For years now, LEGO has remained a reigning toy brand for people of all ages - but especially children. As the games industry has evolved, LEGO has thrown its hat into the ring with many iconic games featuring licensed characters from Batman to Star Wars. However, many LEGO fans might not know that the company also created a range of imaginative and educational games for young gamers in the LEGO Juniors series. The series was designed to be child-friendly, allowing kids to play, build, and create without any assistance from their parents.
The game series originated with LEGO Juniors Quest in April 2014 and Create and Cruise in March 2015, both released on mobile and explicitly designed for children ages four to seven. Both games task players to create their mini-figures, explore a LEGO world, complete quests, and collect studs. The LEGO Juniors series provides a perfect child-friendly gaming experience because it allows for easy, imaginative play through a digital space for children to play with LEGOs wherever they go. Another perk of these apps is they have no third-party advertising, allowing children to game safely; something often overlooked with more popular titles like Fortnite or Roblox.
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LEGO Juniors Quest
LEGO Juniors Quest tasks players with exploring an open world while trying to catch a robber and find a missing cat. The game is split into a series of quests, allowing players to meet a large cast of characters including an unlucky businessman, a princess in a castle, a surfer girl, and play with police dogs. Each quest provides one new piece of a larger story, a mechanic that echoes 2022's most popular narrative games but at a much smaller scale for new gamers.
Throughout the game, players can collect studs that unlock new content, allowing for continual progression without boredom. They can also build any LEGO sets that are unlocked, or create their own structures. LEGO Juniors Quest is a fantastic introduction to gaming for children, providing a safe and creative environment for children to learn about virtual worlds. Given the rising popularity of video games like LEGO Bricktales, there's seemingly no better time to introduce children to their first virtual world through the LEGO brand.
LEGO Juniors Create and Cruise
LEGO Juniors Create and Cruise is a unique follow-up title within the children's gaming space because it requires no reading or writing skills. The game instead uses intuitive icons and navigation systems that allow players to explore without difficulty. The user interface is clean and simple, using only three or four buttons to facilitate play. This allows the app to considered a video game built with accessibility in mind, especially for young people who are at different stages of their education and overall development.
The mobile app allows children to play without a sense of competition. Instead, players are tasked with building a vehicle to cruise through different courses and collect studs, as its title suggests. When players beat each LEGO-built level, they unlock new vehicle parts that allow for new ways to play and LEGO sets to build and display in the world. LEGO Juniors Create and Cruise encourages children to create through customization as mini-figures and vehicles are rebuilt with unlocked parts, decals, and designs. While LEGO continues to create compelling video games based on iconic characters, hopefully it will also continue to create experiences specifically for young people to learn and foster their creativity.