Tower

Tower is a game for 2 or more players that can be played with one or more normal 52 or 54 card decks

  • 2 players: 1 deck
  • 3-4 players: 2 decks
  • 5-7 players: 3 decks
  • 8-10 players: 4 decks

etc

Starting:

Deal out 6 cards to each player and put the remaining cards in a pile in the center, the draw pile.

The Tower:

The tower is a row of cards played face up on the table in front of the player, consisting entirely of numbered cards, with the following constraints: Each card must have a lower number than the one before (below) it, and must be the opposite (red/black) color.

Face and Numbered Cards

The cards in the game are divided into two categories: Face Cards (all Jacks, Queens, and Kings) and Numbered Cards (Ace through ten, and Jokers). Aces are low, having a value of 1, with the remainder of the cards being the value shown. A Joker is considered to be equivalent to a numbered card of value 12, but may not be used as a stone in the tower itself. (It can only be used as a construction card or an attack card.)

Play:

Starting left of the dealer, play goes clockwise. On a player’s turn, he or she draws two cards from the draw pile and takes exactly one of three possible actions:

  1. Build to his or her tower
  2. Make a face play
    -or-
  3. Discard

Building the Tower:

To add a layer to the tower, the player must play two cards:

  1. The stone card which is laid on the table adding to the tower, and
  2. The construction card, which is discarded.

The stone card may be any card from Ace to Ten, provided it meets the requirements stated above (that is, of lower value than the card below it, and of opposite color). Jokers may not be used as a stone card. The bottommost layer of the tower may be played without a construction card, for free.

The construction card must be a numbered card of value 1 or more than that of the stone card, of any color, or may be a joker. Face cards may not be used as construction cards. If a player does not have the construction cost for a stone, they may not add that stone to their tower until they obtain the construction cost.

A player may only build up from the top card of the tower, they may not build down by placing higher value cards at the bottom of the tower.

Face Play:

Instead of building to his or her tower, on a player’s turn, he or she may make a face play with any of the face cards, each of which has a different action associated with it.

  • King: A King may be played next to the base of any player’s tower, thereby “protecting” that tower. A tower protected by a king may not be attacked by a jack, however when building to that tower the construction card must be of value 3 or greater than the stone card, rather than just 1, (jokers are still permissable). Only 1 king may protect a tower at a time. (Basically, A king safeguards the tower from attack, but causes it to be more expensive to build on). The King is not to be considered as one of the six layers of the tower.
  • Queen: A queen may be played to remove a king from the base of any player’s tower
  • Jack: A jack card may be played in conjunction with an attack card to remove the top stone off another player’s tower, provided there is no king protecting it. The attack card must be a numbered card of value 1 or more greater than the card to be removed, or must be a joker. Face cards may not be used as attack cards.

Discard:

If a player cannot build to their tower or make a face play on their turn, they must discard one card to the discard pile.

Game ending and scoring:

Apon a player successfully adding a 6th layer to their tower, gameplay immediately ends. If the draw pile is exhausted, gameplay continues until each player runs out of cards, or a player successfully completes a tower, whichever is first.

Each player then sums up their score, which is the sum of the value of the numbered cards which their tower consists of. If a player has completed his or her tower before the draw pile is exhausted and thereby ending the game early, he or she is given 5 bonus points.

The player with the highest score wins.

Other

Tower is a card game I invented on Father’s Day (June 19th) 2005, and is ©opyright Xore (me, Robert Hetzler)

Feel free to make comments about it in my post about it