Five Crowns product reviews

I've never played Rummy, it was never a game my mum was into, but thanks to playing Five Crowns I can play Rummy easily, so a win win. I can't recall how old I was when I first bought a copy of Five Crowns, but I can recall that it quickly became a favourite to play with my mum and my grandparents at our weekly afternoon teas. Now after many years of Five Crowns Junior, my kids are learning to play this more mature version. There are no 2's or Aces in this deck of cards and we have a fifth suit, stars, added to the mix. The wild changes each hand, so the first time it is 3's, then 4's and so on until the king is wild, and as the box says, it ain't over till the kings go wild (handy hint, if you forget what card is wild, count your hand).

Each card scores face value, K = 13, Q = 12, J = 11, wild = 20 and the Joker is 50! The aim, end the eleven rounds with the lowest score. At the moment, my kids are finding it a little confusing, after all, for a few hands you have to have combos of four and three, or four and four etc. but they are getting the hang of it, the only one having any real issues is my eldest and that's mostly because he hasn't coped with the design changes. The more players you have, the longer the game, so don't settle down with several people if you're after quick, my group of five are known to take up to an hour (though in all fairness that is with three kids still learning the ropes). This has been a family fave since day one and will be for a while yet.