
Medieval
The king awaits ye! There’s a dragon causing ruckus and thou shalt take a sword and… wait, has anybody ever thought about a non-violent solution to this?
City
That big portal in the road sure will cut into the city repair budget, not to mention the evil alien bots roaming the streets. But nothing that the power of music and a bit of high voltage can’t solve (it’ll make sense, you’ll see).
Caribbean
Arrr, answer me the age-old philosophical question, what is a pirate without rum, or a ship? A sad pirate! Well, there’s options other than rum, but a ship seems rather essential, don’t you think?
That’s it for now, some insight into the different worlds that the game has to offer and how they came together. The release of Bricktales isn’t far away, and we can’t wait to see what you think of it. Even more so, we can’t wait to see what kind of wonderful, intricate and unique constructions you will come up with.
So see you around, and as always, stay safe and keep building.
Tri Do Dinh & the ClockStone Team
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898290/LEGO_Bricktales/