Game: Five Crowns

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flowerkin — 2007-12-31T03:53:52+00:00

I can't believe I have this many wild cards (Jacks) and I still can't go out!

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flowerkin — 2007-12-31T03:50:11+00:00

This is NOT a good hand to have when somebody goes out first round on Queens!

Thread: Re: Do your self a favor, get Quiddler instead

thatmarkguy — 2007-06-21T17:29:51+00:00

reimannj2000 wrote:
I would recommend this games partner in crime Quiddler. It has the same type of set up (start at three cards and each round add one/shedding) but you feel like it was because of YOU that you win the game not just the fact that you were dealt "wilds"

I have to strongly disagree with you on this, because as far as I'm concerned, Quiddler suffers from virtually the exact same problem. In Quiddler, you succeed if you're dealt an adequate mix of vowels and consonants to go out on the first turn. You lose when you're given a deal with too much of one and too little of the other to make a scoring hand right away (because someone, invariably, will go out as early as possible, usually their first turn, hoping to stick someone with a dead hand).

Can't say I see any tangible difference between these two games. They're both dominated by the deal, so much that actual gameplay is mostly irrelevant.

Thread: Do your self a favor, get Quiddler instead

reimannj2000 — 2007-06-20T20:13:44+00:00

Five crowns is a rummy game where players have to play sets or run melds in a hurry to be the first player out each round. Each round you get one more card in the hand of cards you have to use and one of the cards go "wild" depending on the round you are on.

1. Wild make most card games boring
This is especially true in this game. The object of the game should read. "Be lucky enough to be dealt wilds on the round you're on." Because that's how it plays. Getting a wild card/tile/resource in games that cause a player to win takes the wind out of my sails. "I win, not be cause I'm cleaver or play well but because I've got THIS."
2. Games that don't allow players to manipulate the game so they feel like THEY won make you feel like a robot.
All too true here. You could easily play this game with the cards face up because the game plays its self. You just have to match cards up or see that you can make a sequential order. Pretty Sesame Street if you ask me.
3. Games that are always random hinder the game more than help.
Normally if a game is different each time you play its a good thing, not so here. Sometimes a round can last several turns and sometimes a player goes out on their first turn. It gets very annoying. Every time someone goes out on their first turn in a round the rest of the players groan.

I don't see how anyone could possible like this game unless you really like rummy games.

I would recommend this games partner in crime Quiddler. It has the same type of set up (start at three cards and each round add one/shedding) but you feel like it was because of YOU that you win the game not just the fact that you were dealt "wilds"

Presentation (Theme, Quality of Parts, etc) 6/10
Cards look nice. I like the extra suit.
Game Play (How fun it is to play) 3/10
Can be frustrating for ten whole rounds.
Investment (Cost in Money and Time, time to fun ratio) 7/10
Plays pretty quick, costs little. Fun is also little.
Strategy (depth of game) 2/10
After reading the rules you have the best strategy all ready.
Overall (not an average) 3/10
If you like rummy games 7/10. If you like word games get Quiddler.

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dsmeyer — 2007-03-18T22:56:35+00:00

Box Interior

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-02-13T12:11:35+00:00

high resolution scan of the back

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-02-13T12:11:06+00:00

high resolution scan of the front

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dsmeyer — 2007-01-20T04:36:54+00:00

Back of Card

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dsmeyer — 2007-01-20T04:30:20+00:00

Yellow Star Royalty

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dsmeyer — 2007-01-20T04:30:04+00:00

Black Spade Royalty

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dsmeyer — 2007-01-20T04:29:46+00:00

Red Heart Royalty

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dsmeyer — 2007-01-20T04:29:26+00:00

Blue Diamond Royalty

Thread: Re: Five Crowns - A Light Review

Neil Thomson — 2007-01-03T14:51:08+00:00

Yeah good pick up Jeffrey. I had mistakenly lumped in the explanation of the wild cards that change with each hand with the Jokers that are always wild.

I will edit the review pronto.

Thread: Re: Five Crowns - A Light Review

augray — 2007-01-03T14:32:34+00:00

Neil Thomson wrote:

A number of Joker cards are also present in the deck and like most games they substitute for a card in the game. However rather than substituting for any card in the deck the Joker takes on the value of the numbered card that matches the hand number. For example in the first hand the Joker’s will be 3’s.
I don't think this is how the Joker cards are played. According to the rules Jokers are always wild and can replace any card. Here are some quotes from the rules on Set Enterprises website (http://setgame.com/fivecrowns/index.html).

Set Enterprises wrote:

Jokers are always wild.

