LEGO Builder’s Journey is a short, casual game about building with LEGO. However, the choice of characters and theme make this game shine.

You play alternately as a LEGO parent or a child in a LEGO world. You start with simple acts of bonding, such as the parent taking the child hiking. You return home, where the parent juggles the demands of a dull, repetitive job and playing with the child. Then something interesting happens.

The gameplay consists of moving bricks to traverse a level and solve puzzles. The controls are straightforward but sometimes frustrating, clearly borrowed the original mobile version. It can be hard to see whether a mouse click will place a brick or drop it. The game provides no guides or other indicators, presumably prioritizing realism. 

The player learns and infers the simple mechanics through trial and error, even when facing new mechanics or goals. LEGO Builder’s Journey is a master class on teaching through subtle but effective hints and limited options. 

Like many games in the LEGO franchise, LEGO Builder’s Journey is also a master class in expressing emotion through character animation. It establishes the parental bond through simple acts like cooperative play or extinguishing a campfire once the child is asleep. It also captures the frustration and conflict parents have with balancing work and family.

The graphics are gorgeous, using ray tracing on high-end graphics cards. The game looks just like playing with LEGO bricks in real life but animates some of them, like subtle waves in transparent blue water bricks or bubbles popping on brown mud bricks. It imbues otherwise sterile LEGO bricks with imagination and energy.

The soundtrack is ambient, ethereal and slightly upbeat. Extended, soft chords encourage contemplation. Occasional scale fragments sound like learning an instrument, just as the child is learning LEGO.

LEGO Builder’s Journey is short. It takes about three hours to complete, including all achievements. Some expect a longer game at its price. However, stretching it further risks diluting rather than enhancing it. I suspect the LEGO corporation also takes a significant cut.

LEGO Builder’s Journey is a brief, beautiful and heartfelt game about playing with LEGO. It celebrates a new generation growing up with a toy build around imagination and creativity. It is accessible to all ages. However, parents will appreciate the themes more. The game should be called LEGO Builders’ Journey, with the apostrophe after the “s”, to emphasize shared play and joy.