Castle (card game)

Castle (also known as Palace) is a card game designed by Bruno Faidutti and Serge Laget. Each player begins the game with their place and a hand of cards the remaining cards go into a draw pile for the players. After the players castles are built in front of them they start the game by having the person with the lowest card lay first. (the number of cards in hand and deck depend upon the number of players in the game). It is a shedding card game, i.e. the winning player is the one who disposes of all of their cards (in hand and personal deck) first.

Castle

Designer(s)	Bruno Faidutti Serge Laget
Publisher(s)	Descartes Editeur Eurogames Jeux Descartes
Players	2–5
Setup time	5 minutes
Playing time	60 minutes
Random chance	Medium
Skill(s) required	Strategic thought

Setup:

It is a card game played with 2-5 players. Deal cards 3 at a time, the first set of three dealt to each player is being placed face-down. These cards cannot been seen until the draw pile in the middle of the table is gone. Players will then have been dealt 6 cards to pick up. Players choose the best 3 cards to place on top of their face down castle. These 6 cards become your entire castle. The three remaining cards become your hand to play with. When you play down a card and you get below three cards you have to pick up to have three cards in your hand at all times until you get to your castle. When you get to your castle you don’t have any cards in your hand unless you have to pick up the pile in the discard pile.

Rhythm of game:

Players take turns playing their cards in an increasing order, if you cannot beat the previous card you must pick up the entire pile. Each time you play a card you pick up a card from the draw pile until it is finished then you move onto your castle.

Clearing a castle:

You can choose to go from left or right on your castle but whatever way you choose to start clearing your castle you have to play the three bottom cards in the same order. When you get rid of the top three cards that are face up you start on your bottom three cards in the order that you clear the top three from left to right or right to left. Only you look at the card next in order on the bottom and you can only look at that card until you get rid of it. When you get rid of the previous card you may look at the card next in line and see if it is playable if not then move onto the next persons turn and wait till you can play it. When the first persons castle is cleared then they are the winner.

Specials:

Four of a kind clears the pile (clearing pile means all cards under the four of a kind and including the Four of a kind get set aside and are no longer in play)

10- if a 10 is played then it clears the pile of cards ( playing a 10 means you clear the pile by setting all the cards under the 10 and including the 10 aside out of play)

2- if a 2 is played it allows you to play any card you wish to play afterward.

Castle won the 2000 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société.