Five Crowns Review

Five Crowns is a pretty good and reasonably fast card game that will probably appeal to gin rummy fans. For some reason, this game has 0 appeal for my kids, even though the rules aren't particularly complicated.

In fact, I bought Five Crowns for my daughter for Christmas, and she turned the present down! She told me that it looked like a game for grown-ups, and she just plain didn't want it, and I could have it back.

I did convince my other daughter to at least TRY playing Five Crowns with me one day, but she only played  a single hand with me and then didn't want to play any more.

I think my daughters' reactions to this game probably says more about my daughters than it does about Five Crowns, but think twice before buying this game to play with the eight year olds in your family.

On the other hand, my Sunday night game group and I played Five Crowns, and everyone enjoyed it. They're not all clamoring to play it again, and it doesn't hold the same appeal that Dominion has, for example, but it's still a fun and quick little diversion.

The game has two decks with 58 cards in each of them. The decks have the standard four suits plus a fifth suit: stars. So the suits are as follows:

• clubs
• diamonds
• hearts
• spades
• stars

Each suit has 11 cards in it, ranked 3 through king. The game also includes six jokers, which serve as wild cards.

In the first round, each player gets 3 cards, and 3's are wild. In the second round, each player gets 4 cards, and 4's are wild. This continues until the final round, when kings are wild.

The goal is to get rid of the cards in your hand by making sets or runs. A set is any three cards or more of the same rank. A run is any three cards or more of consecutive, suited cards. (Like a straight flush in poker.)

When you get rid of all your cards, the other players get stuck with points. Each card is worth its face value in points. The wild cards and face cards have point values as follow:

• kings are worth 13 points
• queens are worth 12 points
• jacks are worth 11 points
• jokers are worth 50 points
• the current wild card is worth 20 points

The Five Crowns card game is nothing earth-shattering, but if you're looking for a fun, quick game to play with some other adults, this is perfect. And since it's easy to learn and fast playing, it's not a huge time investment even if you decide you don't like it.