Monkie Kid

The Bone Demon

The set that glows in the dark and honestly earns every one of those spooky bones.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 80028 · 2021

Pieces1,383

Minifigs5

Year2021

Set number80028

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The verdict

This is the one where LEGO decided to pack in more glow-in-the-dark elements than any set they'd made before, and the whole thing lights up like a proper little haunted diorama when you flick the switch off.

It's a monster you build in parts (spiders, a scorpion, a scuttler) that all snap together into one big bone beast, which is a lovely idea kids and display builders both fall for. The sticker sheet and the slightly loose finish up close are the price you pay. If you love a bit of theatre in your builds, you'll be grinning.

Best for: Builders who want a glowing, monster-movie centerpiece with real play value

The full review

What it is

Some sets are all about the finished shelf piece, and some are all about the moment you turn the lights off. The Bone Demon is firmly the second kind. It's a 1,383 piece LEGO® set from the Monkie Kid line, and the headline is that it carries 76 glow-in-the-dark elements, which was the most LEGO had ever crammed into a single set when it arrived in 2021. Those glowing bits aren't just tacked on either. They're the demon's arms, its skull heads, curved slopes and little printed skeleton faces, so when you kill the lights the whole creature keeps burning with that eerie green afterglow. If you've got kids, or if you just never grew out of loving a good monster, that first blackout reveal is genuinely a little bit magic.

The catch

Here's the honest part of the picture. This build leans hard on a sticker sheet, and it's a generous one, so you'll want steady hands and a bit of patience before you start peeling. Rush it and you'll be cross with yourself. Up close, the demon is also a touch rough around the edges, the kind of model that reads brilliantly from a few feet away and a little less polished when your nose is right on it. And at roughly 120 dollars at retail it asks a fair bit for 1,383 pieces, so pure parts-per-dollar hunters might raise an eyebrow. It's now retired too, so you're likely paying a premium on the aftermarket, where sealed copies have climbed well north of that original price.

Who it's for

So who should go for it? If you love a set with a bit of theatre, something that does a trick, this one delivers every single night you switch off the lamp. The modular design is a real winner for younger builders, because the spiders, the scorpion and the bone scuttler all work as their own little creatures before they lock together into the big beast, and they can be pulled apart and swapped around for hours. Monkie Kid fans get five figures with four exclusives, so there's collector value baked in. If you're strictly after clever engineering or the best value per brick, you might find this one a bit toy-forward for your taste. But as a glowing, playable, slightly gothic centerpiece, it's a lot of fun and it won a lot of people over.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

The build runs across three instruction booklets, and the smart move is to follow them in order rather than freelancing, because the sub-assemblies are designed to feed into the final creature. You build outward from smaller critters first. A pair of bone spiders, a scorpion, a scuttler and a crypt structure all come together as their own contained little models, each with protruding joints and clip points that hint at where they're heading. Then the last stretch is the satisfying bit, where all those pieces combine into one roughly 40cm bone demon that towers over the minifigs. It's a build with a clear payoff arc, which keeps kids engaged, though a builder chasing intricate technique may find the actual construction fairly straightforward.

The pieces are where this one really talks. Those 76 glow-in-the-dark elements come in a wide spread of shapes, not just the usual 1x1 round cylinders but angled bow pieces, quarter circle tiles, printed skeleton heads and big 3x3 curved quarter circle slopes, which makes this a genuinely useful phosphorescent parts pack if you build your own creepy MOCs. On the minifig side you get Monkie Kid with a brand new printed jacket, Mei in a flight outfit with helmet, the White Bone Demon with two faces and swappable outfit pieces, and two Bone Spirits with glowing arms and heads. Four of the five figures are exclusive here, which is a big part of why the set has held its value so well since retiring.

Fun facts

01With 76 glow-in-the-dark pieces, The Bone Demon held the record for the most phosphorescent elements in any single LEGO set at its 2021 release.
02The finished demon stands around 40cm tall and is built from several smaller creatures (bone spiders, a scorpion, a scuttler and a crypt) that combine Voltron-style into one beast.
03Four of the set's five minifigures are exclusive to it, including a Monkie Kid with a newly printed jacket design.
04It retired in December 2022, and sealed copies have since climbed well above the original 119.99 dollar price, trading north of 200 dollars new.