by gamerleaf

Full Review with links and Images can be found here:
Quick Look: Rise of Babel

Designer: Elijah Morar & Ivan Alexiev
Artist: Andrew Bosley
Publisher: Bedouin Games
Year Published: 2025 (via Kickstarter) At posting Late-Pledge available Link at bottom of review.
No. of Players: 1-4
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes (based 3 player play-through)
 
 
From the Publisher:
Become the builders of the greatest Tower known to man!
Use elephants to transport resources, spend gold to upgrade your deck and acquire influence as you compete to gain the highest score.

Assemble a deck of cards, tactically position resource tiles on the Tower of Babel, and upgrade your warehouse to unlock a range of rewards.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided the prototype copy of Rise of Babel. The opinions expressed in the review are completely my own and that of my playing group.


Review:

Main Game:
The aim of the game is to score victory points by building the greatest tower known to man. You do this by delivering resources to the tower / pyramid, by sending your elephant baggage train from your camp to the pyramid, by transferring straight from your warehouse to the pyramid, by upgrading your own player board and buying cards from the market place which can have end of game scoring points on them as well as being used for different / better actions than your starting hand of cards.

 
Rules & Setup:
Set up of the game is a 2 way street, the main board literally unfolds and it’s pretty much done for round 1, there is a little bit more to sort on your own player board but within 5 minutes everything should be sorted on these.

Then it’s literally sorting out the market cards, and your own personal starting deck which is 10 cards (each player's deck is identical), and you can begin.

The rules themselves, and the rulebook are clear and concise, with the only thing I personally would like added is when you see the phrase ‘trash this card’ I would add the words ‘permanently from the game’ as you can also trash a card back to it’s appropriate market type deck once used rather than from the actual game. 

There are plenty of illustrations in the rulebook to help with explanations, and examples also assist in certain areas, which is great.

There are player aid cards showing actions and explanations as well as a main set of symbol explanations on the back page of the main rulebook, which for me is a must in any game that has lots of different symbols on cards or tokens etc.

There is a separate booklet for the solo mode, which again is excellent, and the AI player actions are determined by drawing a card and performing the actions highlighted by placing it next to the previous turns card, and performing those indicated by an arrow at the end of a row / rows on that previous card.

These actions mimic a human player quite well, as you will be placing their resources on the pyramid, moving their elephant baggage train, and all the actions your own cards provide you with.

I much prefer these types of solo games rather than those where you are just told to keep taking a set amount of turns, then check your score and see how well you’ve done, as I find this a bit of a kop out by the designers who have thrown this into the ‘game’ just so they can say it has a solo mode, when really it doesn’t (in my opinion).


Theme and Mechanics:
 The games’ theme is centred around building the Pyramid in increasing levels / amounts of resources in each of the three game rounds.

You do this by transferring resources in your player colour, and some wild ones onto the grid patterned pyramid level, and these resources scores points for having certain types arranged vertically, horizontally, diagonally and orthogonally adjacent, and the more you get in a ‘run’ the more points you score with the possibility of one of your tiles being able to score more than once if they are in different runs of tiles of your colour / wild tiles.

Goods can be transferred from your player board straight to the pyramid via some card actions, or by loading up your elephant baggage train and setting off from your camp towards the pyramid, where you offload into the grid, choosing where to place them in any of the free spaces available either on the main pyramid level or one of the smaller 4 grid tiles to the side of the pyramid itself. There is one of these smaller grids placed each round for each player in the game, and they are free for all to place resources on, and are not player specific.

Once your elephant has offloaded, it immediately returns empty to your base camp and can be loaded up again to start off on another delivery run during your next turn if you wish, and if you have cards / bonuses that give you elephant movement ‘points again.

Each turn you start with a hand of 5 cards, so the first 2 turns will always be made up of all of your starting 10 base cards, but you can buy cards from the market, and also Teamster or Job cards. Any cards purchased initially go in your discard pile, and only become available once you shuffle all your discarded cards to form a new draw deck.

