Sleeping Queens is a card game designed for two to five players and was invented by Miranda Evarts and first manufactured by Gamewright in 2005. In the game, players use cards to wake up sleeping queens, steal or put to sleep the awakened queens of their opponents, and take chances.
Sleeping Queens Cards
The deck contains 79 cards in total including 12 Queens, 8 Kings, 5 Jesters, 4 Knights, 4 Sleeping Potions, 3 Wands, 3 Dragons, and 4 cards for each number from 1 through 10. Remember that each Queen has a different point value, and there are also King, Knight, Dragon, Jester, Sleeping Potion, and Wand cards, as well as number cards from 1 through 10.
Sleeping Queens Rules
To set up the game, separate the cards into two decks by the card back, shuffle the 12 Queen cards, and place them face down in the center of the playing area in four rows of three. Then, shuffle the red-backed deck, deal 5 cards to each player, and place the remaining cards face down in a draw pile in the middle of the queens.
The players will discard cards onto the pile next to the draw pile and before starting the game, familiarize yourself with the cards, keep your cards secret from your opponents, and enjoy the game.
The objective of the game is to be the first person to get 5 Queen cards or 50 points if there are 2 to 3 players, or 4 Queen cards, or 40 points if there are 4 to 5 players, the game can be won by collecting four sleeping queens or getting 40 or more points.
How To Play Sleeping Queens Card Game
To play the game, players take turns playing an action card and drawing a new one. They can use King cards to wake up sleeping queens, Knight cards to steal other players’ queens (unless protected by a dragon card), Dragons to stop Knights, Sleeping Potion cards to put any of their opponents’ awakened queens back to sleep (unless protected by a wand card), and Jester cards to take a chance.
The game starts with each player having five red cards from a deck, and the remaining cards are placed in the middle. The 12 queen cards are placed face down in the play area. On a player’s turn, they can play an action card or discard cards to draw new ones.
Players can use power cards, such as kings, to pick up any queen they want. They can steal any opponent’s queen by playing a knight card. However, if the opponent has a dragon, they can show it to stop the knight from stealing the queen.
Players can put any of their opponent’s awakened queens back to sleep by playing a sleeping potion card. They can also turn the top draw pile card face up if it’s a jester card. If it’s a king, knight, dragon potion wand, or jester, players can add it to their hand and take another turn and if it is a numbered card, players count through the players, starting with them and continuing to their left. The last player counted gets to awaken a princess from the center.
The rose queen is worth five points and can take another queen with her if awakened from the center. Players can select another sleeping queen and place both faces up in front of them if they find the rose queen. Players can stop their opponent’s knight by playing a dragon card from their hand. They can defend against a sleeping potion by playing a wand card from their hand.
Other rules include: The Cat Queen and Dog Queen can’t be collected by the same player and if players already have one of these queens in front of them and reveal the other, they must put it back in the row face-down and players can discard cards instead of playing.
Winning
The person who collects either 5 queens or 50 points worth of queens wins the game, and in a two to three people game, or 4 queens or 40 points worth of queens in a four to five person game.
