Construction Whist

Construction Whist
Thin veneer of theme: players are pyramid builders in ancient Egypt

Take one deck of cards, remove any jokers.

- Turn over the top card; of the deck; this is trumps.
- Shuffle the deck
- Deal 13 cards to each player
- Choose a first player for the round

Each round consists of 13 construction tricks, in which the players bid for raw materials to extend their pyramids. In each phase, perform the following steps:
- turn over two cards from the draw deck
- first player plays a card
- second player follows suit if possible, trumps or discards if not
- the WINNER of the trick
-- MUST extend their pyramids with one of the two cards face-up on the table
-- MAY further extend their pyramid with the card they played
- the LOSER of the trick MUST then extend a pyramid with the other face up card, but can not use the card that they played.

Extending a pyramid.
- Each pyramid consists of a stack of cards in a suit.
- Each card must be played on a card of higher rank, so the numbers gradually descend.
- Each player can only have one pyramid in each suit
- If a player MUST play a card on a pyramid, but can't, then they have to demolish their pyramid and start again with the new card as the base

At the end of the game, players score points for each pyramid equal to the number of cards in the pyramid squared.