Five Crowns (game)
Five Crowns is a five-suited rummy-style card game that is played with an extra suit. The deck has no aces or 2s and there are two of every card which increases the players' ability to go out quickly by grouping their cards into books and runs. For each round, the wild card and the number of cards dealt changes, from 3 to 13. The game was created by Set Enterprises in 1996. The highest score possible in the game is 968 (excluding the jokers) or 1225 (with wild cards).
Game Play
The game can be played with 1-7 players, with the option of playing with more players if the cards from 2 sets are mixed together. The game is played over 11 rounds, similar to the rummy style game Three Thirteen. In the first round, 3 cards are dealt to each player. In the second round, 4 cards are dealt to each player, and so on until round 11 where 13 cards are dealt to each player.
As in the game Three Thirteen, players create sets or runs of 3 or more, using the Jokers and the current round's wild card as wilds. Each round has a different wild card (the 3's in the 3-card hand, 4's in the 4-card hand, 5's in the 5-card hand, and so on until the King is wild in the 13-card hand). The rest of the cards are placed face down to form a draw pile and the top card is turned over to form the discard pile. Players draw one card from the top of the draw or discard pile, add it to their hand, and then discard one card to end their turn.
The end of round phase triggers when one player has all of their cards matched in runs or sets and lays them down in front of them when they discard at the end of their turn. Each other player then gets one more draw and discard. Players score points when they have unmatched cards at the end of a round. Each unmatched card scores its face value, except for the current round's wild which scores 20. Unmatched Jokers score 50. After 11 rounds, the scores are totaled and the player with the lowest score wins.
The game play is nearly identical to Three Thirteen, but Three Thirteen uses a standard 4-suit deck of 54 (including Jokers), or multiple decks with more players, while Five Crowns, uses two 5-suit decks with the Aces and Twos removed and an extra Joker (two 58-card decks) for 116 cards total. Scoring is slightly different as well.
Awards
Five Crowns has won the following Best Game Awards:
- 2008 TDmonthly Top-10 Most Wanted Card Games
- 2004 ASTRA Hot Toys
- 1997 Games Magazine 'Games 100' Award
- 1997 Christian Science Monitor, A Top Recommended Game
- 1996 Parents' Choice Award