I don’t know how we first found 5 Crowns card game, or when exactly, but this is one of our go to games when we have friends over.
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5 Crowns card game Quick Overview
Here’s a quick 10 second explanation of Five Crowns card game: It’s Gin Rummy with 5 suits and a changing wild card.
Clear as mud right?
This is part of why we like to play this and introduce it to friends. It’s a game you can easily talk around, as Jeff would call it a “beer and pretzels game.”
Side note, someday I want to get this Five Crowns Playing Card Game in Wooden Protective Box, because our plain cardboard box is falling apart from play.
5 Crowns card game the longer explanation
This game has 12 rounds with you gaining one card each round. The first round you have 3 cards and by the last round you have 13 cards.
Each round you are trying to organize your cards into sets of at least 3:
- Runs- sets that are part of one suit that go in order (3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of hearts)
- Matches- sets of one number that could be multiple suits (3 “9’s”, heart, clubs, stars)
- Sets can have one OR more wild card in them. Wild cards are the current wild for that round and Jokers. Jokers are always wild.
This is the third round, and you have 5 cards. 5’s are wild this time. If you’re ever not sure what card is wild, count the number of cards you have and that number is wild.
Five Crowns is a low level card replacement game.
I figured I better start defining some of the gaming terms I use on posts like these. So, here’s my first definition.
Card replacement- picking up and discarding cards rapidly to cycle through cards rapidly to gain the most effect.
In this case every turn you are discarding and picking up cards. That’s the whole point. You need to change your hand to get the arrangement you want. I say this is a low level version of that because in more extreme versions your goal is to run through your entire hand in that one round.
The most difficult hand is the “5’s,” because you have to get 5 items in your set (sets require a minimum of 3). In this case I ended up with 5 “9’s” with two wild cards.
5 Crowns is a great game to get your kids started on counting cards. You want to teach your kids to be aware of what has been played and what patterns are developing. Who is picking up what, what types of cards are they discarding.
I’m sure you’re thinking, that’s nice, but why do I WANT to do that? Later on in life you want your kids to notice details. What was someone wearing, how are they interacting with other people. Teaching them to notice details in smaller things like card games will help them to get better details later in life.
Besides, it’s “good clean fun.” And a fun excuse to play some games.
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This sounds like an interesting game! How many players are needed to play it (there are games, like Apples to Apples, where you need at least 4 for it to be fun)
We’ve played it with as few as 3 I know for sure. Probably much like Gin Rummy it works with 2 people, but is more fun with a few more. I think my boys have played it on their own from time to time.
I like your reasoning at the end. I had never thought about games in terms of transferable skills in adulthood. Thanks Ticia!
OH, that’s one that’s always in my head in the background, of the secret skills my kids are learning from board games.
We LOVE this game! I got it for Christmas and we play it all the time.. In that last picture you should have made a run of 4, 5, 6 of stars and thrown the wild on the end of that and you would have thrown away your 6 and 3 for 9 points 😉
You’re right! Why didn’t I see that?
This sounds like a fun game to add to the roster of card games kids will enjoy – the illustrations on the cards are so much fun!
I know, I just love the illustrations.
I think I played this with my grandparents as a teenager…
Hmmmm, possibly, I have no idea when this game was first made.
I want to Order these 5Crowns Card Game. Where??
There should be a link to buying it from Amazon in the post.
We played for the first time this weekend and had a great time. But, I have a question. Can you use 2 wild cards with one card, any card, to make a book? This came up numerous times, and I was told it was legal. I said that you needed 2 cards in a suit before you could use your wild cards. We need to know the rules on this. Please get back to me on this. Thank you
We have always played it you can use as many wild cards as you have in your hand, so you could play the King of Clubs and use the Joker and the wild 5 card to make a set of 3 Kings.
Can you lay down a run and a book to go out?
Yes.
How do you settle a tie in this game?
I’ve never had a tie if we played all the rounds of the game, but if I had a tie, I’d probably do another round between to break the tie with the kings wild.
In a set or a run, can a player have more wild cards in that sequence orset than regular suit cards?
We’ve played it that you can, there’s nothing in the rules specifically saying you can’t.