Brick Dominoes
Below are the rules for a Dominoes game I designed in the Spring of 2024. The impetus came from a simple annoyance: ”Why aren’t there dominoes games where you get to stack the dominoes?”
What You Need To Play
Brick dominoes is played with a set of standard dominoes, with different max values depending on the number of players. For up to 3 players, use a set of double-six dominoes. For up to 5 use a set of double-nines. For 6 or more use a set of double-twelves. If you have a set of higher-value dominoes (say, double sixteens or higher), use those for 8 or more players.
Additionally, have paper and a writing implement to record scores as you play, or a set of tokens for players to grab as they score.
The Goal
Your goal in brick dominoes is to score points by placing the highest bricks in the wall, and end the game holding the lowest-scoring hand you possibly can.
The Set Up
All dominoes are mixed together in a bag or shuffled facedown into a compact pile. This is called the brickyard. Any scoring tokens are collected together in a pile or bag. This is called the bank. Mark columns for each player on the score sheet. Each player draws 3 dominoes for their starting hand, and then one domino is placed faceup in the center as the starting brick. Finally, each player chooses a domino to reveal from their hand. Whoever has the highest combined domino value goes first.
The Play
On your turn, you must do only one of three possible moves: skip your turn, play a readied brick, or place a domino from your hand onto the wall. Skipping your turn means you don’t place a domino down, you reveal your entire hand and place it faceup next to the brickyard, then draw back up to 3. These faceup dominoes are called readied bricks and may be drawn from instead of from the brickyard. If you choose to play a readied brick, flip it facedown and play it on the wall as if it were a [ 0 | 0 ] domino. You cannot score off of a readied brick.
If you don’t choose to do either of those special moves, play a domino from your hand onto the wall. There are some restrictions around where you can place your brick.
Your brick must be cardinally adjacent to at least 1 visible face of another domino. It may not be placed diagonally.
Each of your domino’s faces must be equal or higher than each visible face it is adjacent to.
Your domino cannot be adjacent to both faces of any domino, AKA it cannot be in a T formation to the centerline of a domino or exactly parallel to a domino.
When placing a domino on top of two dominoes, it must span the faces of two separate dominoes (like in a brick wall). Its faces must still meet or exceed the visible faces each is adjacent to. Visible faces are still adjacent if they are on different layers.
Bricks cannot be placed at a sloped angle.
Blank faces AKA “[ 0 |” faces are wild and can be placed adjacent to any brick faces and can have any brick faces placed adjacent to them.
Players do not draw every round, rather when a player has an empty hand, they must immediately draw up to 3 from the brickyard or readied bricks.
The Scoring
Players score as they place their bricks. A player scores 1 point for every layer beneath their brick. This means that the first layer of dominos scores 0 points for each domino. Record a player’s points as they score them if you aren’t using tokens, otherwise, a player should take tokens when they score. At the end of the match, players add up the combined value of the faces of their remaining dominoes and subtract that value from their score.
The End
A game can have as many matches as players have an appetite for. A match ends when one player is unable to make any moves on their turn and there are no available readied bricks.