Blabel
Blabel Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Overview
The Goal
To win the game, cooperate to build the 3 floors of the Tower of Blabel.
To build the floors, each player takes turns being the foreman, deciding which of your construction cards should be added to the tower.
But building a piece of the tower is not a one-person job, so as the foreman, you have to explain what you want to build to the rest of the players (the builders).
If a builder understands you correctly, you put your construction card on the table, advancing the development of the Tower of Blabel. But if a builder guesses wrong, the turn ends without any progress.
(Example construction card: stone door.)
Components
Basic Components
- 18 Front Covers (blue and red covers)
- 18 Back Covers (blue and red covers)
- 36 Language Cards (4 sets, each with a different bookmark)
- 4 Material Cards
- 4 Object Cards
- 48 Construction Cards (16 wood cards, 12 stone cards, 12 glass cards, 8 gold cards)
- 4 Turn Tokens (Day / Night)
- 9 Builder Tokens (Available / Unavailable)
- 1 Foreman Token
Advanced Components
- 1 Lookout Token
- 4 Catastrophe Cards
- 38 Lookout Cards
The Languages
Each player gets a private and unique dictionary made of three cards.
The first page of the dictionary teaches you the name of the materials in your language. For example: dilonne means wood, massoto means stone, etc.
The second page teaches you the names of the objects. For example: vacatto means stairs, farulia means door, etc.
There are two words in the bottom corners of both pages: those mean yes and no.
Each language has two words in common with any other language: a material and an object. If one word sounds more or less similar to another, they mean the same thing.
Example: In one language, the word for wood is dilonne, and in another one, it's dilonak.
Setup
- Place the cards and tokens on the table, as shown in the image. The order of the material cards and object cards should be random. Remember to leave space for the tower.
- Shuffle the construction cards and deal 3 to each player. These cards are private.
- Give a builder token to each player, and place it with the available side face up.
- Give the foreman token to a player of your choice. It can be the one who speaks more languages, lives on the higher floor, or simply a random player.
- Put together and deal the dictionaries for each player, following these steps:
- Pick a color of front covers, and deal one to each player.
- Pick a color of back covers, and deal one to each player.
- Pick a set of language cards. Shuffle its cards and deal one to each player.
- Pick the position of the bookmark: facing the front cover (materials) or the back cover (objects).
Important: All players should have the bookmark facing the same cover, whether it's the front or the back.
Basic Game
Your goal is to build the 3 floors of the Tower of Blabel in 10 turns or less. During each turn, one of the players is the foreman, and the rest are builders.
The foreman picks one of their construction cards and tries to explain what to build to the builders.
When a builder thinks they understand the foreman, or just wants to try their luck, they can try to build. To do so, the builder touches a material card and an object card.
If one or both are incorrect, the foreman indicates that it isn't possible to build their card.
As explained later, you are allowed to use gestures for yes and no.
If both cards are correct, the foreman places the construction card on the table (see next section), and then takes a new construction card.
Regardless of their success, the builder flips their builder token that now should show the not available side and the turn ends.
Only builders with their builder token showing the available side can build, but all of the builders can contribute to the conversation, helping everyone to understand each other (see Tips and Tricks section).
Example: At the beginning, players don't know each other's languages, so the foreman (Oscar) just says his words for wood and door: "Shinco, misica" (Wood, door).
Sophie realizes that her word for wood is sincot, which sounds similar to shinco. Even though she doesn't understand the word misica, she decides to try to build, touching the cards for wood and column.
Oscar looks up his words for yes and no, and tells his teammates that Sophie got the material right but the object wrong, nodding and shaking his head to clarify: "Shinco, din Misica, bok" (Wood, yes. Door, no)
End of the Turn
At the end of the turn:
- Flip one of the turn tokens from day to night. If all of them are night side up, remove one from the game, and flip the rest. (Example: End of the 4th turn: three night tokens and one day token become three day tokens.)
- Pass the foreman token to the player to the right of the current foreman. If all the builders have their tokens unavailable side up, all players reset them to available. (Example: End of the 3rd turn.)
Building
Build the floors of the tower in order, forming a pyramid, until you've built 6 constructions or you run out of turns.
(Example of a finished tower and the construction order: floor 1 holds constructions 1, 2 and 3; floor 2 holds 4 and 5; floor 3 holds 6.)
Conversation
The conversation is the most important part of the game. The communication is open and can be very creative. These are a few things that are allowed and forbidden:
Allowed:
- Saying words in any of the languages of the game, even if you make small mistakes.
