Lego fans of a certain age were in for a treat last month when pizza delivery girl Pepper Roni – yes, from the smash hit 1997 classic Lego Island – popped up in a trailer for a new video game.
The red-haired hero, last seen over two decades ago, has been revived by the Lego Group for a cool cameo in Lego Tycoon: Tilted Towers. This game was made for a very different generation of Lego fans, but this Lego Island veteran had a lot of fun with it too.
Lego Tycoon is the latest licensed experience from the brick-building brand to launch in Fortnite, following the arrival of Epic Games’ main Lego Fortnite mode last year and a handful of smaller, more experimental minigames since then. It’s made by Beyond Creative, a Dublin-based development studio dedicated solely to building games in Fortnite.
Lego Tycoon: Tilted Towers is a mash-up of the popular tycoon genre, Fortnite’s most iconic location, and millions of virtual Lego bricks. It’s the most complete Lego experience to date outside of Epic’s own mode, and it raises the bar for what can be created with Fortnite’s powerful UEFN creative toolset.
It’s also just a clever concept. Tilted Towers has been famously torn down and rebuilt countless times throughout Fortnite history, with more apocalyptic near-misses and complete rebuilds than any Fortnite fan can count. The idea that you’re rebuilding the city is clever, then – and the fact that you’re seeing it faithfully recreated in Lego for the first time is nice, too. It’s a very different beast to Lego Island, of course, but as a small island full of digital Lego bricks and characters – not least Pepper Roni – the vibe isn’t far off.
“It’s been about a year, it’s been a long time coming,” Kasper Weber, the boss of Beyond Creative, told me during a video call discussing the project’s origins. “But it’s been fun working with the Lego group. And we’ve got the [UEFN] tools that are developed along with the game.”
Beyond Creative is one of several development studios dedicated to building games for Fortnite. The company has previously worked on games for brands like Nike, Nvidia, Balenciaga and the NFL.
“We’ve only been working on Fortnite for three and a half years, so we’re very specialized,” Weber said.
“[Tilted Towers] “is one of the most iconic places,” he continued. “We brought back one of the most popular POIs in Fortnite and thought it would be fun to build with Lego bricks. We predicted the tycoon genre would be popular and they’re really good in the Fortnite gaming ecosystem.”
The entire game takes about three hours to complete, depending on how efficiently you manage your time, resources, and money. Are you happy to let the game flow at a leisurely pace, or are you all about maximizing your income wherever possible? (The latter.) Do you invest in hiring miners to gather resources for you? (Yes.) But how much money should you spend on upgrading them, compared to buying new buildings for passive income? (It’s a tricky balance.)
There are moments that feel rewarding, when your setup is working, money and resources are rolling in, and all you have to do is wait a few minutes, feet up, to move on. At times like these, I’ll dare leave the game running while I go make a cup of tea, hoping nothing goes wrong. But in the past, I’ve felt compelled to pay attention, or perhaps earn some extra cash by visiting one of the businesses I’ve just built to pick up a side mission. For example, you might swing by Pepper Roni’s Pizzeria and earn an extra crust or two by doing a delivery round.
Every now and then the whole sim grinds to a halt as Lego Tycoon recreates one of Fortnite’s own apocalyptic events – the great flooding of the map. Or you might have to fend off a wave of zombies, Fortnitemares-style. Or, more positively, chase down a llama loaded with loot for a nice reward.
“I’m from Denmark myself, so I grew up with Lego sets all over the house. And we’ve got some fun Easter eggs planned,” Weber says when I ask about Pepper Roni’s addition. There are now even more Lego Island references in the game, it turns out, with the addition of XP awards that feature further nods to the video game classic.
Within Fortnite – a game that’s now as much a platformer as it is a battle royale – how did Lego Tycoon compare to expectations? The experience certainly got a marketing push from Epic Games when it launched, though player numbers have since dwindled.
“Success for this experience in particular is doing something new with the Lego brick in Fortnite,” Weber replied. “It’s a playground to learn what games are going to work in the Fortnite ecosystem and what games aren’t. And we’re excited to see that our game, so early on, has seen such great player engagement and reactions and comments from players — how happy and excited they are for this game.”
More updates are on the way for Lego Tycoon, and I’m excited to see what else gets added as the wait for the inevitable, yet unannounced, physical Lego Fortnite sets continues. So what has the Brickster been up to?