New LEGO Game: Ramses Pyramid

I recently had the opportunity to review Ramses Pyramid with a 7 year old friend of mine. Ramses Pyramid is one variation of 10 new LEGO GAMES.  In this game children construct a pyramid, complete with removable layers and hidden treasures. After they construct the pyramid, there is a dice that can be utilized which turns this pyramid into a board game.  To me, Ramses Pyramid and all the new LEGO games, are a fantastic way to bridge the gap between generations of Lego lovers by incorporating their timeless building with interactive strategy, memory and problem solving; truly making it a great cooperative game. It is recommended for children ages 8 and up.

My little “Lego Lover” friend was very eager to help construct the pyramid.  With only a bit of cueing for placement of the pieces, after 20 minutes, we had maybe put together 1/4th of the game, so thinking we’d have time to play the game faster, I began assembling the pyramid in super-speed, giving him a few suggestions of bricks to find along the way. It took us a solid 45 minutes to get the pyramid together, with me hustling for about half of it.  Due to time constraints we had to postpone playing the game, but my friend was happy to play with the pyramid.

A week later we got together to play the game. I started to read the directions and initially got seriously confused. The goal of the game is to move your LEGO adventurer first around the base of the pyramid and then ultimately up and down the pyramid, trying to get to the top to defeat the mummy King Ramses. Along the way the adventurer collects colored crystals and looks under the secret temples to guess what color crystal is hiding underneath. Players will need to use their memory so that later on they can remember what colored crystals are hiding underneath each secret temple.  With each turn guessing the correct color of a crystal will allow them to move  move up, down and laterally to different levels on the pyramid.  Simultaneously, with a roll of the dice, mummy’s are released from the top of the pyramid, preventing your adventurer from accessing different levels on the pyramid, as well as allowing for rotation of the levels of the pyramid to change the path to the top. Once the first adventurer reaches the top of the pyramid and rolls the dice to a mummy, they defeat King Ramses and get access to the treasure room hidden in the base of the pyramid.

In the manual I found a link to games.LEGO.com, where there were animated tutorials providing the directions using a visual demonstration.  They made so much more sense, I would recommend this over trying to read the directions.  If your child has difficulty with multi-step directions they will most likely need some assistance in remembering the sequence.

So as is typical of LEGO’s in general, fine motor skills and hand strength are required in the process of building the pyramid. This particular game includes visual memory, as each person has to remember the color of the crystals located in the secret temple to gain as many crystals as possible to make moving up and down the pyramid easier. Visual spatial skills are involved to determine exactly how many spaces are between the edges and temples when building the pyramid. Though I was not successfuly in learning this game right out of the box, after 30 minutes of play, we became much more confident. I think this game would appeal very highly to the 8-12 year old boy. Not only does it include the ability to recreate a very detailed and cool Egyptian pyramid, but this game does promote customization with changing the rules and team building through cooperative group play.  At the very least, this makes a rather cool pyramid where children can create their own imaginative play.

Though LEGO provided a free copy of Ramses Pyramid for review, the opinions are purely the bloggers own.