Thrift Treasure: Baby Dragon Bedtime Card Game
As I mentioned last week, it’s been slim pickings at our thrift stores lately. Sure, there’s the normal inventory of games like Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and Scene It?. But I’ve had a challenging time finding something unique to add to my collection. The only thing in my basket this time was a dragon-themed card game from about five years back – Baby Dragon Bedtime.
Published by Tin Star Games, Baby Dragon Bedtime is an extremely short card game for ages 6+. Inside the box are seventy-two standard sized playing cards. Set up for a game by separating out the starter cards, marked A through G. Each player (up to six) will receive a full five-card set of starting cards to begin the game. The rest of the deck is shuffled and spread out on the table randomly and face down.
Baby Dragon Bedtime is played simultaneously (players don’t take turns). Each player will shuffle their deck of five cards and set them in front of themselves, forming a draw deck. When the signal to begin is called, players will rush to flip over their topmost card and decide whether to take the action listed.
There are three actions in the starting deck. Flip allows you to flip up (or down) any one card in the pool on the table. Peek is similar, except only you are peeking at what the card is, and then you lay it back face down. Grab allows you to take any card from the pool and add it to the top of your discard pile, directly on top of the Grab card you just used.
The cards you grab might have additional actions on them you will activate when they are drawn later, or positive or negative victory points to sum at the end of the game. When your draw deck runs out, quickly turn over the discard pile and continue drawing. If you draw a VP card, just continue, and draw the next one. When any action card is drawn, you have the option of whether to take the action or discard it and continue drawing.
At any time, a player may stop playing and “go to sleep” if they don’t want to add more cards to their deck and risk drawing cards that will negatively affect their score. A game of Baby Dragon Bedtime ends when all but one player has gone to sleep or when all the cards on the table are face up at the same time. The player with the highest total of VPs in their hand is the winner of Baby Dragon Bedtime!
Additional action cards may be added to make the game a little more advanced. Swoop allows you to swap entire decks with another player. Crash requires all active players to discard the top two cards from their deck. Lastly, the Mama! card ends the game immediately when played!
We wouldn’t recommend Baby Dragon Bedtime for older, experienced players. However, since it is a speed-based game, younger players will have an enjoyable time collecting treasures and grabbing cards. You can find copies on Amazon or direct from the manufacturer!
What time should a baby dragon go to bed?
My grandchildren are in the dragon, fairy dinosaur stage and this looks like a great game!
My grands would love this game, and only cards to clean up!