An Italian designer known as MagicBrick has just submitted a project on the LEGO Ideas platform that should excite more than a few old-school gamers: a 2,701-piece brick diorama paying tribute to the jungle mission from the first Metal Slug, released in 1996 on Neo Geo. For this set to become reality, it needs to reach 10,000 votes.

From pixel art to plastic bricks

Metal Slug wasn’t born under ordinary circumstances. In 1996, conventional wisdom held that 2D pixel art games were doomed, overtaken by the polygonal 3D of Virtua Fighter or Sega racing arcades. It was in this context that Nazca Corporation — a subsidiary of SNK — released on Neo Geo a run and gun whose “hand-drawn” sprites delivered a level of fluidity that 3D at the time simply couldn’t match: panicked soldiers, grateful prisoners tossing weapons, a tank waddling like a toy. Metal Slug quickly became an absolute benchmark of the genre.

Thirty years later, this is the memory MagicBrick aims to bring to life in brick form. The project, titled “1996 Jungle Mission,” recreates the opening mission of the original game: swampy terrain, palm trees and dense jungle in the background, wooden huts, and at the center of the scene, the Super Vehicle-001 equipped with functional tracks and adjustable cannons.

A “playable” diorama

What sets this proposal apart from a simple collector’s model is its intent to capture a gameplay moment rather than a static pose. Gabrielle himself describes the goal: to recreate a dynamic instant where everything is in motion, where jumps, actions, and interactions come together to reflect the frantic pace of the arcade game.

The environmental details are instantly recognizable to any player: ammo crates, yellow barrels, Heavy Machine Gun and Rocket Launcher power-ups, a hanging fish skeleton, a parachute, and a sequence of grenades frozen mid-air at the exact moment of explosion. The aim isn’t to portray war realistically, but to capture its cartoonish, arcade-style essence.

This isn’t the first time Metal Slug has tried its luck on LEGO Ideas — several projects centered around the SV-001 have circulated in recent years without ever reaching the 10,000-vote milestone. This time, MagicBrick offers a broader vision of the game that might make the difference.

10,000 votes to cross the line

The LEGO Ideas system is structured: a project must reach successive support milestones to gain additional time. Once it hits 10,000 votes, it is reviewed by an internal jury that evaluates its commercial feasibility before any potential official production.

The project currently has 457 supporters since its early April launch and has over a year to reach the first milestone.

For Neo Geo and retrogaming fans, voting costs nothing — all you need is a LEGO Ideas account.

Sources: LEGO Ideas — Retrododo — Yanko Design