LEGO® Builder's Journey Apple Arcade - Tip, Walkthrough, Glitch

Lego for Grownups

Fri Jan 17 2020 howDT

A few years ago I got a good deal on a large Wall-E Lego set and it transported me right back to my younger years. It was fun and challenging to put together, and the whole experience awoke the inner child in me. Seeing the finished product was so satisfying. In fact he’s still on my bookshelf on constant lookout to make sure my inner child doesn’t go back to sleep. Then in walks this new game to the Apple Arcade. It’s a stunning, much more mature and refined reinvention of the Lego game franchise and it’s breathtaking. No hokey Marvel tie-ins, no goofy characters. Think Monument Valley with 3D graphics and dynamic lighting that is so beautiful you’ll stop playing just to take it all in (fun tip: splash the “water” around for a surreal experience). It had the same effect my Wall-E Lego had on me, capturing my attention in a way very few things can manage. It’s a frustratingly short experience, but absolutely worth your while. I hope Lego realizes the potential here and expands this into a new franchise. Even the short playthrough was captivating and moving enough to melt me; I uttered an audible warm-hearted squeal when the little guy found his hat again. Please Lego, for the love of all things holy, expand this into a full length game.

better than I could have ever imagined

Mon Jan 17 2022 Lego fun

I wasn’t seeming a lot of talk about this game, so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened it. and I’ve only been playing a few minutes so far but it’s so good I had to stop for a second to write this review. The lighting and graphics are really satisfying, as a lego collector, the builds and building techniques are really unique and the animations are awesome. the animations are made up of different bricks that change really fast, there was some mud bubbles coming up in one of the levels, and I could see a 1x1 round stud, followed by a mini figure head, and technic ball, some different types of flowers, a bandana, and then a darth maul hair piece. each one lasted about a frame and they were all in the same brown color. It was like watching a really creative stop motion. also the haptic feedback is really well integrated and makes it feel like i’m actually building legos when I place bricks down and pick them up. And the gyroscope usage hasn’t gone unnoticed either, when I tilt my phone the camera follows. it’s all just really satisfying and just well built.

Good puzzle

Tue Oct 06 2020 cheezzzzee

It’s a good game for people who like to figure things out. There aren’t many instructions, but I kinda enjoyed just experimenting and figuring it out. I understand what they were going for in this game, that everything is a puzzle and you just have to find what works best for you. Some of the levels are a little tricky, but all easily solvable with experimentation (clicking random blocks and putting them in different places lol). I really enjoyed finding all the different aspects of the game. People who like games with one solution may not enjoy it, several of the levels can be completed many ways. I found the controls odd at first, but they’re really easy to use once you get the hang of it, especially after I realized I can hold and item in the air if I just don’t hold down on it. I would love more levels, but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. If it does, the only thing I would recommend is making the menu and the restart button easier to find. Right now you tap in the top right corner area to bring it up, but I only figured that out when I was changing my brightness.

A lovely combination between Lego and Monument Vally

Wed Jan 22 2020 MurcielagoZhou

This is a game about a journey between a father and a son. The story is told in the Monument Vally style. The puzzle is designed based on the nature and variety of Lego bricks. The game starts by building a sand castle, then follows the story, you will be quested by building bridges and so on. The video game gives Lego bricks new life in an amazing digital world. For instance, mud bricks will actually flow and sunk like in real world. Light burb bricks will actually lit up. The puzzle design is great, but because of the nature of Lego, the bricks that the game provide sometimes are not straight forward enough to understand. Specially in the bridge building puzzle, I took me a while to solve it. The story telling is engaging. The most memorable moment by far is the father is forced to work therefore has to leave his son play along. The game will let you to repeatedly do some boring brick building to exchange some credits. In the mean time, your son has to build the half finished castle by himself. The control is the flaw of the game. Switching between different bricks, hold to drop and left up operation often conflict with each other. Because of the camera angle and no other visual assistants, it’s really hard to tell where will be the brick be actually dropped. With all things considered, this is the type of game that I will keep playing until see the end of the story.

