Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Card Game: The Two Towers

A few weeks ago I sort of randomly made up a new card game. I’ve play-tested it a little bit, and it seems to be pretty easy, quick, and fun. If you want to give it a try, let me know what you think!

Name: The Two Towers

Cards: 1 standard deck

Players: 2

Time: a few minutes

Goal: end up with the biggest stack (“tower”) of cards

Instructions:

  • Deal half the deck to each player as a face-down draw pile.
  • Each player draws a hand of 5 cards from their draw pile.
  • Start a face up stack (the tower) in front of each player with another card from their draw pile.
  • On each turn, you may EITHER play a card or draw a card.
  • You may play a card on your own tower if it is the same rank or +/- 1 rank (aces wrap around).
  • You may trade towers if you play the exact rank on your opponent’s tower. 
  • If there are no cards left in your draw deck, you may pass.
  • Game ends when one player uses all their cards OR both players pass in a row.
  • Any cards left in hand get added to opponent’s tower.
  • Winner has largest tower in front of them. 
  • Tie breaker is the player who had the fewest cards left in hand (before adding them to opponent’s tower).
Possible variations: 
  • Include the jokers as wildcards. (They could take on a specific value when played, or they could match anything to anything else. Can’t use them to steal a tower.)
  • Play with more decks and/or more people. (Make sure the cards are evenly divisible to everyone, perhaps adjusting with jokers.) Tower swaps would just be between two people at a time.