Monkey Palace Review

Title: Monkey Palace
Genre: Abstract
Publisher: Dotted Games
Release Date: 2024
Designer: David Gordon, TAM
Artist: Matthieu Martin
Player Count: 2-4
For People Who Like: Strategic stairway construction, a conspicuous absence of monkeys, LEGOs

Monkey Palace, from Dotted Games, is the latest game to merge the worlds of tabletop gaming and LEGOs, the brick-building toys of my (and many people’s ) childhoods.  However, while past LEGO games have felt like they were perhaps designed for LEGO fans first and board gamers second, Monkey Palace – with its abstract design and strategic gameplay – seems much more like a hobby-style board game than a toy despite the LEGO components.  But how successfully does it make that pivot?  Let’s take a closer look and find out!

---

Overview

In Monkey Palace, players will compete to win favor with the monkeys by building higer and higher staircases to reach that titular simian throne.  But, to be really clear, the game is extremely abstract, with the theme only barely present in a few of the components.  There isn’t even a palace to be built or reached – you’re mostly just making a tower of arches.

The goal of the game is to have the most points at the end, which you’ll gather over the course of the game by building higher and higher structures, connecting each new piece to the previously-built stairs.  In that way, you will be building together with your opponents, but Monkey Palace isn’t really collaborative and not the slightest bit cooperative – each player is competing to get the most Banana Points and to be crowned the Top Banana!

(Editor’s note: No one holds the official title of Top Banana, nor is there any reason to think that one banana is any better than the rest)

---

Perks, Quirks, & Pitfalls

Perks are things we like about a game, whereas Pitfalls are potentially problematic aspects.  Quirks sit somewhere in the middle, just things worth noting

Perks

• LEGO components are perfect for this sort of vertical construction in a game, possibly the best?
• Previous LEGO board game endeavors haven’t been nearly this ‘gamerly’

Quirks

• The colors of the building pieces (bricks, arches, columns) don’t matter, and that feels weird

Pitfalls

• The rulebook could have really beenfitted from even more visual examples of the various little rules and situations builders will have to understand as they play
• There might be a mismatch in expectations vs. reality – this is more of a strategic game than the LEGO brand may imply for some folks

---

Gameplay

Each turn, the active player will seek to place bricks, adding to the common structure that everyone is building around.  Using any combination of bricks, columns, and arches, players will seek to make ascending ‘stairs’, always starting from the ground and connecting to the common structure.  While this sounds easy enough (and it is, honestly), it can sometimes be a little fussy to teach and understand, as there are about 10 restriction rules around placement that must be observed as you build.  Once built, you’ll decorate your new stair with a piece based on the color tile you started on, the better to provide ever-ascending spots to build on.

After building, you will count up the number of arches you’ve added to the board and get that amount of ‘Moneky Credits’ (which sounds like a cryptocurrency, but thankfully isn’t).  You can spend these credits to buy ‘Monkey Cards’, which can give you resources immediately, resouces every turn, points, or some combination of the three.

Each Moneky Card gets added to your player board, where you’ve got 4 slots to hold cards.  Monkey Cards that give ongoing resources only do so if they remain uncovered, so there is some strategy in deciding which slot to place any newly aquired cards.

The game ends when the building piece supply runs out, after which players will count up the Banana Points on all the Monkey Cards they’ve bought, and whoever has managed to gather the most is the winner!

That monkey is one of 3 Trophy cards, 2 of which are optional.  These trophies provide the only source of player interaction in Monkey Palace.  These trophies get passed around the table as players meet the conditions associated with their use, and are worth either positive or negative points at game’s end.

• The Monkey gets deployed by the player who places a gold decoration, acting as a blocker to other players and providing 2 Banana Points
• The Butterfly gets placed by the player who places the tallest decoration and is worth 2 Banana Points
• The Frog let’s you take a column from the supply and can be claimed at any time, but is worth -2 Banana Points

---

Presentation & Production

It’s hard to fault Monkey Palace for its components – LEGO is absolutely perfect for this sort of vertical building game, and the connections are sturdy and will be indifferent to table nudges.  That’s ideal since it’s good for players to get into the habit of rotating the board around to figure out the best angle of approach for building.  The pieces are a variety of colors, though aside from the decorations, none of that actually matters – the diversity in shades of brown only serves to provide some visual variety in the structures players build.

The component storage in the box does leave a little to be desired – the bricks themselves have a removable tray that keeps them sorted, which is awesome, but it’s open within the box, and pieces might sneak out if the game is stored vertically.  In fairness, I didn’t have much trouble with that, but it’s just something to keep in mind.

---

Final Thoughts

I think that Monkey Palace succeeds in being an abstract board game first, and a LEGO object second.  In fact, I think it’s so successful in that way that it might be a little bit of a point of confusion for people who may be buying it for younger players or who aren’t expecting something that requires some strategic thought to play.  In fairness, Monkey Palace is far from a heavy game, it just has a bit more going on under the hood than the branding might initially suggest.

That said, I think that the spatial puzzle of its gameplay is a fantastic step in the direction of bringing the worlds of board games and LEGOs into even better alignment.  Even more than many abstract games, Monkey Palace *is* its components, and that’s where the LEGO integration is perfect.

Once you get past the minor fussiness of the building rules and as long as you don’t mind the themelessness of it all, players who enjoy light strategy games with a spatial element should definitely consider checking out Monkey Palace!

Buy a Copy Here

---

Other Recommendations

• If you like abstract strategy games: SHOBU from Smirk & Dagger Games feels like a modern classic, with chess-like gameplay, simple elegance in presentation, and a focus on strategy
• If you like games about building and stacking: Akropolis from Gigamic combines a city building game with some verticality through tiles that stack on and around each other
• If you like monkeys: Uh, I kinda have very little to go on with this one.  Maybe After Us?  I’ve never played that one, though.  Look, it’s a very specific topic!