- Making gestures to say yes, no, I don't know, repeat, 1 (to ask about the first word), and 2 (to ask about the second word).
- Saying the players' names or pointing at them.
Forbidden:
- Speaking a real-world language or making up words.
- Using gestures to indicate words (for example, mimicking a door).
- Pointing at the cards on the table (except when trying to build).
- Using the order of words to give clues (for example, reading all your words in order).
Tips and Tricks
- Be consistent: always say the material first and the object second.
- Use words that other players know instead of only using your language.
- It's easy to agree on the words for yes and no. Say your word for yes and nod your head. This way, from then on, everyone can use that word.
- During the first few turns, understanding each other is very hard. Don't be afraid to fail, since you can learn a lot from every mistake.
- You can use the word no (in any of the game's languages) to indicate what materials or objects you don't want to build.
- Builders that are not available can still help other players to understand each other and participate in the conversation.
Examples
No one understands Sergio when he says his word for door, so he uses his word for no (gul) to explain what he doesn't want to build.
| Player | What they say | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Sergio (foreman) | Churko, Mahodo | I want to build a wooden door |
| Sergio (foreman) | Gul sirkal, gul mochi, gul terno. | I don't want to build sirkal (column); I don't want to build mochi (arch); I don't want to build terno (stairs) |
In the next example, Paul wasn't sure about the meaning of churko. Sergio doesn't know what golog means, so he can't help Paul understand. However, even though Oscar is not available, he knows both words, so he can help out.
| Player | What they say | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Sergio (foreman) | Churko, Mahodo | I want to build a wooden door |
| Paul (available) | Churko - Golog? | Does Churko mean Golog? |
| Sergio (foreman) | (gestures "I don't know") | |
| Oscar (unavailable) | Rek, Churko rek Golog! | Yes, Churko does mean the same thing as Golog! |
| Paul (available) | (touches the cards for wood and door) | |
| Sergio (foreman) | Reeeek | Yessss! |
Let's Play!
It's recommended to play one or two basic games before moving on to the advanced game. Don't worry if the first game doesn't work out. The second one always goes better!
To play the next game, simply repeat the setup, choosing different covers, language cards, and/or making the bookmark face the other direction. There are a lot of different variations!
Advanced Game
The advanced game brings more difficulty and strategy to Blabel, keeping everything you know about languages and conversation from the basic game.
In the advanced game, your goal is to build a tower with at least three floors that lasts until the end of the game, resisting several natural catastrophes, such as floods, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes.
Each catastrophe is represented by a catastrophe card and can destroy constructions in the tower, making it smaller, or even destroying it completely. However, you can prevent damages by choosing the construction cards wisely, and understanding the lookout when they warn what catastrophe is coming.
Whenever you remove a turn token, you have to play a catastrophe phase.
Additional Setup
After the basic setup, follow these steps:
- Give the lookout token to any player. That player will be the first lookout.
- Place the lookout cards face down on the table.
- Place the catastrophe cards on the table. Anyone can look at them.
Advanced Building
The foreman can choose the placement of their construction card. Whether you make the tower higher or more resistant, always follow this one rule:
At all times, all floors should have at least the same amount of constructions as the floor immediately below. This doesn't apply to the first floor.
There is no restriction on how many floors you can build. The sky is the limit!
Tip: Building a higher tower can make it less resistant, but can help you to spot catastrophes.
(Illustrated: examples of two possible towers.)
Catastrophes
Catastrophes can destroy the constructions that make up your tower. Each of the four catastrophes is represented by a card containing this information:
- Direction and damage
- Affected materials
- Protective object
The damage indicates how many constructions the catastrophe can destroy depending on whether it's the first, second, third, or fourth catastrophe of the game.
An arrow shows the direction of the damage: whether constructions will be destroyed bottom to top (starting from the lowest floor) or top to bottom (starting from the highest floor).
The affected materials indicate which construction cards can be destroyed by the catastrophe.
The protective object indicates which object can help you reduce the damage. For each object of that kind that your tower has, the damage is reduced by one.
Example: If the fourth catastrophe is a fire, it can destroy up to three constructions made of glass or wood, starting from the lowest floor. However, for each door that your tower has, the amount of constructions destroyed is reduced by (printed text ends here)
Catastrophe Phase
Each catastrophe phase has 4 steps:
- Spotting the catastrophe
- Guessing the catastrophe
- Damage calculation
- Destroying constructions
You can't talk during the catastrophe phase.
