What do a lot of people do when trying to describe the block-like sandbox building nature of Minecraft to someone who has never seen the game? We tend to compare it to playing with LEGOs–just on the computer. In the vein of that comparison, The LEGO Group just announced the release of LEGO Worlds, available on Steam’s Early Access.

The developers of the game, TT Games, worked with publisher Warner Bros. Interactive to produce a lifelike and believable LEGO game. The developer also hopes to use the Early Access experience to gain insight from the user audience before the final release.

“LEGO Worlds embodies the physical, LEGO brick-building fun that consumers have enjoyed for decades, on a digital platform that delivers an entirely new type of experience with the beloved bricks,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games said in a statement. “From the brick-by-brick editor, to discovering an expansive range of items, characters and creatures to populate your worlds–the creative possibilities are endless.”

The game is available right now for $14.99 on Steam.

The LEGO Worlds experience

I had a chance to download the LEGO Worlds game from Steam Early Access and jumped in for a short time to see how it works.

From the launch screen, LEGO Worlds provides access to a Minecraft-like procedurally generated world that is made up of LEGO bricks. Much like any Minecraft world the LEGO world is made up of numerous land types including islands, mushroom plains, volcanic mountain ranges (replete with lava flows), crystalline deserts, and forests swelling with verdant trees. A player can choose a locale in what seems to be a larger world, including random coordinates, and then skydives into location.

When I started, I fell from high up in the sky and landed on a desert island covered in mushrooms and skeletons. The skeletons weren’t so friendly, but they were easy enough to dispatch with fists.

Like Minecraft, players also gain access to the ability to change and manipulate their world by adding and removing blocks. The mechanics of this are far more complex than Minecraft, and involve a lot more three-dimensional thinking in order to construct with smaller blocks over a larger area. However, for the faint of heart, LEGO Worlds also includes a set of prebuilt items that can be “sprayed” into existence.

In my first world, I added a Torii gate (a piece of Japanese architecture), a red-rock mesa (a landscape formation we see in Arizona a lot), and even a red-rock natural bridge formation connected to it. And then, because I thought the island wasn’t crowded enough, I added an Egyptian pyramid right in the middle.

There are even a few “sets” available that include various things such as houses, people, lawn mowers, cars, etc. When I summoned a set, it did bring two people with it. For some reason the skeletons on the island did not take kindly to this and they chased the people off their lawn and into the ocean. Not sure what that was about.

Exploration is central to LEGO Worlds

My second foray into LEGO Worlds, I chose a totally different location by randomizing the coordinates and this led me to a crystalline landscape coupled with a magma-filled volcano region. Running about the landscape, I continued to find different vehicles scattered about, which I instantly hopped into a-la Grand Theft Auto and just started to use them to explore.

The progression went from me finding a horse, to grabbing a “drilling machine,” to getting atop an eagle to fly about, then an airplane, a helicopter, and finally a dragon! The dragon was a beautiful red thing, it roared and flailed as I explored a bit further, and finally landed in a forest.

My entire experience lasted only approximately 30 minutes, but I found something to occupy me the entire time without pause. Needless to say, I didn’t even scratch the surface of all the different things that I saw to do including seeing all the sights or collecting all the vehicles. I even punched a “vampire” or “witch” looking character and got his avatar that I could change myself into in the future.

Even as Early Access there’s a lot to do in LEGO Worlds.

While building might become a little difficult for some users, the exploration in this game obvious is designed to give a sense of atmosphere and presence for a vast world.

Although it seems a little empty right now as there doesn’t seem to be multiplayer functionality built in quite yet.

Not the first LEGO sandbox multiplayer game

In many ways, it’s may seem a little odd that The LEGO Group, the company who develop and build the Lego toys, did not already have a multiplayer sandbox game on the market. Well, they did–but it only lasted two years–called Lego Universe. It launched on October 2010 and lasted until January 2012.

The reason Lego Universe stuttered and ultimately died revolves around the Internet’s (and Kindergartener’s) preoccupation with adding phalluses to everything. Be it Play-Doh, Second Life, or Minecraft, there will be a penis-like object built by someone somewhere and Lego Universe wanted badly to be family friendly on their official servers and it became too much of a problem to bear.

Its hard to tell how LEGO Worlds will handle this particular problem. Possibly by keeping the creations of its users local, thus eschewing official servers, and still allowing players to meet up in those worlds for the multiplayer mode of the game.

Image credit: LEGO Worlds (video game)–The LEGO Group, TT Games