When talking about LEGO Party it's hard to avoid the elephant in the room. If you've looked at a trailer for SMG Studio's latest and thought it looks like a LEGO-ified version of Mario Party, you certainly wouldn't be alone. Thankfully, the Aussie studio hasn't just recreated a carbon copy of Nintendo's long-running franchise, but has instead addressed some long running criticisms of it.

Seriously, here's how I opened my Jamboree review: "Everyone has a Mario Party story at this point, and most of them end up with the storyteller either coming from, or being utterly destroyed, because of some questionable Star allocations at the end." Straight up, this is something that LEGO Party has opted to avoid, presenting a standard four-player board game-like experience that starts and ends on said board. There are no prizes for participation here.

Sitting down with two other journalists and being led through three of LEGO Party's modes with SMG Studio founder Ashley Ringrose, our group started off in Party's standard mode, Challenge Zone. It provides structure, starting your group on a board game full of special spaces and mini-games that will help you to earn the in-match currency of studs alongside all-important, game-winning golden bricks.

Ringrose explained that each and every mini-game inside LEGO Party is unlocked right from the get-go, and that there are 60 mini-games that can be played via Challenge Zones, directly, part of customisable playlists, or via a Score Chase mode that'll let you practice a number of standard control schemes.

Mini-games themselves range from an Excitebike-like, something very similar to SkiFree (complete with a yeti!), or a space adventure that tasks you to use a thruster to fly through the void and dodge asteroids in order to get back to your spaceship. The games are easy enough to control but sometimes difficult to master, and always full of charm and humour. I couldn't help but giggle when Ringrose pointed out why a caveman mini-figure was manning a DJ booth during one mini-game.

"He's clubbing," Ringrose said. "Get it?"

All mini-games use a very simple control scheme consisting of a single joystick, and sometimes an additional button. Driving games are generally played through joystick movements, while the Excitebite-like also uses a button press to accelerate. Another driving game ditched the joystick altogether and attached each of a four-wheeled buggy's wheels to an individual button on a DualSense.

Setting off on a LEGO version of a pirate-infested island, Ringrose explained how each and every item in Party -- including its stylised logo, seen above -- are digital representations of LEGO builds that were required to work and exist in real life.

"We had to prove to the LEGO Group that the letters of 'PARTY!' could be built in real-life," he said. "There's a video of me holding the brick-built logo and shaking them to prove it could be built and wouldn't fall apart."

Ringrose and SMG were able to tap into some pretty specialised expertise to help develop the title; for starters, it's written -- and has an incredibly wicked sense of humour -- courtesy Matt Craig, the head writer of LEGO City Undercover. The many wildly complex special builds that exist come from a team lead by developer Cade Franklin, who just also happens to be a two-time LEGO Masters winner.

LEGO Group is clearly very protective of its IP -- and understandably so, as they've just included the likes of Star Trek into the fold -- and that translates into a lot of work for SMG Studio; some mini-figures are designed as classic and cannot be customised as much as modern ones, as an example. There are over 320+ mini-figures to unlock, and while Ninjago is featured in the game, other licensed property like LEGO Batman or even The LEGO Movie is not. Some figures and items are earned through straight progression, while others are purchased for carrots, an in-game currency.

Ringrose was quick to detail that LEGO Party doesn't feature any microtransactions, and that the carrot economy is "generous".

"We don't want you to be grinding for months to get that character [you want]," he asserted.

Ringrose also confirmed that Party could have featured Bionicles beyond a single t-shirt logo, but that the aesthetics of the brand proved to be too different from everything else on offer. Maybe DLC or a sequel will make up for that down the line?

Another huge, completely logical quality of life consideration was shown during customisation; when using randomise to throw together a set of customisation options, Party will save any random configurations in case you want to go back to something that's been generated. It's so simple, yet so useful. So too is the ability to decline certain gameplay options inside a Challenge Zone.

"You can elect not to steal a golden brick from your child," Ringrose explained at one point, almost as if he's made one of his children cry in the past from stealing a star in Mario Party previously.

Ringrose also confirmed that LEGO reached out to SMG Studio off the back of Moving Out -- as LEGO should have -- and that this was just one pitch the studio presented to the brick-based behemoth. It makes sense that LEGO Party was the option the pair went with as the studio is very much about bite-sized, polished gameplay loops. This is certainly that.

I'm incredibly excited to play more of this, and thankfully don't have to wait too long for that to happen. Lego Party is planned for a 1 October release on Windows PC via Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5, and Switch.