Game designer Luca Bellini on the decade-spanning origin story behind Brick Like This!

Luca, it’s great to chat. Brick Like This! started life as a game called Brick Party that launched 10 years ago. How did the idea for that come about?
LEGO bricks were my playmates throughout childhood – as I grew up, I kept them and started using them again with my children.

In 2010 I began taking my first steps as a game designer, and during that period LEGO launched a broad line of board games characterised by a fantastic die with interchangeable faces. My favourites in that range were LEGO Champion and LEGO Creationary, both of which made the bricks integral to the gameplay.

And, to be honest, Brick Party wasn’t born from a rational, planned research process but simply from inspiration… To be a game designer, you need a creative mind and it’s not a merit: more of a stroke of luck that happens to you! My mind processed all those inputs and ‘gifted me’ the first ideas, which I then shaped into a game quite quickly.

And was Brick Party picked up straight away?
Brick Party was immediately appreciated by the publisher who had just released my previous game back in 2012 – Fun Farm. But because LEGO was in the board game market at that time, the project stalled… By coincidence, a few months later LEGO announced they were discontinuing the line, so we started working on the game again, and Brick Party was finally released in 2015.

So Brick Party launches 10 years ago… How did the idea to resurrect that game as Brick Like This! come about?
At the beginning of 2022, I was contacted by LEGO. I was extremely excited, even though I didn’t yet know the reason for their message! When I finally set up the first video call with Jaume Fabregat from LEGO, the call started there he was, holding an old copy of Brick Party! He told me they were working on a new board game project and considered that game perfect for the concepts they wanted to explore… It was an incredible thrill!

I can imagine! And for anyone new to the game, it sees players get into teams of two – one Instructor and one Builder. Each team draw a Shape card, and the Instructor’s job is to explain to their Builder how to build the shape using LEGO bricks. All teams play at the same time, and the aim is to build the correct shape faster than the other team. Did the gameplay change much from Brick Party to Brick Like This!?
For Brick Like This!, we added some new variants, renewed the build shapes thanks to the greater variety of pieces offered by LEGO, and, above all, increased the number of challenge cards, which are the real ‘boost’ of the game.

What were the team at Dotted Games like to collaborate with on this?
I’ll answer you with a quote from The LEGO Movie: “Everything is cool when you’re part of a team”. I really enjoy working as a team – but Brick Like This! is one of the few games I’ve designed without my gaming partner, Luca Borsa. On this project, I was fortunate enough to first meet Jaume Fabregat and then Birgitte Bülow and the whole Dotted team. We worked together with great enthusiasm, openly exchanging ideas to try to get the very best for the game, and I think the result is excellent.

Now that the product has been released on the market, I am thrilled with the great promotional work. Dotted Games, Asmodee and LEGO are doing their utmost to spread the word about the game to both board game fans and brick enthusiasts.

Yes, you must be thrilled with the response to the game so far.
The public’s response has been truly positive. The game is also well-liked by critics, so much so that after winning the Guldbrikken award for Family Game of the Year in Denmark, it has been nominated for other awards as well. We hope to have more good news to share soon.

Has this experience sparked an appetite to create other LEGO games for the studio?
It would be wonderful to be able to publish with them again. I have tried submitting other ideas developed together with my partners at BLOB Factory, but the bar is set very high and we haven’t managed to clear it yet! For now, I’m enjoying the success of Brick Like This! and I hope my creative mind will soon gift me with more winning ideas.

Last question! For anyone looking for an edge when they next play Brick Like This!, have you got any top tips?
Even in a simple and lively game like this, there are still some strategies that can help you achieve better results in Brick Like This! I think it’s helpful if the two team members quickly find a unique way to identify the ‘bricks’. AFOLs will definitely have an advantage, but it’s easy for others to catch up.

Other than that, I believe the most important thing is simply to let yourself enjoy the fun and take in the spectacle of the situations that unfold at the table. I wish lots of fun to everyone who tries Brick Like This!

Luca, congrats again on the success of the game – and let’s be sure to chat again soon!

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