In this episode, we take a look at a game of queens and kings and dragons and knights and basic arithmetic in… Sleeping Queens!

Sleeping Queens is a 2005 game designed by Miranda Evarts with art by Jimmy Pickering and Red Hansen. In the game, players compete to collect some rather whimsical queens, like the Pancake Queen, the Cat Queen, and the Book Queen. You collect a queen by playing equally whimsical kings, like Puzzle King, the Pasta King, and the Tie-Dye King. Don’t have a king card in your hand? If you can find a simple equation out of the numbered cards in your hand, like 3 + 5 = 8, then you can discard those cards and draw more cards, hoping to get a king. Sleeping Queens has been a family favorite for years. It’s simple, easy to teach, fast to play, and offers great practice at basic addition facts.

This episode features another interview recorded at Gen Con, the big board game convention I attended in Indianapolis in September. I talked with Jason Schneider, vice president for product development at Gamewright, publisher of Sleeping Queens and past podcast recommendations Sushi Go!, Abandon All Artichokes, and Forbidden Island. We are big Gamewright fans in our family! All my interview questions were supplied by the seven-year-old!

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Read about our “Fishing Queens’ variant.

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Music: “Open Road,” “Summer in Paradise,” and “Soda Pop,” https://www.purple-planet.com/.