We were sent the Castle on the Cliff building blocks set by Funwhole, and it really challenged our building skills! The Castle on the Cliff set comes with 1044 bricks, plus unique LED lights to create a dazzling finished display inspired by the tale of King Arthur and Excaliber. I was going to review it after we finished the whole thing, and then I realized that might take us months to finish it at the rate we were building, so I’m posting this at about 25% done.

Castle on the Cliff LED Lighted Building Brick Set

The Castle on the Cliff building set comes nicely packaged, with each package of building bricks numbered and matching a corresponding section in the instruction booklet. It also comes with everything you need to set up the LED lights as you build the castle.

On first impression, I realized it was much smaller than I thought. (This happens to me a lot when I just look at pictures, lol) The building base is just over 6″ x 6″, with the finished castle raising up about 16″. The finished castle looks mighty impressive though, with a lot of details and moving parts.

I was happy to see the instruction book was a decent size, not too tiny to read. They break it down pretty good, going section by section, but I always have a little trouble following these brick books. The pictures could have used more views from directly above, where you could count the number of dots on the grid to make sure everything is in the right place.

Some of the pieces look very similar, but they include a handy measuring guide in the booklet, so you can make sure you are using the right size pieces.

Inspired by the Legend of King Arthur

The finished piece is fashioned after Tintagel Castle, and the moment the future King Arthur pulls Excaliber from the stone. The castle rises up over treacherous cliffs with blue waves at the base that move up and down with a turn of a knob. The sword in the stone can also be moved up and down.

The upper levels are the medieval training grounds filled with weapons, armor, shields and helmets made by the Milanese blacksmiths. Two torches on the walls and one by the tower provide light for the night patrol guarding the castle.

If all this sounds like a lot, it is! I would recommend this set for advanced builders, as it might frustrate younger kids. My son is 7, and he was very excited to start building it, but then got impatient an hour later when we only had a small portion done. The box recommends this for ages 8+, and I can see why.

After about two hours, we had a good start on the base, although it still didn’t look like a castle. We were mostly building the cranks and gears in the bottom that would be moving the waves. My son was pretty excited when we successfully built it up enough to make the gears move.

At this point his attention started to waver and he started finding the pieces for me and letting me put it together. Then he wandered off, and came back and said, “I thought you’d be farther along than that.” It was at this point I suggested we take a break and work on it again later.

You can see how far we managed to get in the photo above. We have a long way to go, but plan to work on it a little every day until we have our castle built.

You can find the Castle on the Cliff building set on the Funwhole website, or click here to get it on Amazon.