Babuschka
Babuschka Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
1 gameboard
8 large, 8 medium, and 8 small dolls — within each size, 4 dolls share the same skirt color and 2 the same head color
Goal of the Game
Move all of your dolls to the opposite side of the board — that is, onto the starting spaces of your opponent — with the smallest dolls inside the medium-sized ones, which are inside the largest ones, before your opponent can do the same.
Setup
With two players, each player receives four large, four medium, and four small dolls, with one player taking the black skirts and the other the gray skirts. Stack the dolls inside one another, then place the four figures on the four starting fields in front of you.
With four players, each player receives two large, two medium, and two small dolls, all with the same head color. The skirt color plays no role. Stack the dolls, then place the two figures in the middle two circles on the side of the board facing you.
The Rules
Decide who will begin. With two players, players alternate taking turns; with four players, turn order rotates clockwise. On a turn, a player has two possibilities: pulling or jumping.
Pulling
A player chooses one doll and moves it straight forward, obliquely forward, or sideways one space. "Forward" means in the direction of the opponent's starting fields; you cannot pull a doll back towards your own starting fields.
The space you move to must be empty or contain a doll that's smaller than the one being moved. The doll on this space can be either your own or an opponent's. The larger doll is set on top of the smaller one!
When pulling, you must raise the doll when you move it so that you move only the one doll and not any dolls that lie underneath.
Jumping
A player can move a doll two spaces by jumping over a friendly or hostile piece! Size is not important; small dolls can jump over large. Jumps must be in a straight line, and must move forward, obliquely forward, or sideways. Backward jumps are not allowed.
The space that a jumping doll lands on must be empty or contain a smaller doll. If it holds a smaller doll, the larger doll will cover it when it lands!
Depending on where the dolls lie, a player may carry out a series of jumps (see image in the original document; the diagram is not reproduced here). You do not have to carry out all possible jumps, however, and you may wish to stop jumping to set up an advantageous position, especially if you're covering an opponent's smaller doll.
Covered Dolls
All is not lost for the covered doll. Whether covered by a friendly or hostile doll, the covered doll is only temporarily blocked and can be moved again once the doll covering it has been moved. Because you may not look under dolls before moving them, you must pay attention and try to remember which dolls are hidden under which other dolls.
Passing
Near the end of the game, a player may have no dolls to move because they are either covered or in the opponent's starting fields. If this happens, the player passes each turn until one of his dolls is able to move.
Goal Fields
The starting fields are at the same time the goal fields for another player. In a four-player game, you may not pull or jump a doll so that it lands on a goal field of the player to your left or right.
The dolls must arrive on the goal fields in the correct order. A large doll may move onto the goal field only if small and medium-sized dolls are already in place, with the medium doll covering the small. Since the dolls can't be moved backward, you must keep that restriction in mind during movement so that they arrive in the correct order.
End of the Game
Whoever first brings all of his dolls, in the correct sequence, onto the starting fields of the opponent sitting across from him wins the game. In a four-player game, the game can continue to determine second and third place.