LEGO comes to Google’s Chrome, time wasting just got serious

Time wasters have a new contender with something that was not only made in Australia, but lets all adults be kids once again, and without leaving their desks.

If you can’t remember the last time you pulled out a set of LEGO bricks and truly enjoyed yourself, or have stepped on too many bricks left out by your kids and have been damaged beyond belief, it’s time to go virtual.

Worked on by both Google and LEGO, the “Build with Chrome” project started its life locally as an experiment, and has now grown to a fun website that anyone can get in on, provided you have Google’s Chrome browser installed.

Here's one we found in Erskineville!

Essentially, Build with Chrome turns the entire world into one giant LEGO dotted sphere, and once you find where you want to build, you can plant your block and start building away, using either touch screens or a mouse to place LEGO pieces in eight colours, creating buildings, houses, or anything else your imagination can lay claim to.

Google’s Build with Chrome also comes just in time for “The LEGO Movie,” which makes it more of a tie in than a cool coincident, but you will find some tutorials and challenges in the project to help you make your virtual block-based buildings and creations.

Work has begun on the LEGO GadgetGuy offices. Now all we need is a minifig with 76 different Hawaiian shirts.

As for Android support, we’re told this does exist, though you’ll need a recent or high-end device to get it working, and our HTC One isn’t even high enough. We had some success with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition we’re reviewing, but keep in mind, the phone or tablet has to be pretty new to make this work.

The rest of you, though, will have to stick with something running a Windows or Mac version of Chrome, but beware, because it will suck up your time happily.

From the few minutes we were playing with it, Build with Chrome has already become one of the best time-wasting apps we’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with. There are things it needs, such as LEGO MiniFig people, but as a start, it’s pretty awesome.

Check out Build with Chrome