What the heck was up with that game?
It wasn't designed as a game. The creator, Wes Jenkins, wanted to build a virtual toybox that a child could enter and just interact with, and the world would interact back. The gameplay elements were tacked on, but you can tell that's not the point of it. It's as if your box of LEGO sprung to life.
That's why LEGO Island 2 is so stuff; when the next studio came in and wanted to make a sequel GAME, there was nothing to really build off, so they ended up making a bunch of tangentially related minigames.