Set Enterprises wrote:

Jokers can replace any card.

The twist is that each hand the card that matches number of cards in a player's hand is wild for that hand.

Set Enterprises wrote:
The wild card changes from hand to hand, and, for each hand, is the card which is equal to the number of cards dealt in the hand. Thus, when three cards are dealt, the 3's are wild, when four cards are dealt, the 4's are wild, and so on until the last hand when the Kings are wild.
Here are some other quotes from the website.
Set Enterprises wrote:
Any card in a run can be replaced by any wild card regardless of the suit of the wild card.
Set Enterprises wrote:

You can have as many wild cards or Jokers in a run as possible (and they may be adjacent to each other).
Set Enterprises wrote:
You can have as many wild cards or Jokers in a book as you wish. Jokers can replace any card.
My family enjoys this game. It scales down to the younger kids well.

Thread: Five Crowns - A Light Review

Neil Thomson — 2007-01-03T09:29:51+00:00

All of my reviews aim to offer a brief overview that allows people to get a good feel for what the game may offer them. I feel that other reviews can be sought if detailed game mechanics is what you are after.

Whilst there has been a large number of new titles released in the strategic gaming market, it has been very slim pickings for players who prefer the traditional card market. I am happy to report that SET Enterprises have begun to fill this void and Five Crowns will be welcomed by many.

When first playing Five Crowns I was hit by one very real fact – this game offers nothing particularly new in terms of a game concept. It uses the Rummy mechanics of acquiring Runs and Sets (called Books in this game) and then laying them down to win the hand. But before you stop reading I must point out that this is precisely the reason why Five Crowns works. This game aims for the traditional card playing market so a bevy of new rules is not desirable.

What Five Crowns does do is offer a number of tweaks and clever twists that makes it an engaging game experience. Firstly the deck of cards adds a 5th suit – Stars. Then the game is given a time limit of 11 hands. On the first hand all players are dealt 3 cards, which means that making one Run or Book will end the hand. The next hand uses 4 cards per player and so on until the last hand, where 14 cards are dealt out. Because some of the hands will not offer players a nice number like 3, 6, 9 or 12 – some of their Runs and Books will require more than 3 cards. This is yet another diversion from Rummy.

A number of Joker cards are also present in the deck and like most games they substitute for any card in the game. In addition each round a different numbered card in the deck will also operate as wilds. The number of cards dealt in a hand denotes which number is regarded as wild. For example in the first hand the number 3’s will act as wilds.

On a player’s turn they can take a card from the discard pile or the deck before discarding a card from their hand. If they can finish they do so and all other players get 1 more turn to do their best. If they can finish they also do so, but if not they lay down any Runs and Books they were able to create and the unused cards in their hand score bad points. The player with the lowest score after hand 11 will win.

The Final Word

Familiarity is the key to Five Crowns being an enjoyable experience. Anybody from 8 to 80 that has played card games will pick this up in under 10 minutes. Five Crowns is one of those games that will get plenty of play with family groups, including grandparents who prefer more traditional lines of play. I can see this being a huge hit at the summer beach house or holiday resort when the sun has gone down and the large number of players means nobody has to sit and watch.

The cards are made from a quality card stock and are just thick enough to stand up to many plays without making them hard to shuffle. Highly recommended for players that don’t want a rulebook that doubles as a paperweight or for a lighter intro game before heavier strategy titles are played.

Thread: kludge for Lost Cities.

markhu — 2005-05-18T17:07:12+00:00

The Five Crowns deck can be used to play Lost Cities--kinda. (BGG entry: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/50 )

But since Five Crowns is missing the Twos (and Aces), you would need to either use a Joker in place of a 2, or just omit them.

From the official Five Crowns rules at http://www.setgame.com/fivecrowns/rulesfivecrowns.htm

The deck consists of two 58 card decks. Each deck contains five suites:
stars , hearts , clubs , spades , diamonds

Each suite has eleven cards: 3 through 10, a Jack, Queen and King. Six Jokers are in the game.

Thread: Session Report

seppo21 — 2004-11-21T14:36:59+00:00

Back in 1994, I invited a group of my college buddies to come hang out with me at my parents' lakehouse. Since we've always played games, a lot of game playing went on. This has turned into an annual gathering with the amount of gaming increasing dramatically in the past few years. This year I was able to play 37 games (27 unique) over essentially four days time. If you are interested in all of the games we played, they can be found on the following Geeklist:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...

