Calmness and concentration.
Just one right motion and the card will be fixed in the needed position.
Step by step, card by card – in front of you a fragile and elegant tower of a Japanese castle appears.

Japanese castle is a three-dimensional meccano and a competition of skill and accuracy. Laconic fascination of traditional Japanese architecture, ancient European card-building passion and a native Russian talent of constructing magnificent edifices without any nail are united in this game.

The game concept is familiar to everyone who has built a card castle at least once: vertical piers are leaned together and horizontal cards are placed at their top becoming a base for the new floor, and it continues till there are no cards left or one clumsy movement ruins all the construction. Moreover standard cards called heki which are used only for walls there are some other building elements: gamen screens (twice bigger than heki) and yanegae overlaps with the special fixed stops for heki. Vertical cards stay at their places because of it so castle levels can be built as a tower one right above another, not only like a pyramid. Yanegae cards are of two sizes – small ones with the space for one leaned pair of heki (this construction is called karigoya) and big for two pairs which can be placed transversely to each other as well as parallel. The last variety of big yanegae with two perpendicular pairs is called antei and works as the basic unit for the most of constructions.

Rules offer many varieties of the game: for one player or for the company of 2-4 builders. There can be up to 8 players if two game kits are used. Solo gameplay is simple – you need to build a castle as high as possible. There are no strict rules – you can use any element conditionally to your imagination. Competing versions usually offer to build a tower of exact height in a pelter or make the most solid building – in this case players jolt the table trying to ruin opponent’s castle and not to damage own. Especially amusing version tenders to take your castle and move it to another table keeping it all-of-a-piece, of cause. There is also some kind of gameplay resembling Jenga – players put some cards into a heap, place a few karigoya at the top and try to pull the cards out of the heap without busting the buildings.

Building castles with special elements is easier than with common cards but still the same interesting. Japanese castle can be even built by a child nevertheless nobody suggests to play it in the after-party morning.
The game differs favorably from the common cards by design – building elements show off the authentical Japanese pictures and interiors from the rich collection of the “Yugen” antiques gallery. Japanese castle will give you hours of creativity and excitement and maybe can become a first step to a high-altitude card building champion title for someone. Theoretically 5 Japanese castle game sets will be enough to build an eight-meter tower – the last registered record doesn’t haul a bit to this point.

Gurami: das Spiel