Чудесные башни (Wonderful Towers) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• Starting the Game
• Player Turn
  • Draw a Card
  • Play a Card's Property
  • End of the Deck
  • End of the Game

Components

• Game rules
• 84 cards
• 28 fortification tokens

Goal of the Game

Each player starts with a tower whose blocks are arranged out of order: the most massive on top, the thinnest at the bottom. Naturally, such towers cannot stand for long, so they must be turned over. By replacing blocks with the ones you need, moving parts of your tower, and destroying other players' buildings, build your wonderful tower before the other players do!

Starting the Game

1. Shuffle the game deck and place it between the players, face down.
2. Each player takes the top 7 block cards from the deck and forms his tower. The player lays the cards out in a row in front of him, so that the block with the smallest number is next to the player himself, then a block with a slightly larger number, and so on. That is, the tower should end up looking as if it were upside down.
3. The top card of the deck is revealed and placed next to the deck. This is a property that can be used.
4. Determine the first player by any method and begin the game.

Player Turn

Each player's turn proceeds in several consecutive stages. When one player has finished his turn, the turn passes to the next player, sitting clockwise. On his turn, a player may perform one of the following actions: draw a card from the deck, or use the property of a revealed card.

Draw a Card

The player reveals the top card of the deck and looks at it. With this card he replaces any other card in his tower. The card that was removed from the tower is placed in the open row next to the deck. If there are two cards with identical properties in the row next to the deck, they "cancel out": both go to the discard pile. Only an even number of cards can cancel out.

Play a Card's Property

Taking a card from among those lying in the row next to the deck, the player performs that card's property, and sends the card itself to the discard pile (a discarded card can no longer be used). Properties come in three types: protection, movement and destruction.

Protection property: There is only one. The player chooses two adjacent unprotected blocks in his tower. On each of these two blocks he places a fortification token. From then on they are protected, and destruction effects do not act on them. On the other hand, these blocks cannot be moved. That is, you cannot play properties that could force a protected block to move. However, a protected block can be replaced with an unprotected block from the deck, under the rules above.

Movement properties: There are four in total: move one block up through two blocks; move one block down through two blocks; swap two adjacent blocks; swap two blocks that are one apart (one block between them). Using this property, the player moves any one of his blocks. However, two restrictions must be kept in mind:

1. Blocks may not be moved if that would take them outside the tower. For example, the top block cannot be moved up through two blocks, since there is nowhere to go.
2. Protected blocks cannot be moved at all. However, for example, two unprotected blocks may be moved through a protected block, since that block stays in its place.

[Illustration, caption "example of the action: move one block up through two blocks", tower before and after: before, from top to bottom 3, 23, 63, 18; after, 3, 18, 23, 63. The bottom block 18 has moved up through 63 and 23.]

Destruction properties: There are three: destruction of the top block, destruction of the middle block, and destruction of the bottom block. During any destruction, all players, starting with the one who played this property and continuing clockwise, replace the corresponding block in their tower with the top card from the deck. Removed blocks are placed face up next to the deck (so their properties can still be used later), but identical pairs "cancel out" as in ordinary replacement. Destruction has no effect on protected blocks, even if you really want it to.

[Illustration, tower before and after: the bottom block 80 is shown moving to the open row beside the deck, and the bottom of the tower now shows a card numbered 1.]

End of the Deck

Sometimes the deck may run out when a card must be drawn from it. In that case, take all the cards in the discard pile, shuffle them, and place them face down to form a new deck. Cards whose properties can still be used remain in place and are not shuffled into the deck.

End of the Game

If, after replacing or moving a block in his tower, the tower turns out to be assembled, the game ends and the player who assembled the tower is declared the winner. He receives a reward from the ruler, while less lucky competitors are sent off in disgrace to upgrade their qualifications.

A completed tower is a laid-out chain of cards in which the bottom card has the largest number, the card above it a smaller number, the one above that an even smaller number, and so on, with the smallest number at the very top.