A long, long time ago an impressive palace was built in the jungle, until a monkey collapsed the palace… Fortunately, the palace was built from LEGO bricks and everyone knows that LEGO offers endless construction fun. This also applies for the game Monkey Palace in which players collectively build a tower with LEGO bricks to rebuild the palace. Only one player can score the most points. Ready to become top ape on the monkey rock?
First of all, the LEGO elephant in the room. I’ve seen many reviews or posts from reviewers, content creators or influencers who begin their review with the following statement (or similar): “there’s finally a LEGO game!” Apparently, many people have lived under a BURP (LEGO jargon for Big Ugly Rock Piece), because way back in the day, little Dan used to play a board game with LEGO cars. It was fun to put together your own LEGO Racers, but the game itself was a bit lousy. Also about 15 to 10 years ago, a lot of LEGO board games were released. These games mostly used a special die made of LEGO.
Most LEGO games were not very special, but then there were a lot of LEGO games published. There was even an entire LEGO dungeon crawler system called LEGO Heroica. You don’t hear much about these games anymore, but the rebuildable dice in particular had a lot of potential. I hope that perhaps the success of Monkey Palace will also ensure that that die deserves another chance.
So what makes Monkey Palace special if it is not the only, let alone first, LEGO board game? It is the first actual serious LEGO board game that also attracts the gaming public. Indeed, it contains a strong gameplay mechanic, which is supported by LEGO pieces as the playable game elements. The LEGO pieces makes the game playable but also intuitive, while the gameplay is actually interesting and does not just lean on the LEGO license.
In the game, players must build steps each time in order to collect monkey heads. The more steps, the more monkey heads. With monkey heads, players buy cards, with which they also earn one-time bonuses or ongoing bonuses, and through those bonuses they receive new building materials and may be able to build even more steps.
There are different types of pieces that players use to build with and a set of building regulations that players must adhere to. With the cards, players try to build an efficient system. The game ends when one of the types of cubes is exhausted. Because of the above, the game contains more tactics than your first glance would expect from a game with LEGO monkeys. The game material is high quality (because it is LEGO), looks impressive on the table and the game play is simple and understandable for young players, yet challenging enough for older players that it shines as a family game. 5 out of 5 bananas for LEGO Monkey Palace!