If you cover a resource picture with a tile of the same type you immediately score a victory point, and if you cover a free action square, you can immediately take that action before ending / continuing your turn. 

Each round ‘ends’ when the last space on all the grids has been filled, and if a player is halfway through their turn, you do end of round scoring, set up for the next round, and then the player completes their turn, so for example if your elephant transports two resources to the pyramid but there is only one space left to fill, you place one of the two resources onto the space, do end of round scoring, clear the pyramid, reset the board with the next bigger pyramid level and new smaller 4 grid tiles, then the player can offload their other resource onto a space on any of the new grids that have just been placed down.

These turns continue in a clockwise direction until 3 rounds have been completed and then you go to final scoring where you add any points from cards gained / bought earlier in the game that are still in your ‘deck’ and points for any bonuses uncovered on your own player board. The winner is the player with the most points, and if there’s a tie players share the win.

 
Gameplay:
Whilst there is very little player interaction, you can stop other players getting points by placing your tiles onto the board to stop others gaining longer continuous runs of their own tiles, as the bigger the chain the more points it is worth at end of round scoring.

Player turns are pretty quick because most rounds you only have 5 cards to play (although trashing cards usually get another card into your immediate play area to use straight away), and you might use all 5 cards to purchase more cards and not do any resource actions, or elephant moving at all in your turn.

Your available money is one of the actions on cards, and the amount of money is shown in the form of a gold bar, and you tally up how much of these bars you want to spend, if any, and then you buy new cards with that money. Some cards have multiple choice actions and you choose either the white or blue action to perform, not both. You cannot carry money over to your next turn, so it’s a use it or lose it situation, which actually works extremely well, and means there are no actual coins in the game to keep track of.

We all found the gameplay really good, and were pleasantly surprised at how well and quick it flowed once we got the hang of how the card actions work, the symbols on the cards, and how your turn structure behaves, as you can play / activate your cards in any order you choose.


Artwork and Components:

The artwork on the boards and cards is very nice, and really enhances the look on the table. The version we played was the one with cardboard tile resources etc., and we thought they were ok, but the elephant and wagon attachment areas might get worn over time due to putting together and taking apart, but they were still very nice. There are upgraded ones which are extremely nice, and you can check this out on the Kickstarter campaign page, where at the time of this review you may still be able to late pledge for the game in one of it’s versions.

 
The Good:
The gameplay on Rise of Babel has been well thought out, and makes for a quick flowing, resource and deck management system that is one of the best I have seen for such a small box game.

The rules and rulebook have also been done nicely and will be easy to follow for most people, and there are quite a few ‘How to Play’ videos available on various platforms.

 
The Other:
The box insert isn’t helpful in the version we had, and if this was the one I got I would simply take it out and just use the box itself with baggies for the components.

The player score markers could be better, but this again is just a minor gripe and they worked well enough for our review play through game.
 
Final Thoughts:
Myself and my two other gaming friends really enjoyed Rise of Babel, with one saying after the first round scoring that he wasn’t sure from watching the How to Play video if he would like it, or even find it engaging enough to finish, but he admitted that playing the game was fun and had enough to ensure that he would certainly be up for more plays in the future.

For me this game is on a par with another game I absolutely love which is Stone Age, and the ease and simplicity of the actions on your turns, are counterbalanced by the choices you then need to make as a result of the cards / actions you play and take, including what resources to load onto your elephant as they may not score points or benefit you once you get to unload them as someone else may beat you to it, and once they start on their journey you can’t swap the resources around.

In conclusion, Rise of Babel is definitely a pyramid scheme you shouldn’t be afraid to invest your money in, and if you’ve missed the campaign and you see a copy at your local store or a convention you could do far worse than going up to the counter and saying “Rise of Babel, Giza copy” ☺
 
After reading Carl's review, if this sounds like a game for you at the time of this posting Rise of Babel will be available for late-pledge on HIVE.

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