Monkey Palace Components Overview and Impressions

The LEGO Group is back into the board game space, and they have partnered with Asmodee to start releasing board games back into retail stores. The first of this planned partnership is Monkey Palace, a game about building steps for a monkey to climb. Before we get into our full review of the game, let’s take a look at the game’s components!

There isn’t a lot to say about this game. The game itself comes with a ton of LEGO Elements, including a whole slew of arches, leaf pieces, and more. As a game, I’m excited to get it to the table, but I suppose that worst case, should you purchase Monkey Palace and not enjoy your experience, you’re getting a decent number of LEGO Elements to add to your collection. This includes a really cool monkey figure as well!

The game also includes a giant 32×32 base plate, which in reality is a 9.99 CAD value, the cost of purchasing a base plate at MSRP from your local retailers. What you quickly realize here when you compare the price of Monkey Palace to what you get is that the price-per-piece, which generally as The LEGO Group fans we like to see around 10 cents per, is really great.

There are a few thin cardboard / cardstock template sheets that will sit on top of base plate for your games, and will be held down with 3×1 green corner bricks. Everything snaps together well – it reminds me of when The LEGO Group experimented with cardboard terrain with specific City sets. They seemed to have abandoned that approach with standard sets, but it works really well with this game.

The rulebook is not a book at all, but rather a fold out sheet. I’ve never been a huge fan of fold out sheets as rulebooks, but it’s not all that bad. With only a few rules to keep track of, perhaps this was the better way to go. I personally find fold out rule sheets a bit cumbersome to use because of their size, but perhaps that’s a me issue!

We look forward to playing Monkey Palace in the near future with our son Lochlan. Not only does he love board games, but he loves The LEGO Group as well. Seems like this game might be a match made in heaven for him!