The players: Stephen (Myself), Christine, (longsuffering wife), Dwight (single friend), Jared (from Dallas), Becky (Jared's better 9/10), Clint (Preacher), Cheri (Clint's better 3/4), Glen (from Vicksburg), Amy (Glen's better 1/2), Jody (from Dallas), CJ (Fleeing hurricane), Steph (CJ's wife), Page (from Arkansas), and Lori (Page's wife).

Day 3, Fourth Game: 5 Crowns (22)

After Hansa, I was ready for a something a little lighter in order to rest my poor tired head. Since we had moved back to the front of the house, we expect quite a few others to join in. Based on this, and a previous history of enjoyment, we chose 5 Crowns as the next game. For various reasons, several people decided not to play, so we formed up a 5-player game. For those who have never played, 5 Crowns is a rummy game played with a deck of cards in five suits. In each suit, there are 2 of each card from 3 to king. There are also four jokers. The game progresses through 11 hands, starting with a hand of 3 cards and ending with a hand of 13 cards. In each hand, the card number matching the number of cards is wild--i.e. in the 3 card hand, 3's are wild; in the 13 card hand, king's are wild. The object is to form valid rummy melds with your entire hand, meld it all at once, and go out with a discard, at which point all players have another turn to improve their hand and play any melds they have. Points are scored against for cards remaining in your hand. The lowest total after "the kings go wild" is the winner.

As the game commenced, fortune smiled upon Jared and he was able to meld his entire hand quickly. The gods of fortune being fickle, both Becky and myself were cast deeply into the abyss of last place where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth and several unflattering descriptions of Jared. Being such a large sum behind the leaders, I was mulling over instituting the variant rules we have often played in the past. In our variant, each player attempts to obtain the greatest number of points. While this is easy at the beginning, as the game progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to avoid forming melds and obtaining truly disgusting high scores. Whilst contemplating this heinous move--which would have unduly benefited my darling wife--one of the voices told me to wait. Fortune was again fickle and smiled on my wife. However, the screwage this time around was directed at Becky and Jody. It now seemed UI had a chance. Oh, but the powers of fortune were merely toying with my hopes and dreams and cast their favor upon Jared, who was quickly moving into the lead. I managed to double my score and cement a position firmly in last place. However, fortune again smiled on Christine, and through some cosmic mix-up, a small amount was passed on to me. Unfortunately, fortune gave a little to all (except Becky), so that my position was not indeed improved. Jody was the beneficiary of fortunes next gift, whose negative aspects pounded on Jared and Becky. It was not clear the contest the gods had set for us: Jared and Christine would be battling for the premiere positions while Jody and I must fight for third wheel. Unfortunately for Becky, fortune was laughing maniacally over her cards. For the rest of the game Jody and I battled valiantly for the third position with me surviving at the bitter end. Jared and Christine battled as well. However, Jared's spirit was not up to the task, and he faded quickly at the end.

Final Scores:

Christine -- 43
Jared -- 80
Stephen -- 105
Jody -- 106
Becky -- 228

This game has received a lot of play at our gatherings over the years and never fails to entertain. Often, we will see several games played one after the other at the center table, often with up to seven players. Strange that this year, there was but a single game. I can only credit it to the general disinterest in card-gaming of any type this time around. While a shame in some respects, it also means that there were more people playing interesting board games -- a feat that should not go unnoticed.

Thread: Session Report

wiseguy — 2004-06-19T15:40:36+00:00

Another fun game we decided to teach the new couple was Five Crowns. We always love rummy type card games!
I may have won the game because of an early rule controversy whereby the players didn't get to set aside a triple when we were dealt 5 cards. We played it this way for hands 3 & 4. Why change? We did change that rule for 6 cards and higher and I took away the win. But, in looking at the final scores, had everyone scored zero on hand 5, I still would have won!
I went out first on at least 5 of the 12 hands.
Me - 72 pts.
My wife - 138
Skip - 150
Sue - 150

Thread: User Review

red3 — 2004-01-29T15:17:06+00:00

Those people at Set Enterprises seem to have found a formula. It has appeared now in two of their games I have played: Quiddler and Five Crowns.

It basically goes like this: Start off simple. Deal three cards in the first round, then 4 the second round until you reach a pre-determined climax (10 in Quiddler, 13 in Five Crowns.)

The other common elements are to make groups of cards (letters into words in Quiddler, playing cards into runs and books in Five Crowns) and a tendancy to make gameplay easier rather than challenging by increasing the luck factor and the chances of early success with a liberal selection of cards and opportunities.

