Official Minecraft: Builders & Biomes Rules

Last Updated on July 31, 2025 by The Official Game Rules Team

Minecraft: Builders & Biomes is a strategy board game where players explore the iconic Minecraft world, gathering resources, building structures, and battling mobs. Using tiles and cards, players complete quests and score points by creating the best biomes and structures. With familiar Minecraft elements and strategic choices, Minecraft: Builders & Biomes offers an engaging experience for fans of the game.

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Components:

• Game board depicting a central building area
• Player boards (one per player) showing biome spaces
• Big resource cube with layered resource blocks (wood, sand, stone, obsidian)
• Small resource cubes (duplicates of the big cube’s resources)
• Build cards showcasing structures with resource costs
• Scoring cards (for biome and type scoring rounds)
• Starting resource tokens

Objective:

Players aim to collect resources, build structures, and score the most points across three scoring rounds. Points are awarded for completed biomes on player boards and the types of structures constructed.

Setup:

1. Game Board: Place the game board in the center of the playing area.
2. Resource Cube: Shuffle the resource blocks (wood, sand, stone, obsidian) inside the big cube and place it face down on its designated spot.
3. Resource Tokens: Each player receives starting resource tokens (wood, sand, stone).
4. Player Boards & Build Cards: Each player takes a player board. Shuffle the Build cards and place them face down near the board.

Gameplay:

The game proceeds in rounds, each with two phases:

Phase 1: Collecting Resources

1. Active Player: Players take turns clockwise. The starting player is chosen randomly.
2. Explore the Overworld: The active player chooses one of these options:
   • Collect Blocks (from Big Cube): Roll the die. The result determines how many resource blocks (top face) the player collects from a specified layer of the big cube. These go into their personal supply.
   • Explore the Surface (from Small Cubes): Choose two face-up resource cubes from the pool next to the board and add them to your supply. Refill empty spaces in the pool from a bag.
3. Resource Limit: Players cannot hold more than 10 of any single resource type at the end of their turn. Excess resources are discarded.

Phase 2: Building

1. Building Structures: The active player may build structures using collected resources. Each Build card shows a structure and its resource cost. If a player has the required resources, they discard them and place the Build card face up on their player board.

End of Round: Scoring

After all players have taken their turns, a scoring round occurs. Three types of scoring rounds happen sequentially:

1. Biome Scoring: Players score for the largest connected area of a specific biome (forest, desert, mountains, snowy tundra) on their boards. The scoring card reveals the biome type and its point value.
2. Material Scoring: Similarly, players score for the most structures built using a specific material (wood, sand, stone, obsidian), as shown on the scoring card.
3. Type Scoring: Players score based on the number and types of structures built (residential, farms, mines, etc.), as detailed on the scoring card.

Replenish Resources: After each scoring round, the big resource cube is refilled, and any remaining small resource cubes are shuffled back into the bag.

Winning the Game:

After the third and final scoring round, the player with the most victory points wins!

Additional Notes:

• Build Cards: Some Build cards provide special abilities, like extra resources or influencing the next round’s turn order.
• Wild Resource: Green emerald icons on Build cards are wild resources, substituting for any other type.
• Strategy: Plan resource collection and building to maximize scoring in each biome, material, and type scoring round.

With careful resource management, strategic building, and a bit of luck with the resource cube, you can become the ultimate blocky builder in Minecraft: Builders & Biomes!