Today's post is about a card game we recently added to our home school / game school collection and it is the one and only "Sleeping Queens".
Having read a few blog posts of recommendations of good board or card games for preschoolers / kindergarten aged children, I saw Sleeping Queens come highly suggested several times. We went to our local board game shop and when I saw they were selling a 10th anniversary edition at a very reasonable price, we snapped it up and haven't looked back.
I love the story behind Sleeping Queens of young Miranda Evarts not being able to sleep one night as she had this idea of a card game going round and round in her head. Luckily she was still thinking about it in the morning and her parents listened and helped her make it a reality. She was 6 years old!!
The premise of the game is that there are 12 or 16 sleeping queens (depending on what version of the game you have) and you need to wake them up using some of the power cards in the deck. The aim of the game is the first player to 5 queens / 50 points and people use knights and sleeping potions to steal or put your queens back to sleep. You can have defence cards in your hand against such attacks which come in the form of dragons and magic wands.
We have had this game for 1 week, and barr one day, my daughter has played it AT LEAST 3 times a day and she is showing no signs of waivering. Its simple enough for some 4 year old's to understand but also has enough elements to make this addictive to adults alike! Myself and husband have no qualms about playing it with her whenever she requests it.
At the moment we are not playing the "equations" element to the game or a couple of the other rules around certain queens but I love that as she grows and gets older with the game there are still ways we are going to be able to add to it and keep it fresh. The idea with the equations is that you can play more cards if you can make a sum out of it. An example of this would be playing a 2, 3 and 5 card, announcing as you do that 2+3=5. This maths is too advanced for her at the moment but she will get there.
All in all I would say this is a huge hit in our household and I feel its going to be a favourite for a long time to come. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending it to any family looking for new and different card games to add to their stash, I feel the premise behind it is pretty unique. The cards and illustrations are adorable and it is compact to take it on your travels with you. The only thing I would say is that it might not make a very good train / plane card game as you need to play at a table big enough to lay out the 16 queen cards face down plus the pick up and discard piles.
Do you have Sleeping Queens in your game stash or are you considering getting it? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!
