Monkey Palace is an enjoyable, relatively quick Lego board game – once you get past the rules. The idea is to build, as the name implies, a monkey palace of sorts using arches and supporting bricks to go higher and higher. Up to four players must try to literally one-up each other in order to plot the highest path with the largest point total. At an estimated 45 minutes for each individual game, it's a good way to test your ability to think analytically as well as your friendships.
Depending on how high you go, where you started, and how many arches you used, you're assigned a point value that can be redeemed for cards. These cards determine how many blocks you get immediately as well as your recurring bank of blocks – but more importantly, they also have a banana point value. At the end of a Monkey Palace session, it's all about how many banana points you have; as in so many of the best board games, nothing else matters but your score.
