Ever since we first caught wind of it back in February, Sick Bricks (Free) by Spin Master has been an intriguing title to play. A lot of the individual elements have been seen before in countless games before it. However, as a compilation, we’ve never quite seen a title combine all of those elements with a real-world toy buying campaign. Granted, it’s not quite the perfect melding of real and digital world assets that I’d like. However, Sick Bricks is still a pretty fun game and should do quite well with its intended audience.
The core of Sick Bricks is a mix of simplified dungeon crawling combined with some basic platforming elements. Missions are bite-sized and feature procedurally-generated rooms mixed with a few static mission objectives interspersed. Players will encounter loads of enemies that bestow various currencies and experience points as well as the occasional treasure chest that rewards new weapons or armor. Sick Bricks also takes a page from the likes of Skylanders with special chests that require certain classifications of heroes to unlock (for example, a ‘City’ hero). Some chests even get a little crazier by requiring custom tailored figures in order to unlock them. Sure, these types of elements are basically ways to get players to buy more figures, but I found them o be completely optional and neat little ways to further reward players for taking the real-world plunge. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of missions and tons of content wrapped in a world that can easily be expanded upon.
As we’ve previewed before, one of the coolest aspects of Sick Bricks is the ability to purchase actual Sick Brick figurines at brick and mortar stores and use your iOS device’s camera to beam them into the game. Beaming them in, unlocks them permanently and also rewards currency as a thank-you for actually buying the real world toys. I really liked the idea and I thought it brought a real tangible and personal experience to the game. The game’s insistence on beaming the real world hero after each level-up for bonus upgrades (and to verify you still in fact have a real hero) is a little annoying but I had no issues with the technology behind it.
Each hero has its own classification, weapon type, voice actor, special move, and upgrade path, making each an actual unique character potentially worth collecting. In addition, players can mix and match the tops and bottoms of collected heroes to create their own combinations with difference stats and special moves. While these mixes don’t necessarily get to level-up in the traditional sense of the main Sick Brick figures, it’s a really cool way to customize a desired hero even further.
While the game’s power beam technology works very well for the Sick Bricks characters, I had less than an ideal experience with the game’s real world characters and vehicles. Some were easily detected by my iPhone’s camera and instantly unlocked in-game, while others (the purple Alien, in particular) I’ve yet to get working, even with very bright lighting, white sheets of paper in the backdrop and so on. The concept of being able to actually construct figurines made up of a dozen or so pieces and have them warp into your game is an awesome idea, but the fact that it’s implementation is hit-or-miss is a disappointment.
Sick Bricks most likely focuses so much on the purchase of real-world figures due to its status as a free-to-play title. Sick Bricks has two overarching freemium systems: a timer system and premium currency. Every hero you can purchase in the real world can also be bought in-game with premium currency. Premium currency can also be exchanged in-game for the normal currency in order to purchase weapons and armor. Alas, the premium currency is not easily obtained in-game and it’s probably just as cost efficient to purchase the actual characters as opposed to buying them digitally.
Meanwhile, the timer system comes into play whenever a character dies. When a character’s hearts are exhausted, they retreat from battle for a certain amount of time (dependent on their level) and you need to select another character to continue. In theory, you can probably get to the point where all your characters are on some type of timer, but to be honest I never got to that point (and re-beaming or spending currency can bring them back instantly). I found this freemium system to be a bit more of an annoyance (especially if you have a favorite character) than the premium currency, but I don’t believe it’s an overtly harsh system overall.
The rest of Sick Bricks is executed well. Voice acting for all the various characters is decent but a bit overdone (it is a game with a slant towards kids, after all). The same goes for the story which is squarely rooted in the likes of Saturday morning cartoons. The visuals are actually pretty cool as they mirror the real-world characters and do a great job portraying the entire world as made up of bricks. The controls work as well as they can for a dungeon crawler with platforming elements, but I found the action can be a bit hectic on a smaller iOS device.
Considering that Sick Bricks is available for free on the App Store, there’s really no reason not to check it out. With that said, I think it’s further worth an investment at least in the real-world toys. Beaming works (for the most part) and offers a lot more value and customizability than simply purchasing characters via IAP premium currency. While I whole heartedly believe the game should do well with its teen/tween intended audience, I think there’s enough value there for all types of gamers. It’s simply a cool, interesting mashup of elements that somehow works into a reasonable and enjoyable overall gameplay experience.
