Description

It's a Thursday afternoon on the Plain of Shinar, and once again there is nothing to do. (History hasn't been invented yet much less bowling!) It looks like another wasted day. But then one of your buddies has a bright idea! "Let's build a tower all the way up to heaven!" he says. "Sure, I've got nothing better to do" you reply. And so the legend begins . . .

Building Babel is a card game for 3-6 players in which, working together, they try to successfully build the fabled Tower of Babel. In so doing players will also be trying to get more recognition for their efforts than the others do. Throughout the process God will be trying to stop them?

All that is required is 1 deck of playing cards and a handful of markers/tokens for each player. The cards are considered to be of two types – “Brick” cards (2 to J) which are used to construct the Tower, and “Act of God” cards (Q, K, A) which disrupt the construction process.

The deck is shuffled and a hand of cards dealt to each player (hand size is determined by the number of players). The rest of the cards form a draw pile.

• The active player plays a valid "Brick" Card on the Tower. These must be placed in order. The base of the tower is a row of four 2s. Next up will be the 3s and so on until the top row is filled with the Jacks. There must always be at least two more cards on any uncompleted level below the one being played to. If a player completes a row in the tower, they place one of their tokens beside it. This will show who put the most effort into the project, come the end of the game!
• If they cannot play a "Brick" card the active player must play an “Act of God” card (if they have one). The effect of the cards are as follows:
  • ACES: The next player misses their turn.
  • QUEEN: The order of game play is reversed (e.g. from left to right.)
  • KING: The last “Brick” Card played is taken off the tower and is shuffled into the draw pile. Additionally when the first King card is played all game related talking between players must stop due to confusion of the languages. When the fourth King card is played the game is over!
• When the player has played their card (Brick or Act of God) they pick up the top card of the draw pile, their turn is over and play passes to the next player.
• If they have no “Brick” or “Act of God" card to play the player must pass their turn. If the player was forced to pass their turn they cannot draw a card. On the turn after a player has passed, they may choose to shuffle up to half of their cards (round down) into the draw pile and replace them with an equal number then drawn from the top of the deck. That player's turn is then over.

Play continues until the tower is completed or the fourth King appears at which point God stops the project. In the event that tower is finished all players win, but the player with the most tokens beside the Tower is the big winner! However, if the fourth King card is played before this happens then everyone loses but the player with the most tokens beside the tower is the biggest loser for have put so much effort into a failed project.