LEGO Party Preview - A More Interactive Party Game

LEGO games always have a certain charm and humor to them that always makes for a good time. That same wit, whacky, and unserious atmosphere permeates LEGO Party. Is it Mario Party? Well, yes but also no.

Is LEGO Party Just Mario Party?

It’s impossible not to compare LEGO Party to Mario Party, and it’s set up in a similar way. The main game is set up on a board with spaces, minigames in between, and you're collecting gold bricks instead of stars. Though, there are some change ups and nice quality of life features that Party fans will be happy to hear about. 

As for changes, LEGO Party doesn’t have a set turn order. That is determined by the order of where everyone placed in the minigame prior. Each new game is kicked off with that initial minigame before you start moving on the board.

Whoever wins the first minigame not only has the first turn of the game, but they also have a huge advantage. Everyone starts with enough bits to buy a gold brick, and the first gold brick is always just a few spaces from the start. A quick way to get an early lead. 

One big change is just how much more interactive and just plain active the game is while you’re playing. LEGO Party tries to have very little downtime where even the screen showing minigame winners is a little box you can run around and slap each other in. Where something like Mario Party can have great theming in one of the boards, LEGO Party enlivens it with an announcer that helps really sell the competition you’re in on top of all the board's quirks.

LEGO Party Is Full of Charm and Jokes

There are over 13,000 unique lines of dialogue for that announcer written by the writer of LEGO City Undercover. Some of that is set up for what is happening on screen, and there is a lot of reactivity to what just happened, like a drastic change in who is winning. 

LEGO Party is set up as though you’re participating in a game show, so the announcer plays a big role and that’s why he always has something to say. It is all laced with the classic LEGO humor. 

The contestants of said game show, you and your friends, can make the minifigure of your dreams if you want as well. They are fully customizable, from the head, torso, legs, hats, and all other accoutrements that you may desire. We didn’t get to play with it much, as we all know how easy it is to get lost in character customization. 

At launch, there will be four different boards that all play quite differently. We played the smaller pirate themed board, which was full of interesting hazards and unique board elements that fit the theme. For example, you would get picked up and thrown to a different part of the board by a giant tentacle or could rebuild a pirate ship to bury treasure (gold bricks) around the map. 

The other maps were larger, with one based on Ninjago, another in space, and the last was a theme park-like in that there were four distinct areas that each acted very differently from the other. They’re each designed for a certain play length, and we found that six turns is about 30 minutes of gameplay. 

Minigames are Flash Games Inspired

Minigames are a pretty big step up from what you might see in something like Mario Party. Developer SMG Studio said that a couple of their designers have a deep history with making classic flash games, hundreds of them in fact, which you can really see in the minigame design. 

In one, it was a downhill snowboarding game that seemed ripped from my childhood, another was a Splatoon-like where we had to run over sections of the map to paint them our brick color, and another was pretty much just straight up Trials and whoever got furthest in the time would win. 

On the board itself, there are quite a few opportunities to level the playing field. For example, someone landed on a dueling space that pitted us 2v2 (there is no 1v1, everyone is always involved in everything) where the winning team would get a golden brick. High stakes and it made the minigame that much more fun. 

There are also things like hidden bricks that may net you a golden brick just by luck and a lot of shenanigans built into the boards to knock people off the top so they don't get too far ahead.

We played a condensed version, but it felt that every turn who was up top was changing. There is a lot of “rubberbanding” to keep everyone in a similar playing field. By that, I also mean that there is a lot of random shenanigans with seemingly no explanation like Mario Party as well.

LEGO Party Preview | Final Thoughts

LEGO Party was a good time that I think anyone who likes party games will absolutely love. There is a lot of charm, the boards are fun to engage with and look at, and a lot of attention was given to making sure there isn’t a ton of down time. 

LEGO Party was previewed at Summer Game Fest.