Monolyth
1-4 players | Ages 8+ | 30 minutes
Publisher: CMON, 2022
Art: Davide Tosello
Towering structures made of perfectly-fitted, multi-coloured stones, the monolyths have stood since the dawn of time. Elders, soothsayers, and diviners have tried to pry secrets from the stone, but only the gods know their true purpose. Are they a history of past events? A prophecy of what’s to come? Or perhaps a bit of both? In Monolyth, players must arrange different coloured blocks in order to create their structure. Players can score points in multiple ways, from finishing their structure quickly, to building the structure shown on their card, to fulfilling prophecies of having certain coloured stones in certain places in their structure. In the end, one god will score the most points and be declared the greatest builder of them all.
After designing a game all about polyominoes in Bärenpark, I felt inspired to try my hand at a 3D polyomino game like Pueblo or Blokus 3D. I thought it would be fun to ask players to construct a very simple shape like a cube, but to have the colours of the pieces they use be very important. As I was playing around with an early prototype, I realised it would be fun to let the players decide (or at least predict) how many squares of a colour would end up in each wall of their cube. I called these predictions “prophecies”, which immediately suggested an ancient setting where mystical structures are being built. CMON managed to produce beautiful chunky pieces for the stones in the game, so it really satisfying to fit each one together as you wrestle with the central puzzle of the gameplay.
Links
➚ Monolyth at CMON
➚ Monolyth at BoardGameGeek