Brick Like This! takes the simple joy of building and asks a very important question: What if building with bricks was less about creativity and more about desperately trying to follow instructions while someone shouts increasingly panicked directions across the table?
Published by LEGO, Brick Like This! is a fast-paced party game that turns cooperative building into a chaotic communication challenge. One player becomes the instructor, holding a card that shows a specific model built from a small selection of LEGO bricks. Their teammate has the bricks in front of them, but they cannot see the card.
There’s something universally satisfying about building things with bricks. Towers, castles, spaceships, slightly lopsided houses that would never pass a real-world safety inspection. Give people a handful of colourful blocks and, sooner or later, something vaguely architectural will emerge, but that’s truly not the aim here (except in idle moments between cards).
The instructor’s job is to describe the model clearly enough that their partner can recreate it before the timer runs out. Which sounds simple. It rarely is.
The problem, as anyone who has ever attempted to describe a LEGO structure knows, is that bricks have a surprising number of ways to connect. Suddenly phrases like “put the blue piece on top of the red one” become dangerously vague.
Which blue piece? Which side of the red one? Is it facing the right direction? And why does the thing now look like a very confused crab?
Rounds move quickly, with teams racing against the clock to complete as many builds as possible. When a model is finished correctly, the instructor immediately flips over the next card and the process begins again — ideally with slightly clearer instructions this time around.
What follows is a wonderfully frantic back-and-forth of directions, guesses and increasingly creative attempts at describing shapes.
“Take the long yellow piece.” “The slightly long yellow piece.” “No, the other slightly long yellow piece.” “No, that’s the wrong long yellow piece.”
It’s the sort of game where everyone begins calmly and ends the round laughing at the strange little sculpture that somehow emerged from perfectly sensible instructions.
The real charm of Brick Like This! lies in how it turns something familiar into a communication puzzle. LEGO bricks are instantly recognisable to almost everyone, which means players jump into the game without needing lengthy explanations. The challenge isn’t understanding the components — it’s explaining them well enough that someone else can build what you’re imagining. And as it turns out, that’s harder than it sounds.
Different players approach the instructor role in wildly different ways. Some try to describe pieces with careful technical precision. Others rely on comparisons.
“It’s like a tiny chair.” “No, not that kind of chair.” “More of a… sideways chair.”
Neither approach is guaranteed to succeed.
The game also benefits from its pace. Rounds are quick, the rules are easy to grasp, and the constant ticking of the timer adds just enough pressure to turn simple instructions into mild panic.
Of course, like most party games, the success of Brick Like This! depends heavily on the group playing it. Enthusiastic players who are willing to embrace the chaos will have a fantastic time. More reserved groups may find the frantic shouting of brick instructions slightly less appealing. This game was not for me in the slightest. It was far too fast paced. I love party games, but not ones which involve a race and god forbid, group work. But I think for many it can be an absolute hit of a game.
It might not work for me, but I see the brilliance in the game. Watching when I was taking a break I could see that when it works, it works wonderfully. Watching someone confidently assemble a structure that looks nothing like the card their partner is describing is consistently entertaining. Even better is the moment when the timer runs out and everyone compares the intended model with the team’s… interpretation.
Sometimes they’re surprisingly close. Other times it looks like modern art built during a mild earthquake.
Either way, Brick Like This! succeeds because it understands exactly what it wants to be: a quick, lively party game built around laughter, communication and the occasional very confused pile of bricks.
Which, in many ways, is exactly how most LEGO building sessions end anyway.
Brick Like This is available now, from Amazon.
