How Nintendo Inspired LEGO Brawls’ mix-and-bash

May 26, 2021 0 By Brian Crecente

Before LEGO® Brawls was a frenzied clash of minifigure mashups, Red Games Co. was designing a game much more like classic mobile runners Fun Run and Jet Pack Joyride, the developers said in an interview on LEGO Bits N’ Bricks this week.

“We put together a couple of ideas for them, but this one was definitely the front-runner,” said Jared Kroff, executive creative director at Red Games Co. “It kind of started out as a – not an endless runner, but a side-scrolling competitive runner. So probably the best reference on mobile would be Fun Run. But we were referencing also Jetpack Joy Ride as far as one-touch, simple gameplay.”

The team liked how Jetpack Joyride allowed players to hop into different contraptions that would change the controls and the player’s abilities, he said.

“That’s perfect for the LEGO Group because you can just build anything out of bricks,” Kroff said. “The original concept was like a race, a side-scrolling runner where you’re trying to start at the beginning and make it to the end.”

But some on the team were really into a different sort of game for the Nintendo DS. A New Super Mario Bros. minigame had Mario and Luigi running around on a classic Mario map seeing who could collect the most stars first. The game had Mario-themed power-ups as well. Getting hit by the opponent made you drop your stars. The first person to five stars won.

“We just love that game,” Kroff said, who fondly remembers intense battles against co-workers on long flights. “We would just look like these man-children, you know? We’re just sitting next to strangers and just playing the DS and laughing so hard because something really funny would happen in the game.

“And so that was something that we referenced in our pitch, that we just loved that you could take these familiar Mario controls and make a game where it’s just a battle over something, and it was a ton of fun.”

Over the course of development, Kroff said, the project became more and more like the Mario Vs. Luigi gameplay, and less and less like the side-scrolling runner they originally pitched.

The result is a simple King of the Hill-like fighting game that’s often likened to the LEGO brick version of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. games.

Kroff noted the similarities, but added that the team worked hard to make their game more mobile friendly. That included things like locking the camera down to just the player’s view and not zooming way out to capture all of the players in the game. They also wanted to create something that would help change the smartphone from a device that blocks families off from one another to something that brings friends or family together.

A big part of the game’s appeal is that it focuses so heavily on the LEGO Group’s enormous minfigure library. Players start with a relatively small selection of elements from which to build their minfigures, but that grows over time as they unlock new features.

Not only can a player change the look of their minifigures, but they also get to customize their characters’ weapon and special attacks, which can dramatically change the gameplay.

“We ended up with team-based gameplay where we’re referencing Overwatch,” Kroff said. “It is kind of awesome to say, ‘Let’s take what’s fun about Overwatch and apply it to this really simple side-scroller.’

“The idea was, what if you could take all of the Overwatch characters and pick your favorite abilities and attributes and put them together to make your own hero? That was something that we thought was really similar to building with LEGO bricks.”

The game also has an eclectic mix of themed maps, each unique in both their presentation and the way they challenge players to maintain control of the selected spot needed to win. The Western map, for instance, has players fighting for control of a saloon porch and includes mine carts that can be rolled into enemies.

The game took about a year to develop, arriving in September 2019 as an Apple Arcade launch title.

Since going live, LEGO Brawls has evolved and expanded quite a bit, with the team in Salt Lake City, Utah, adding a wide range of new minifigures, abilities, and even tapping into new and old theme sets.

Recent additions include maps and figures pulled from LEGO Hidden Side™, LEGO Jurassic World™, and LEGO Ninjago®. The process of creating this constant stream of new content includes regular meetings with the LEGO Group teams working on new theme sets.

“We launched with only three levels, which was really minimum viable, so we always knew that we wanted to add more,” Kroff said. “As we play the game ourselves and we talk with our partners at the LEGO Group, we ask what would make this even better, and we just kind of head in head in that direction.

“Our goal is that the more we expand the game, the deeper the experience becomes, and new fans of Brawls are even better off.”

This article originally ran on LEGO.com as a summary of episode one of the weekly Bits N’ Bricks podcast, which you can listen to here.