How to play Tower Up if you hate rulebooks

I hate rulebooks! This condensed How to Play Tower Up rules help players get the essential instructions without having to trawl rulebooks.

Game Overview

• The goal is to become the richest player by strategically placing roofs on buildings, reaching city planning objectives, and managing resources efficiently.
• There are three main sources of income: placing roofs on high buildings, achieving city planning objectives quickly, and having the most roofs at the end of the game.

Aim of the Game

• Players compete to become the richest by placing their roofs and managing buildings.
• Focus on achieving city objectives and maximizing roof placements.

Setup

Game Components

• Board: Double-sided for 2-4 players. It represents a city divided into five areas with interconnected construction sites.
• Floors: 120 floors in four colors used to construct buildings.
• Roofs: 40 colored roofs (10 per player) representing players’ presence in buildings.
• Materials Cards: Used to collect floors from the general supply.
• Objective Cards: Show city council directives and provide bonuses for achieving objectives.
• Bonus Chips: Reward players with millions (3M, 5M, 7M) for achieving certain objectives.
• Vehicle Markers and Traffic Cones: Used to track progress and end-game bonuses on players’ personal boards.

Board Placement:

• The game board is double-sided. Use the front side for 3-4 players and the back (half-board) for 2-player games.
• The board represents a city center with various construction sites connected by white streets. Two sites connected by a street are considered “adjacent.”

Starting Floors:

• Shuffle the Materials Cards and create a draw pile. Place the pile on the designated spot on the board.
• Reveal three cards from the deck and display them in the Market (next to the draw pile).
• Based on the revealed cards, place three starting floors on the board:
  • For each card, take the bottom floor’s color shown on the card and place it on any construction site on the board.

Personal Boards:

• Each player chooses a personal board.
• Place all 10 roofs (in the player’s color) on their personal board.
• Each player takes their traffic cone marker and places it next to the roofs.

Markers:

• Each player places their vehicle markers on the first spot of the appropriate track on their personal board.
• Take one floor of each color and place them in front of your personal board. This is your starting supply of floors.

Special Setup for First Game:

• For the first game, use the special Starting Objective Cards (marked with an icon). Place them face-up on the objective card slots on the game board.
• In future games, players can shuffle and randomly choose three objective cards from the deck of 10 available objective cards.

Final Preparations:

• Once the above steps are completed, players are ready to start the game. The player who lives on the highest floor in real life becomes the first player.

Gameplay

During each turn, players go through a sequence of actions in a set order. The game is played in clockwise order, starting with the first player. A player’s turn consists of the following actions:

1. Take 1 Card:

• Choose a Card: At the start of the turn, the player selects one card from the Market (the area where the revealed Materials Cards are displayed).
• Gain Resources: The player discards the chosen card and gains the resources depicted on it:
  • Floors: For each depicted floor, the player takes a matching colored floor from the general supply and adds it to their own supply.
  • Multicolored Floor: If a card shows a multicolored floor, the player can choose the color of the floor to take.
  • Vehicle Marker Movement: If the card shows a vehicle icon, the player moves their corresponding marker forward by one step on their personal board.
• Refill the Market: After taking a card, the player draws a new card from the Materials Card deck to replenish the Market.
• Floor Limit: At the end of this phase, the player’s supply cannot exceed 10 floors. If they have more than 10, they must return excess floors of their choice to the general supply.

2. Start 1 New Building:

• Choose a Site: The player can now start a new building by placing one floor from their supply on any empty site on the board.
• Obey Building Rules:
  1. The chosen site must be adjacent to at least one other building (connected by a white street).
  2. The new building must not be the same color as any adjacent buildings.
• Pay for Adjacent Buildings:
  • The player must “pay” for each adjacent building by adding one floor to each. The added floor must be the same color as the existing building. These floors come from the player’s own supply.
  • If the player cannot afford to pay for adjacent buildings, they cannot start the new building.

3. Place 1 Roof:

• After starting a new building and paying for adjacent buildings, the player must place one roof.
  • The roof can be placed on any floor just added, either on the new building or any adjacent buildings where floors were added as payment.
  • The player can only place one roof per turn, even if they built or paid for multiple buildings.

4. Score and Move Markers:

• After placing the roof, the player moves their color marker corresponding to the building’s color forward by as many steps as the building has floors. For example, if they placed a roof on a four-floor building, they would move their marker four steps forward.

Example of a Turn:

• A player wants to start a new black building next to a brown building. They choose a valid adjacent site that doesn’t violate the color rule.
• They place the black floor on the chosen site, then “pay” by placing a white floor on an adjacent building and a brown floor on another.
• After paying, they choose to place their roof on the white building, which was just paid.
• Finally, they move their white marker forward by the number of floors in the white building (in this example, four steps).

Important Notes for the Game Turn:

• Only One Building and Roof: Players can only start one new building and place one roof per turn.
• Multiple Roofs in the Same Building: Players can have multiple roofs in the same building if they place them in different turns.

Extra Turns

When to Get an Extra Turn:

• Players receive an extra turn if all their vehicle markers have reached (or passed) the first star column on their personal board after moving during a turn.
• You only need to reach the star column, not pass it, to trigger an extra turn.

One Extra Turn per Round:

• Even if a marker reaches multiple star columns in one move, the player only gets one extra turn.

Chaining Extra Turns:

• Actions performed during an extra turn can trigger another extra turn if the same conditions are met.

Objectives

Objective Cards:

• Each game uses three objective cards that outline specific goals for players to achieve.
• These objectives focus on placing roofs in certain patterns, areas, or types of buildings.

Bonus Chips:

• Players earn bonus chips (3M, 5M, or 7M) by completing objectives.
• When a player completes an objective, they take the highest available chip for that objective and place it on their personal board.

One Reward per Objective:

• Each objective can only be rewarded once per player, meaning a player can collect one bonus chip per objective.

Examples of Objectives:

• Be present in a building of each color.
• Have roofs in all five areas of the city.
• Have multiple roofs in specific types of buildings.

Game End

• The game ends when any player places their final (10th) roof.
• That player finishes their turn, and then all other players take one final turn.
• After the last turn, each player counts the number of visible roofs on buildings and places their traffic cone marker on the corresponding spot at the bottom of the board (max 7).

Final Score

• Players calculate their total wealth by adding:
  • The value of their bonus chips earned from objectives.
  • The millions earned from their traffic cone marker position, which corresponds to the number of visible roofs.
• Tiebreakers:
  • If players are tied, the one with the most floors left in their supply wins.
  • If still tied, players share the victory.

Precision and Reminders

Multiple Roofs in a Building: A player can place more than one roof in the same building over different turns.

Marker Movement Limit: Once a marker reaches the end of its track, it can no longer move, and any future movement is ignored.

Studying the Board: Players should carefully plan their moves by analyzing the board and identifying strategic sites based on the objectives.

Building Size vs. Objectives: Sometimes, building a lower building may be more beneficial to quickly achieve objectives.

Watching Opponents: Keep an eye on opponents’ floor supplies to predict their potential moves and act accordingly.