LEGO Monkey Palace

The board is the thing you built, which makes packing up genuinely sad.

You are putting up a palace in the jungle for a monkey, and the monkey is watching. Monkey Palace is constructed from actual LEGO elements as you play, so what sits on the table at the end is a structure rather than a score pad, and it comes out differently every time. Designed by David Gordon and TAM for Dotted Games, with artwork by Matthieu Martin. The palace is shared — everyone contributes to the same build — which is where the awkwardness comes from.

Calling this a competitive game undersells it. You are all working together to get the palace standing, while competing for brick income and points off the back of what you put up. Bricks are the currency as well as the material, so every placement is a construction decision and an economic one at the same time. Open drafting, pattern building and a hot-potato element stop it settling into parallel solitaire. At forty-five minutes it is lighter than the box implies, and BoardGameGeek's players rate it best at two.

Perfect for: The household that already owns a great deal of LEGO and has run out of defensible reasons to buy more.

2–4 players | 45 minutes | Age 10+