After Missy Woo was sent Littlest Pet Shop Hamster Playground a few weeks back, I was asked if I'd like to review a Lego game with Monkey. As he loves Lego, it wasn't a difficult decision to say yes! I was pestered almost daily by him until it turned up. He has tons of Lego and is always after more. And, if he can't do it, he expects us to help!
The game is quite small - on a board that is no more than a few inches square - and the first task, is to put the game together. It's Lego so it comes with full instructions that Monkey could mostly follow but because he's a tiny bit young for the game (it's suitable from 7), he needed a bit of help with following those. Even the dice for the game is made of Lego and he liked putting that together.
And then you have to play the game! The game involves collecting pieces of treasure from the corners of the board whilst trying to avoid getting cursed by the Mummy. Part of it is also a memory game as there are crystals hidden away under the temples and you have to remember which colour crystal is where if the dice lands on a colour. We found that the rules weren't particularly extensive. The children seemed happy enough to sit down and play it by themselves - one of Monkey's friends came round for tea one day, so they played it and no arguments ensued. Always a bonus! I guess if they are happy enough playing it, then should we worry if they are following the rules exactly? I guess not. The instructions offer some alternative rules so it does allow some flexibility, and well, I'm not going to complain if they are not doing it exactly right.
The game only takes about 10 minutes to play, which I think is perfect for that age group. It would take longer if played by all four players it's designed for. Everything packs neatly back into the box and because the board is still quite small, it can be put away made up, which is a bonus. Because of the number of small pieces, I'd hate to play it in a car - we have enough minute pieces of Lego secreted around our house in the hope they'll get found one day as it is; putting them in the car would be just asking for trouble!
All in all, we enjoyed this game. It's made well and it has a lot of versatility to it. And with an RRP of £9.99, I think it's good value. Even if it doesn't keep them occupied for hours, it fits in with their attention span and so, I'm guessing it's a game that will actually get played to a finish instead of abandoned halfway through.
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