In recent years, LEGO has been enjoying a profitable second life as a mash-up specialist, forming fruitful partnerships with IKEA, Batman, BTS, NASA, and countless other brands and entities.
But its most successful collaborations have been in the world of video games.
Ever since LEGO Harry Potter hit the shelves in 2001 we’ve seen a steady stream of blockbuster tie-ins involving franchises like Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Now it’s the turn of Hill Climb Racing to share the limelight with Denmark’s most beloved export.
In the unlikely event that you haven’t played it, Hill Climb Racing is a staggeringly popular physics-based free-to-play casual racer that sees players attempting to drive a variety of gas-guzzling vehicles across a variety of challenging terrains.
LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures takes this concept and injects it with a wholesome dose of customization and breakability.
But it does so much more than that, locating the madcap action in a charming interactive world full of LEGO characters and fun stories and equipping the game’s vast fleet of vehicles with a variety of unique gadgets.
Launching today, LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures is looking like an inspired partnership.
In a recent interview, Juho Wallen and Visa Smolander, producer and lead designer at Hill Climb Racing developer Fingersoft, revealed all about LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures.
Here’s the story of how it came together.
“We wanted to replicate the familiar physics and gameplay of Hill Climb Racing, but introduce the creativity and fun that LEGO products are known for”, the Fingersoft team explains.
“What if the car could break down into LEGO pieces? What if the player could crash into LEGO-build objects, and build them? These questions resonated with both LEGO and us, and eventually we agreed to build a prototype to test if the “fun” exists”.
The first problem Fingersoft encountered in its search for fun was exactly the sort of problem that developers like to have: too many options.
“There were so many directions to take initially, and so many things we wanted to do, and a lot ended up on the cutting room floor throughout the project. You could say we had too many good ideas”.
Some of those ideas originated outside the casual mobile space. “A big part of our inspiration also comes from console and PC, especially the adventure and Metroidvania genres. We wanted to embrace that kind of exploration feeling you rarely see in mobile games”.
Once they had settled on a concept, the gruelling technical work began.
“Performance on a wide variety of devices was a big concern for us. From the start, we knew we wanted dynamic gameplay and large, complex levels with a lot going on. Making the game run ultra smooth like any other Hill Climb Racing game provided a significant challenge for us, but we knew it was critical for the gameplay”.
Fortunately, the team appears to have pulled it off. “I think in the end, we managed to really push the envelope on the amount of dynamic objects and scale of the levels while still maintaining smooth gameplay on a range of devices.”
As any developer knows, testing is a huge part of the process—and here Fingersoft enjoyed the significant advantage of a massive existing user base.
“Our proactive player base of 50M monthly active users was a huge help in early-stage testing and feedback. We systematically shared game updates with a beta tester group, and they gave us their thoughts, feelings, and bug reports”.
This allowed Fingersoft to iron out technical issues while constantly tweaking the game’s difficulty and pace to make it as enjoyable as possible.
Community feedback wasn’t confined to the early stages of development, either. “Having an existing user base was also handy during the soft launch; we could cross-promote and incentivize our existing players to try out LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures, thus getting more input and performance data”.
A lot of work has gone into getting LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures ready ahead of its launch, but the work isn’t going to stop there. Fingersoft has a whole slate of updates planned, including new seasons every two months, new regions, vehicles, storylines, and more.
“The first of these updates will be coming up soon after launch so please look forward to it!”
To get on board head to the Google Play Store or the App Store and download LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures right now.
This article is sponsored content written by TouchArcade and published on behalf of Fingersoft to promote the launch of LEGOⓇ Hill Climb Adventures. For questions or comments, please email ads@toucharcade.com
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