Thrift Treasure: Sleeping Queens
Luck has been with us lately when game-shopping at our local thrift stores. We’ve found enough 88 cent games to keep our Thrift Treasure series running for quite some time! If you haven’t started looking for great games at your local Goodwill or Salvation Army, you don’t know what you’re missing!
This week we happened across a card game from GameWright. We had a lot of fun with our last title from them, There’s a Moose in the House, and hoped this one would be as engaging. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that Sleeping Queens was all that!
There are 79 cards in the box comprised of two decks. One set of twelve queens (shown above in their setup position) and the other 67 orange-backed cards in a draw pile. Each player is dealt 5 cards to their hand to play from.
The object is to collect (wake up) 5 queens or queens totaling at least 50 points before your opponent. Play a King card and he wakes one up. Play a knight and he will steal a queen from an opponent, unless they have a dragon to defend her.
There is a sleeping potion to put an opposing queen back to sleep as well as a magic wand to counteract the potion. There are also various numbered cards that are only used as discards. You may discard two (and draw two) if you have a pair, and in a unique twist you can discard more if you are able to put together a mathematical equation (addition only). For instance, if you hold a 2, 3 and a 5 you may discards all three (and draw 3 new ones) because 2+3=5.
Sleeping Queens is rated for players 8+, but can easily be enjoyed by much younger children. Designed for 2-5 players and lasting only 5-10 minutes per round is a good (and inexpensive) travel game or time-killer between longer games. And like many of GameWright’s other card titles, is a Dr. Toy “Smart Toy” award winner! Pick up a copy on Amazon for under $10 shipped!
Wow, 88 cents, that’s a steal and the game looks like a lot of fun too!
Love games that can be incorporated and used for travel/ hotel games! Also games that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
anything that travels well is great by me! if it’s fun and can take along, what’s not to love?
That’s a great deal! Your description made me think of the game of chess, even though I see this is different. It sounds like it would be fun once you got the hang of it.
Looks like a fun game. I love the drawings on the cards. I would be tempted to put a few of them in a frame!
This looks like a fun game! I love games that travel well it helps to pass time when stuck in hotel rooms.
After seeing some of the great finds friends of mine have found, I’ve started checking out the local Goodwill and Amvets…LOTS of great deals. I’ve found that there are even a lot of brand new items that are donated by local stores. Can’t beat a cute game for under a dollar!
This seems like such a fun family game! I am sure my daughter and I would have a blast playing this fun game.
What a fun game! We try to play games with the kids often but we have never seen this one! I really want to find it now.
Cute!! My daughter loves ALL card games so I know she would like this one! Love the illustrations.
You always have thew best Thrift store scores!! This looks like a fun card game. We always take card games along when we travel.
What a fun game!! I can’t believe you only got it for $0.88
These cards would be so good for travel and I love how relatable they are – cute and fun!
I love finding great deals like that. The kids never know the difference. They are having fun and that is what matters!
Awesome. My daughter loves all sorts of card games like this.