Minecraft

The First Adventure

A three-tier Minecraft playset with the strangest, sweetest mobs in the whole theme.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 21169 · 2021

Pieces542

Minifigs4

Year2021

Set number21169

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The verdict

The moobloom is what got me.

A little cow covered in yellow flowers has no right to be as charming as it is, and once I had it standing next to the horned sheep and the dyed cat, I stopped caring that these creatures come from a game almost nobody played. This is the most affordable of the Minecraft mine builds and it earns its keep through playability, three stacked levels of trapdoors, rails and drops. If you or a young builder love Minecraft and want a set that does things rather than just sits pretty, this one delivers.

Best for: Minecraft-mad kids who want a playset that flips, drops and explodes

The full review

What it is

The First Adventure is a three-level Minecraft build that packs an unreasonable amount of play into one modest box. There is a waterfall you can ride up like an elevator, a rail track that collapses out from under a minecart, sliding earth blocks that hide and reveal, and the mandatory Minecraft explosion feature waiting to launch bricks across the table. The first time I worked all of it in sequence I grinned like a kid, because so many sets promise action features and give you one lazy flick function. This one is genuinely busy, and every level has something to trigger.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the caveats. The three headline creatures, the flowery moobloom, the horned sheep and the dyed cat, all come from Minecraft Earth, the augmented-reality spin-off that Mojang later closed down. Plenty of buyers loved the novelty. A smaller group grumbled that these are not creatures you meet in the main game, and if you are a Minecraft purist that distinction might nag at you. The launch price of 69.99 dollars also drew a little grumbling, and the building itself is honest Minecraft cube-stacking, so if you live for surprising techniques you will not find many here. It is playset engineering, not a puzzle box.

Who it's for

This is an easy set to recommend for a Minecraft-obsessed kid, roughly age eight and up, who wants toys that actually do something in their hands. It is also a lovely low-cost entry point if you have never bought a Minecraft set and want to see what the theme is about, since it hands you Steve, Alex, a skeleton and those three unrepeatable mobs in one go. I would steer away only if you are a display-focused adult collector chasing clever parts usage, because the charm here is in the play, not the shelf presence. As a retired set it now costs a touch more than retail, but it remains one of the friendliest ways into the theme.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building it feels exactly like Minecraft looks, which is the point. You stack cubes into layered terrain, snap in trapdoor blocks and rails, and assemble the little function mechanisms that make each level move. It is not a demanding build, an experienced builder will breeze through it, but there is real satisfaction in seeing the pixel-art shapes come together and then testing every action feature to confirm they all fire. For a younger builder it hits a lovely sweet spot: enough steps to feel like an achievement, never so fiddly that it frustrates.

The stars of the parts box are the brick-built mobs. The moobloom, horned sheep and dyed cat use printed and recolored elements that only appeared here, drawn straight from Minecraft Earth, which makes them the real collectible draw of the set. You also get the standard-but-always-welcome square Minecraft heads for Steve and Alex, a skeleton, and a generous spread of earth, grass and stone blocks in the theme's signature textured colors. At 542 pieces for its price the part count is fair rather than remarkable, but the exclusive creature elements are what push the value past the plain brick math.

Fun facts

01The moobloom, horned sheep and dyed cat all come from Minecraft Earth, the augmented-reality mobile game that Mojang shut down in mid-2021, the same year this set launched.
02It was the most affordable of LEGO's mine-style Minecraft playsets at launch, priced at 69.99 dollars for 542 pieces.
03The set retired in October 2022 after a run of roughly 19 months on shelves.
04Every one of its three levels carries its own action feature, from a waterfall elevator to collapsing rail track to a spring-loaded explosion.