LEGO Brick Like This Board Game Review
When LEGO partnered with asmodee and released Monkey Palace, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy that experience as much as I did. It is still a game my kids will request often, and really changed the trajectory of what I thought LEGO games were like. The second in this partnership is now available, but could LEGO Brick Like This live up to the Monkey Palace hype? Let’s take a look!
In Brick Like This, teams of two are attempting to create little LEGO models using bricks and instruction cards. One member of the team will provide the instructions by looking at the card, while the other member of the team will have to build the model only using instructions from their teammate. When one team believes they have built their model correctly, they flip a 30 second sand time, putting pressure on the other team to finish.
There are different complexities of shapes to build, worth 5-8 points. The level 5 cards have outlines of bricks on the card, so they are easier to build, but are worth less points. After six rounds, the team with the most points wins.
Brick Like This is a pretty light game, and when playing with the basic rule set, it’s not overly difficult either. After a few games, we simply opted to grab level 8 cards round after round because we knew our teammates had the capabilities to play those cards. To that end, we actually only recommend playing the basic game of Brick Like This with kids, where the difficulty matches the age.
What I did like was the added challenge cards the game comes with. The instructions recommend adding these in after you are familiar with the rules, and you’ll shuffle off the 3 levels of cards and deal out one for each round. At the beginning of the round, the challenge card is flipped, and will require you to build in a specific way.
One card, for example, doesn’t allow the instructor to tell you what coloured brick to grab. Another more difficult card requires the builder to build with their eyes closed. With these cards, the game becomes much more interesting. Not only did we select cards from different valued piles this time, but we also worked hard to be first as it would get us extra points.
This is a really neat game that ultimately just didn’t work for our family for one specific reason: we are huge LEGO fans, and to that end, we know the names of all the different types of bricks in the box. Telling someone to pick up a slopped brick for their build would be confusing, until you add the 1x2x2 to that, which is easily identifiable. When you use these terms regularly, it’s second nature.
That doesn’t make Brick Like This a bad game, though, just not one our family is going to get a lot of enjoyment out of. White the challenge cards do add a lot to the strategy of the game, it’s just not enough for us to come back again and again. It will stick around as my youngest enjoys it quite a bit, but not a game I’ll be pulling out for an adult game night.
Article By Adam Roffel
