Here’s a potentially life-changing tip that someone told me the other day, after I complained about spending 20 minutes putting Lego bits back into a drawer: if your kids are playing with Lego, tip the box out onto a sheet rather than the floor. Cue an easier clearing-up process.

Of course, an equally unmessy way of playing with bricks is to do it virtually in an app. Never a replacement for the physical fun of Lego, but a possible complement. Even when the app isn’t, ahem, made by Lego itself. Meet Bloxy Space Battles.

It’s part of a series of apps from developer Next is Great under the Bloxy banner, which takes inspiration from Lego to get children building… well, a whole range of things on your smart devices.

As the title makes clear here, Bloxy Space Battles is all about interstellar action. “Build space stations and vehicles, pilot up spaceships, protect and control your digital galaxy,” explains its App Store listing.

It’s not just about making the objects, although neat step-by-step instructions make that a painless process, with eight models to build from a regular spaceship through to a full space station.

Children can also create their own scenes with speech bubbles to tell stories, making this app something they’ll want to share with siblings, parents and friends as they explore their imagination.

Bloxy Space Battles costs £1.49 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store.