Spotting the Catastrophe
The lookout shuffles the catastrophe cards, draws one in secret, and memorizes it. The card is then shuffled back in with the other catastrophe cards. All these cards are then placed face up on the table.
Next, the lookout takes four lookout cards and chooses the one that best represents the incoming catastrophe. Alternatively, they can use a word that was previously used by a lookout, if they remember.
The lookout says the chosen word aloud, only once, and discards the lookout cards.
The lookout should say the chosen word clearly and without giving hints using gestures or pronunciation.
There's no reason to base your choice on anything but intuition. Follow your heart!
Example: Oscar is the lookout, so after the fourth turn, he shuffles the catastrophe cards and takes a look at the first one: it's an earthquake.
Oscar takes four lookout cards and sees the following words: arbulo, tsina, bubula, and kerp. He feels like the one that sounds most like earthquake is arbulo.
Oscar waits until everyone is paying attention and says: "Arbulo!"
Guessing the Catastrophe
Players who are not the lookout listen to the lookout's word and try to guess what catastrophe is coming. When a player is ready to guess, they raise their hand.
When all players are ready, point at the same time to the catastrophe card that you think is coming.
Talking isn't allowed during this phase, but someone can count to 3 so all players point at the same time.
If at least half of the votes are correct, you understood the lookout, and the catastrophe will cause less damage, as explained in the following section.
Damage Calculation
If you correctly understand the lookout, you'll obtain a lookout bonus, which reduces the catastrophe's damage by 1. Additionally, if your tower is high enough, as indicated in this table, the lookout bonus will be double.
| Catastrophe | Floors needed for double lookout bonus |
|---|---|
| 1st | 2 |
| 2nd | 3 |
| 3rd | 4 |
| 4th | 5 |
The number of constructions that the catastrophe can destroy is calculated like this:
Catastrophe damage - Protective objects - Lookout bonus = Total damage
Example 1: The third catastrophe is a flood. The tower is 3 floors tall, and has one set of stairs. The players understand the lookout. The total damage is:
Catastrophe damage (2) - Number of stairs (1) - Lookout bonus (1) = 0
Example 2: The third catastrophe is a hurricane. The tower is 4 floors tall, it doesn't have arches, and the players understand the lookout. The total damage is:
Catastrophe damage (3) - Number of arches (0) - Lookout bonus (2) = 1
Destroying Constructions
Once you know the total damage of the catastrophe, remove the corresponding constructions.
Remember: Each catastrophe can only destroy constructions made from certain materials.
As shown in the catastrophe cards, floods and fires cause damage starting from the bottom floor, and earthquakes and hurricanes cause damage starting from the top floor.
Remove the constructions made from the affected materials one by one from left to right in each floor, until you've removed as many as you calculated, or until there are no constructions left to remove.
If this causes any floor to have more constructions than the floor immediately below, remove as many constructions as needed, from left to right, until this is resolved. The materials of the constructions doesn't matter for this.
After applying the damage, pass the lookout token to the player to the right of the lookout.
Important: A catastrophe can destroy a protective object, as long as it's made from an affected material.
Example: Stairs reduce the damage that floods do, but this catastrophe can still destroy them, if they are made of wood or stone.
End of the Game
The game ends when there are no turn tokens left, and you've played through the 4th catastrophe phase. If the Tower of Blabel has at least 3 floors, you win!
If you want a bigger challenge, you can aim to have 4 floors at the end of the game.
Catastrophe Phase Example
After the 9th turn, the 3rd catastrophe comes. Sophie is the lookout, and she draws a fire.
She draws 4 lookout cards: shu, ugt, huho, and krinak.
She thinks krinak feels like fire, so she waits for everyone to pay attention and says: "Krinak!"
When everyone is ready, Sophie counts: "3, 2, 1, go!"
3 of the 5 players (excluding Sophie) point at the fire card, while the other 2 point at the hurricane. This means players understood the lookout, so the catastrophe will be less destructive.
Base damage: this is the 3rd catastrophe, so the fire's damage is 3.
Protection: players have built 1 door, so the damage is reduced by 1.
Lookout: players understood the lookout, so the damage is reduced by 1.
Total damage: the catastrophe will destroy 1 construction:
Catastrophe damage (3) - Protective objects (1) - Lookout bonus (1) = 1
However, the second floor now has 2 constructions, so one is removed.
(Illustrated: current tower; the fire destroys the wooden door; part of the second floor collapses.)