Monolyth

Monolyth is a design from Phil Walker-Harding. This guy again! Why do I keep coming across his games? He is truly prolific! In Monolyth you collect bricks in various shapes to build a monument block. In the process there are several ways you will score points. The game ends when a player completes his monument. 

At the start of the game bricks are randomly set up around the board. A shared pawn is placed at one of the spots. On your turn you must move the pawn between 1 to 4 steps, then claim the brick where it stops. You immediately refill that spot with a random brick from the box. 

You have your own little player board. This is where you build your own monument. Each of the four sides has a designated colour. You try to match your bricks on each side to the corresponding colour, because this will help you score points.

From another angle

The point tokens on the main game board come in three different shapes, each associated with a different scoring method. For every game one design card is randomly drawn (that square card above). If you are able to create that exact design while building your monument, you claim one square score token. Naturally you will claim the highest one available at that time. Using this card above as an example, the design you need to make is one complete layer of bricks and one complete wall on just one side. 

The hexagonal score tokens can be claimed whenever you complete one layer of your monument. You always take the highest valued token still available. The last type looks like a seashell. You don't claim these by fulfilling any criteria. Instead, you have to forfeit a turn to claim one. You don't necessarily take the highest valued token available. You get to choose. You attach the seashell token to one of the four sides of your player board (see below). By game end, if the number of squares on that side matching the designated colour is at least as many as the number on the seashell token, you score the token. If the requirement is not met, that seashell token is wasted. 

Seashell tokens are limited in quantity, so you have to fight for them. In a 4-player game, you can build at most three layers high, so my black side can score at best 8 points. I have maximised my seashell score. If there is no more 8 by the time I take a seashell, I would have to settle for a lower value. 

When taking a brick, you can choose to discard the one you are supposed to take and claim a small single-unit cube in the same colour. These are limited. They are not an efficient way to build your monument, but they are flexible. Sometimes they are your best choice. 

Monolyth is easy to learn. It works well as a family game, and it is a visually-appealing gateway game. The rules are all intuitive and it is a pleasure to learn to play. There are only three ways to score points, and they are all straight-forward. The most important player interaction is making sure you don't set up great options for the next player. You can see your opponents' structures and what they need. Sometimes you think not just about the next player, but also those after that. In fact in our game we all watched out for the leading player and worked together to avoid giving him his ideal piece. One tactic you can use is spending the turn taking a seashell token so that the pawn doesn't move. The seashell tokens often present a dilemma. How soon should you start claiming them? If you are overly ambitious you might fail and waste your tokens. But if you are slow, you lose out on the good tokens. You can choose to take a seashell token even when you know you can't score it, for the sake of denying others. That's evil, but it's legal.