Sleeping Queens

Sleeping Queens

Sleeping Queens is a 2-5 player game by Gamewright games and plays in about 20 minutes. It says 8 and up but it can definitely be played from younger especially if your child likes numbers, can count to 20 and do basic 1-10 sums.

My son really loves this game and it is very balanced for kids and adults. I can't tell every game if he will win or if I will, which is important when playing a game with kids, you don't always want to be restraining yourself from just beating them all the time.  If my son pays attention he can easily beat me.  I like any game that encourages him to pay attention and think about his choices as it helps us move onto more challenging games of strategy and choice making.


Game Play

Very simply Sleeping Queens is about waking up either 5 queens or Queens worth the value of 50 points (2-3 player) or 40 points (4-5 player). In most of our two player games one person definitely needs to wake 5 to be able to win. In a 3 or more player game often someone can get to 40 or 50 points first so having a different way of winning is really nice.

You play by placing all the Queens face down on the table. Then each player gets a hand of 5 cards.  On your turn you do an action (play a card on another player, wake a queen or trade cards) and then draw back up to five in your hand, simple right?!

The way you wake Queens is by playing a King card.  Sounds simple to get Queens right? There is definitely player interaction in this game if you play other cards available to you like Knight or a Sleeping Potion you can effect other people's Queens. The Knight steals a Queen and the Sleeping Potion puts a Queen back to sleep. There are cards that block these actions, for example the Dragon blocks the Knight from stealing his Queen. There is also a Joker card which adds a lovely random element in to allow those kids who may not have a Queen or a strategy to be able to potentially get a Queen. 

When the player plays a Joker the next card from the draw deck is turned over, if it is a character card the player gets to keep it, if it is a number card the player starts from themselves and counts out each player round the table till the number is reached. For example if there are two players and the card drawn is a 1, 3, 5 etc. then the initial player would get to draw a Sleeping Queen, if the card drawn was a 2, 4, 6 etc then the other player would get to draw a Sleeping Queen.

On your turn you can only play one thing: either a king, a effect card or trade cards. The trading cards ability in this game is also lovely.  You can only trade cards that are all the same number or add up to a sum you have. For example- you can trade in one 4 card and get one card, or two 4 cards to get two cards, or two 4 cards and one 8 card to get three cards from the deck.  Getting cards from the deck is really important as that is how you get more Kings to wake up the Queens (and therefore allows you to win).



Review


Even though you can only do one thing per turn, this game is basically a race to five Queens (or 50 points) so essentially it is really simple for kids and adults to play anytime.  I love the basic sums in this game (and we have added in basic times tables and division as my son is capable of those) and I love the simplicity of just doing one thing per turn then drawing cards, it means the game plays very quickly.

I have left this game out for my son to play with his best friend who is also five and they play really well together as the rules are so simple I don't actually need to be involved in the game for them to play it - that for me is a win anytime. I still obviously need to be around to settle any disputes but its nice to be able to have a cup of tea while two best friends play a card game together. Lovely.

Additionally I adore the artwork in this game as it is very cute and silly which appeals to me. I wish the women were a bit less feminized but there are a few good ones that aren't so hour glass figured. 

Look for this game at your friendly local games store or online.