LEGO Worlds Build: Deconstructing PUG-Z

Brick Fanatic and LEGO Worlds enthusiast Barry Donovan couldn’t resist digitally pulling apart the PUG-Z spaceship that transports the player from location to location

The squat PUG-Z spaceship appealed to me from the moment the ship wavered on to the screen in LEGO Worlds, the pilot seemingly wrestling to get the ship to obey his commands. After an altercation with an asteroid, it plummets to a planet where you find it with its nose buried in the ground and its legs plaintively kicking into the air.

In the same way that  TT Games manage to imbue the simple grunting populace of the LEGO games with an awful lot of character, PUG-Z is no different. When you approach it after a sojurn on a planet, you’re greeted by what seems to be an obedient pet. Throwing in gold bricks in order to enhance its abilities feels like you’re feeding treats to a particularly well-behaved dog.

What’s a big shame though, is that you can’t go out and buy one of your own, let alone put a leash on it and fly it around the block. That’s not to say it never will be available, but for now, we can make our own.

From Davros’ chair in the LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who Level Pack to Agent Coulson’s Lola in LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, I’ve had a fair bit of experience reverse engineering props from the various TT Games releases. It is a novel method with which to learn new building techniques, and to see interesting uses for particular LEGO elements – but it can be quite time-consuming. I spent countless hours shrunk down as Ant Man in order to examine usually unseen angles of the Fantastic Four’s Fantasticar from 2013’s LEGO Marvel Superheroes.

Often I’ll find that TT Games have used an element unavailable in the colour it is depicted in-game as – or in rare cases, they’ve simply invented elements. Construction isn’t necessarily to the same standards as physical sets, due in large part to a lack of real gravity and fragility in the virtual environment. There is not much I can do about any of this, so compromises have to be made, but that’s half the fun.

Not counting the extra large interior shown in some cutscenes, there are three versions of PUG-Z seen throughout the game; a brief rotating microscale loading screen version, a playground ride-on version and the upgradable one that your character explores the galaxies with. I used LEGO Digital Designer alongside Stud.io, the relatively new program from Brick Link.

Instructions and a complete part list can be found on BrickLink here.

It should be fairly robust, but I’d welcome any feedback on fragile points. I’ve gone along with as much as I can tell is correct from the physical model with one exception – the Technic bush above the cheese slope on PUG-Z’s feet was too big to enable it to stand as it does in the game, so I replaced with a 2M cross axle and a half bush.

Orange parts have been replaced with bright light orange where available. At the time of creating, Stud.io didn’t have element 27263, so you might want to pick up a couple of those for the wings (it also didn’t have piece 28192, but they’re unavailable in any sort of orange colour at the moment anyway).

The printed elements are not available, but if you have access to someone with some sort of digital UV printer, or can print or waterslide decals you could recreate them, but be prepared to study hours of game footage. Alternatively you could attempt to creatively find a way to get the textures directly from the game – still a time consuming solution though.

A quick search on BrickLink reveals that our version of PUG-Z is not the cheapest build, so do bear in mind that other parts may be able to be substituted – download it and have a play. Maybe instead of the side rockets, your PUG-Z will be armed to the teeth? Maybe instead of the rear engine, it will tow cargo? Maybe recolour the ship entirely and give it a new pilot?

The original model for PUG-Z was designed for LEGO Worlds by Carl Greatrix, Senior Model Designer for TT Games, with assistance from Mark Stafford.

Always remember – a PUG-Z is for life, not just for Christmas.

LEGO Worlds is available to order now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.