LEGO Board Games

CCC

We've recently been playing our LEGO board games as a family. Here are some impressions of them. I'd be interested in how other people find playing the games.



Creationary - really simple to play with essentially no rules, but some of the models are tough to do. The games last a bit too long for 4-5 year olds to keep focussed, better for older / 8+.

Harry Potter / Hogwarts - quite a bit to put together initially. Easy enough to play for 4-5 year olds, probably better suited to older children though. Interesting enough to play multiple times.

Star Wars / Battle of Hoth - fun to play with a number of decent variations possible. Quite interesting little builds too, similar to advent calendars. Definitely for older children if you want to play strategically.

Batman - fun to play, a bit too advanced for younger kids though ideal for older. Gets a bit too repetitive if you play many games at once, bit of lack of variety in the games.

Atlantis Treasure - probably my favourite. Quite boring build to set up initially, but a decent game with some strategy needed. Older children only, younger ones just don't get it!

Pirate Code - easy to play, essentially Mastermind although more than 2 players. I found younger children get this one quite easily.

City Alarm - we found this quite hard to play following the rules. So we ended up making quite a few of our own. In that sense, easy to play for even young ones. Tough if you want to try to interpret the rules properly though. Nice build though, as a microscale city.

Ramses Pyramid - OK build of a pyramid, and a decent game. Older ones get more out of it, younger ones find it hard to play. We had to keep referencing the manual.

Ramses Return - found it a little hard to play, again lots of looking at the manual as its not obvious if you are playing right. Older kids only.

Minotaurus - easy enough for younger kids to play. A bit repetitive from game to game.

Minitaurus - not very good at all.

Legends of Chima - A nice build to start with, and game play is pretty good. Easy for young and old kids, although strategy is involved in deciding who to battle so youngsters need help sometimes.

Monster 4 - really good game. Can keep the kids occupied for at least an hour, easy enough to play for young and old.

Pirate Plank - OK, but better with more than two players. Simple concept for young and old.

Shave a sheep - incredibly easy to play and quite fun too, especially for younger children. It's good with four players, but a bit hard to play with two as no real strategy then.

Kokoriko - really fun to play, simple for youngsters although some strategy when decide where to steal from.

Frog Rush - easy enough to play, although slightly better for older rather than younger kids. Fun for an hour at most before it gets a bit boring.

Sunblock - I hated it, the kids seemed to laugh a lot though. Kept them interested for 15 minutes before wanting to play something different.

Banana Balance - not very good due to lack of balance! Too frustrating for little ones, boring for older.

The Battle for Helms Deep - I have it, but have to admit I have never played it. The kids aren't interested.

thedingman5

Just started collecting the Games ourselves.  Have about 10, but only played a few.  Agreed on Banana Balance; Chima is fun (my boys are all about Chima, so that helps).  Pirate Code if fun (agree on the Mastermind reference!).  Breaking out Creationary this weekend.  Great summary and on point for us, at least!  

Shib

The ones I've played (and remember well)

Harry Potter - Firm favourite, it's easy to learn, and involves making moves to both further your cause and screw over opponents at the same time.

Heroica - Nice as a basic set up for a board game, it's basically a massively stripped down and simplified version of Dungeons and Dragons - found that it needed house rules/modded rules to really make it work as a good game.

Batman - Better as a concept than as an actual game...found that it was over a bit quick and felt little motivation to play repeatedly.

I have some others that I have played, but don't remember them too well. The one thing that overwhelmingly struck me with most of the board game (in the more traditional sense of having a board with spaces to move on) type ones were all pretty easy to modify and the instructions clearly encourage developing your own games with them. Makes it a much more fulfilling LEGO experience to me, though I'm sure some would find it frustrating.

binaryeye

Here are the average ratings of the games from BoardGameGeek. As a point of reference, the most well-regarded games there have an average rating of about 8.5, so anything above 6 is generally decent and anything near or above 7 is pretty good.

6.85 - #50011 The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Helm's Deep
6.53 - #3874 Heroica: Ilrion
6.33 - #30170 Heroica: Ganrash
6.28 - #3849 Orient Bazaar
6.19 - #50003 LEGO Batman
6.15 - #3866 Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
6.07 - #3859 Heroica: Nathuz
6.07 - #3858 Heroica: Waldurk
6.05 - #3844 Creationary
6.03 - #3862 Harry Potter Hogwarts
6.03 - #3864 Mini-Taurus
6.02 - #3860 Heroica: Fortaan
5.98 - #3863 Kokoriko
5.95 - #3857 Heroica: Draida
5.93 - #3865 LEGO City Alarm
5.82 - #3861 LEGO Champion
5.74 - #3851 Atlantis Treasure
5.64 - #3841 Minotaurus
5.59 - #3842 Lunar Command
5.57 - #3850 Meteor Strike
5.55 - #3848 Pirate Plank
5.50 - #2010 Happy Holidays
5.46 - #3855 Ramses Return
5.43 - #3856 NinjaGo: The Board Game
5.42 - #3845 Shave a Sheep
5.39 - #3854 Frog Rush
5.39 - #3847 Magma Monster
5.35 - #3920 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
5.24 - #3837 Monster 4
5.17 - #3852 Sunblock
5.16 - #3838 Lava Dragon
5.14 - #3840 Pirate Code
4.99 - #3843 Ramses Pyramid
4.69 - #3839 Race 3000
4.59 - #50006 Legends of Chima
4.59 - #3836 Magikus
4.57 - #3835 Robo Champ
4.46 - #3853 Banana Balance
4.20 - #3846 UFO Attack

The only games I have are Meteor Strike and The Hobbit, both of which I bought cheap for parts. I played The Hobbit with my son a few times when he was four and he found it somewhat enjoyable, though he lost interest pretty quickly. Unfortunately, the two that most interest me as games, LOTR and SW, were not available in the US and I couldn't justify the secondary market cost.

CCC

Interesting. Is that from a hard core gaming geek's view, rather than from a family / kid's view? After all, some games are meant to be fun rather than deadly serious.

I'm actually surprised Batman is so high. It's a good game to play, but once you have played a few games there is not much variety to them. Whereas some of the others feel more random.

Aleydita

We really enjoyed Creationary but the only other one we had was Shave a Sheep - played with my young nieces and they didn't enjoy it at all. I'm not even sure what happened to the Sheep one but Creationary became the start of their own Lego collection.

binaryeye

CCC said:

Interesting. Is that from a hard core gaming geek's view, rather than from a family / kid's view? After all, some games are meant to be fun rather than deadly serious.

I wouldn't call it a "hard core" view, though it's definitely slanted toward those who are far enough into board gaming as a hobby that they use the site. I've been using the site for several years and ranking the games I own and I'm certainly not a hardcore board gamer by any means.

The placement in categories might be more useful. Harry Potter, for example, is the 144th ranked children's game; Battle of Hoth is the 1030th ranked family game, and Creationary is the 206th ranked party game and 791st ranked family game.

paul_merton

How is Ganrash 3rd?!

Toc13

With regards to the 'Geek, people do tend to rate kids games from a child's point of view. The numbers are slightly skewed but not by a great deal.
The general consensus for most Lego games is 'Nice pieces, shame about the game'. 
You also might find some slightly odd results if relatively few people have rated the game.

Aleydita

I can't take that site seriously - they rated my all time favourite board game, Talisman, a paltry 6 out of 10. They should be burned on the sacrificial altar for such blasphemy.

Bumblepants

paul_merton said:

How is Ganrash 3rd?!

Good question. I guess with a little ointment to reduce the itching it isn't too bad.