In Rise!, players race to be the first to construct three towers on the growing game board, moving workers to and fro to keep the towers rising and the opponent befuddled.

To set up, place 12 hexagonal tiles in a dogbone shape as specified in the rulebook, then place one token for each player on their starting locations. On a turn, a player takes two actions (possibly the same action twice) from this list of options:

• Place a land tile adjacent to any existing tile.
• Place a worker adjacent to any of your workers already on the game board.
• Move one of your workers to an adjacent empty space.
• Jump an opponent's worker and land on an empty space, removing that worker from play.
• Remove two of your workers from the board to remove an opponent's worker from any space.
• Remove two of your workers from the board to place one of your workers in any empty space.
• Remove one of your tower layers from the board.

If at any time during play you have a circle of six of your workers surrounding an empty space, place the first layer of one of your towers in that space. Your ring of workers must remain in place for two additional turns for the remaining two layers to be added to the tower; if your ring is disrupted, you can complete it later to continue the tower-building. If you completely surround an opponent's tower, you can remove the top level of that tower from the board.

In addition to building three complete towers, a player can also win by eliminating all of the opponent's workers from the game board.