Next-generation brick building sandbox Brickadia is out with Linux / Steam Deck support

Roblox? LEGO? Who needs it. I'm all about Brickadia life now. Out in Early Access, it's a next-generation mixture of LEGO styled block building, a little of Garry's Mod too perhaps and Roblox style mini-games.

A dynamic sandbox where your imagination is (sometimes) the limit, game features allowing of course. There's already a lot you can do with it too with real-time co-op building all directly in-game with no external editors needed. This includes fully functioning vehicles, a wiring system and big open-world environments.

While I was in the middle of writing this up as I previously spoke to the developer and they provided a key, another email entered the GamingOnLinux inbox today and they certainly knew how to get my attention. With a title starting "*LINUX PLAYERS!*" — okay, you got me.

In the email they noted "Brickadia is fully playable on Steam Deck with great performance, and works nicely on other desktops through Proton. The studio is working on being listed as Verified for the Steam Deck. A Linux dedicated server is also available". True to their word, it works great with Proton 9.0-4 on Desktop Linux.

See, it doesn't take much. While the likes of Roblox continue to just block Linux platforms along with various other games with anti-cheat, perhaps something like Brickadia could eventually take its place. Once it's further along of course, there's a lot of work ahead of it that the developers are aware they need to either fix, improve or expand upon.

YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Some highlights the developers noted:

• Unleash Your Creativity: Build absolutely anything you can imagine with a powerful, intuitive building system that handles millions of bricks effortlessly. Any brick can be turned into a physics object using the Selector tool.
• Build Together, Live: No need for external editors, everything is done in-game. Modify the world in real-time alongside friends, enabling seamless creative collaboration in multiplayer.
• Play Your Way: From high-intensity combat gamemodes to laid-back social servers for building and hanging out, Brickadia supports a wide range of play styles.
• Vehicle Creation: Design and build your own cars out of bricks, complete with engines, seats, and a variety of wheels to choose from.
• Build Boats and Ships: Construct floating vehicles with buoyancy physics, engine bricks, and seats perfect for exploring or racing on water.
• Bring Builds to Life with Wires: Use a powerful wiring system to make your creations interactive. With an easy-to-use wiring tool and a wide range of functional gates and components, complex logic is at your fingertips
• Advanced Mechanics: Combine physics joints with wire circuits to build intricate, functional machines using an advanced physics engine.
• Explore and Share with the Gallery: Instantly access massive player-made worlds and a huge collection of community-built prefabs through the in-game Gallery.
• Dynamic Worlds: A fully customizable environment system lets you control stunning visuals and weather effects, with real volumetric clouds!
• Lighting That Pops: Add dynamic lights to bricks to enhance the look and feel of your builds with gorgeous detail.
• Immersive Audio: Integrate ambient sounds and custom effects into your creations using versatile audio components.
• Next-Gen Visuals: Enjoy breathtaking graphics powered by HDR and ray tracing, making your worlds and creations look better than ever.

It is impressive though. Not only does it look great but it performs well too and I do love how accessible it all is to get going, it's really very inviting. This could end up being a great one for all audiences of all ages. There's some clever tools it gives you too that will no doubt be an absolute dream for LEGO building enthusiasts. Being able to warp blocks in various directions, copy and paste and more — there's so much to like about it.

Early indicators are that players have been enjoying it, with a Very Positive rating on Steam. However, games like this that entirely rely on a community can live and die rather quickly, it's a risky bet for game devs. We've seen lots and lots and lots more fail when they can't keep a player count so it will be interesting to see if they manage to do so. It's a tough world out there in game dev land. I'm hoping for the best on this one.