I assume this achieves a couple of things:
1) It gets new users into the game quickly and demonstrates quickly through play the basic mechanism of the game.
2) The game gets 'more complex' as the hands get larger.

Is it a good formula? Well I'll let you be the ultimate judge of that - but I'll give you my opinion anyway:

It works and it doesn't.

I think it works better in Quiddler, which is a light & fairly easy word game with some interesting light strategy. However, the formula doesn't work so well here. One thing that spoils it in Five Crowns is the fact that there are so many wild cards. Not only do the threes go wild in round one, fours in round two, etc., but there are also several wild Jokers in there. The other notable feature of the deck is the omission of Aces and Twos and the introduction of a new suit, Stars. One wonders if this is done simply to discourage people from playing the game with a couple of plain old decks of cards?

The design of the cards is interesting and colourful, but by no means exceptional. Each suit has a international regal theme with stylized and coloured suit symbols
(Hearts are red, diamonds are blue, I bet you can guess what the others are too. )
I must say that the choice of font for the numbers and letters on the cards is aesthetically awful.

One play of the game and you'll soon realize that it's pretty easy to go out - the game feels that there is just too much luck and too little challenge. With the out-of-the-box balance, players tend to go out very quickly (within three or five rounds, even in the 'harder' rounds later in the game) and most other players tend to be able to make runs or books with most of what they have, to reduce their score to virtually nil. Sometimes you get shafted with a lot of cards but that seems to be when one player gets a great deal and you get a lousy one. It's a "That's not fair" feeling, rather than a "well played, you deserve it" feeling. The rummy style set making and progressive play can be compared to Phase 10, which I think has 'the upper hand', if you'll pardon the pun!

You keep going making sets and books until you get to the final "King goes Wild" round. The slogan of the game is that the "Game's not over until the Kings Go Wild." The rules claim that you can come from behind even in the last round. From my experience, this can hardly ever happen, and when it does it would almost certainly be from an amazing stroke of luck rather than any skill on a particular player's part.

The designers of the game fully intend you to get to the last round. The question is, will you have the patience to, or will you find something better to do with your time? (Like sleep, perhaps?)

Perhaps the slogan would more acurately be "The Game's Not Over Until the Players Fall Asleep"?

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-08-19T22:25:01+00:00

Michael had brought this small card game along with him the previous two weeks, but we never had the opportunity to bring it to the table. The game is released by Set Enterprises, the same folks who brought us 'Set', a game which my wife loves, but twists my mind into painful contortions. Mike assured us that Five Crowns was easy to learn and played quickly. I was dubious, as I'm not a fan of games using a traditional deck of cards, but I ultimately agreed to play as Mike was clearly enthusiastic about the game. We were again joined by John and Gina.

Mike was correct on both counts: the game is easy to learn and plays rather quickly. Unfortunately, it is WAY too luck based for my tastes (and John's, too). It's a game I likely would have played with my parents ... 20 years ago. There are just so many better games out there today to spend time playing this.

The game is rather simple. There is a deck of cards comprised of four suits, numbered 3 - King, along with four (or eight; I don't recall) jokers. There are eight of each number, two in each suit. Each player is dealt a certain number of cards (3 in the first round, with one more per player being dealt in each subsequent round) and the idea is to form sets or runs and get rid of all of your cards. A set must be at least three cards of the same value (either identical or different suits), while a run must be cards of consecutive values, but different suits.

A player's turn is very simple: he can either draw the top card from the deck or the top card from the face-up discard pile. If he is able to form sets or runs with all of his cards, he then lays these cards onto the table and is out. If you can't play out, discard one card. If you do play out, every other player has one more opportunity to accomplish the same feat. Otherwise, the players who were unable to play score points for the cards remaining in their hands after any sets or runs are played.

Each round, a different number is considered wild. This number is initially '3', but increases in value by '1' in each subsequent round. Beginning in the sixth round and in each subsequent round, players may form multiple sets or runs in order to play out. However, each run or set must consist of at least three cards. The game concludes once 11 rounds are completed, meaning the 'king' is the final wild card. The player with the least points wins.

As mentioned, the game is simply way to prone to luck. Draw the right cards and you will play out. If you don't, you will be stuck with a hand of cards which will cost you points. About the only real strategy I could see was some card counting regarding the discards and academic hand management choices. Luck was simply way too powerful.

We managed to suffer through six rounds before John and I asked to halt the proceedings. Gina seemed to be enjoying it, as was Michael. Of course, Michael was also enjoying an incredible run of lucky draws, going out on the final two hands on the very first draw.

Finals: Michael 49, Greg 135, Gina 179, John 200