Phenomenal

Fri Sep 05 2025 purplebanana66

Everything about this game is just perfect. The story is easy to understand and well conveyed even without words. The puzzles are interesting, unique, fun to do, and aren’t annoyingly difficult. The soundtrack is beautiful and full of emotion. The sound design is also incredibly well done, and makes moving pieces around very satisfying. The controls are simple and effective, and for the most part it’s obvious which bricks you can pick up and which are just part of the environment. Speaking of which, the environments in this game are masterpieces in their own right. The amount of detail in even the simplest ones is remarkable, and nearly all of them look like they can actually be recreated with real LEGO pieces. Great work from everyone involved, thank you so much for creating this gem of a game, and I look forward to seeing what this studio produces in the future!

Impressed

Thu Jun 17 2021 nicbor421

Wow this game is not only beautifully designed and the story told very well but addicting at the same time so addictive in fact that I’m disappointed I finished already. Anyone looking for a mature problem solving game don’t be afraid of the kids toy brand tagged onto this. I’m happy to see this kind of game come out of a company like lego I’m hoping to see more of it in the future the muted tones and mellow music was a breath of fresh air from having to sit down with my younger sisters and watch the lego movie over and over again. I genuinely had allot of fun playing this even if it only took me a weekend. Only complaint are that the controls could be a little finicky sometimes but other than that bravo lego and screw apple for making this game less accessible.

Beta-Great - Pre-Great

Thu Nov 21 2024 KesaGatame

Lots of things are great, but the game isn't quite there. Three problems are: (1) controls are still awkward, interfering with core play (2) at some point the game just adds a gian haze around all levels for no apparent reason -- breaking part of what made it special (3) levels where you actually get to play with legos and do any kind of puzzling with them don't come until very late (and after ther wierd haze). The game feels like somethign someone started, but didn't finish. That said, the core graphics are beautiful and special in 3D in a way they wouldn't be in 2D. And the idea of playing with legos in this space is spectacular. Hopefully the devs finish this game or it inspires others.

This game hits!

Thu Jul 06 2023 Katfug

So I was on a family trip with my four year old, and I installed a few games on our iPad for him to work through while we were on the road. He gravitated to a different game from this one, but I started playing it after he fell asleep one night, and it sucked me in and resonated with me in a way that’s hard to describe. I was not expecting much of a story, much less one that would speak so strongly to an adult audience, and while I think kids would absolutely appreciate the themes, I think it’s clear this was written for parents to play as much as kids. So thank you, I don’t know the last time I felt something from a video game, and this one was wonderful.

A New Direction for LEGO Games

Sun Dec 22 2019 taliancich

LEGO has always had a niche carved out for more subtle and artistic building sets (Architecture series for example), but rarely, if ever, has that made it into their video game properties. Builder’s Journey, however, distills LEGO building into its most pure properties - imagination, emotion, intelligence - in a universe that allows room for exploration and pontification in a way that LEGO sets, games and films lately tied to 3rd party licenses do not. Although the game is incredibly short, I hope it is just the beginning of a new direction for LEGO games (and maybe even some abstract sets), as it is a breath of fresh air among the desperate LEGO fan service cash grabs of late (I’m talking to you LEGO Stranger Things).

Poor controls

Fri Feb 21 2020 Franzel Magetower

This is a very nice puzzle game, cute and I liked guessing what to do in each level. However, the controls are clunky and difficult to actually get pieces where you want them, and you can’t actually rotate your view, despite it appearing as if you can (you get a bit of rotation as long as you aren’t actually trying to do anything; in other words it looks cool but is useless). Worse, I ran into a level where speed matters - a level like that, the pieces need to be easier to move and place or there should be more time. It’s very frustrating when I know what to do and how but actually getting it done is so annoying I just don’t care anymore. This game has a lot of potential. It superficially looks similar to Monument Valley but to those comparing them, this game is not even close to as good or polished.