Once upon a time…
So, trick taking games have had a little explosion in popularity over the last few years, a genre of card gaming that goes back to classics like Hearts or Spades. Well, Rebel Princess takes that classic game of Hearts and adds a theme and some additional twists and turns along the way.
I was never in a card game kind of a house growing up but many of my friends were, and so when I introduced them to Rebel Princess as a variant of Hearts they all jumped at the chance to play and brought with them an ease to entry that many games don’t afford. For those, like me who didn’t grow up playing cards in a rainy caravan park in Pembrokeshire, Hearts is a simple trick taking game where players must follow the lead, suit if they can, and the highest number at the end of the trick (providing it was in the lead suit’) wins the ‘trick’, taking the cards and placing them in front of them. The spin in Hearts is that you want to avoid a certain suit, hearts, with each one in front of you at the end of the round is worth points, and lowest points at the end of the game wins.
One Day My Prince Will Come
I love this theme! The game presents all the classic ‘princesses’ we know and love from Mulan to Cinderella to the Ice Queen and adds in the caveat that these are strong independent women who don’t need a Prince to ‘save’ them or make them complete. There are four suits to replace the classics, green or animal, red or queen, yellow or fairy and black or the notorious princes. Each prince brings with them a proposal, something you are desperate to avoid and so any princes in your area at the end of the round will indeed total up points, points you do not want. Beware though as hidden in the green ‘animal’ suit there is frog Prince. If you manage to secure him by the end of the round he will give you five points to add to your total! As with Hearts, the lead player can not start a trick with a Prince until they have stuck in by being played by another player who can’t follow the lead suit. Once they are in then players can lead with them. I love this element of the base game as there is a building tension as to when they are going to ‘break in’ and once that happens, chaos can be unleashed.
Once upon a time…
So, trick taking games have had a little explosion in popularity over the last few years, a genre of card gaming that goes back to classics like Hearts or Spades. Well, Rebel Princess takes that classic game of Hearts and adds a theme and some additional twists and turns along the way.
I was never in a card game kind of a house growing up but many of my friends were, and so when I introduced them to Rebel Princess as a variant of Hearts they all jumped at the chance to play and brought with them an ease to entry that many games don’t afford. For those, like me who didn’t grow up playing cards in a rainy caravan park in Pembrokeshire, Hearts is a simple trick taking game where players must follow the lead, suit if they can, and the highest number at the end of the trick (providing it was in the lead suit’) wins the ‘trick’, taking the cards and placing them in front of them. The spin in Hearts is that you want to avoid a certain suit, hearts, with each one in front of you at the end of the round is worth points, and lowest points at the end of the game wins.
One Day My Prince Will Come
I love this theme! The game presents all the classic ‘princesses’ we know and love from Mulan to Cinderella to the Ice Queen and adds in the caveat that these are strong independent women who don’t need a Prince to ‘save’ them or make them complete. There are four suits to replace the classics, green or animal, red or queen, yellow or fairy and black or the notorious princes. Each prince brings with them a proposal, something you are desperate to avoid and so any princes in your area at the end of the round will indeed total up points, points you do not want. Beware though as hidden in the green ‘animal’ suit there is frog Prince. If you manage to secure him by the end of the round he will give you five points to add to your total! As with Hearts, the lead player can not start a trick with a Prince until they have stuck in by being played by another player who can’t follow the lead suit. Once they are in then players can lead with them. I love this element of the base game as there is a building tension as to when they are going to ‘break in’ and once that happens, chaos can be unleashed.
All The Single Ladies Put Your Hands Up
Each player will start the game with a Princess chosen randomly from a selection of thick card tiles and each with a special power. Once per round, players can use their power with abilities such as you can decide who is going to lead, or by forcing someone to lead with a specific suit etc. They are all pretty situational and can be easily forgotten about, but there are some really powerful ones out there. There are a lot of tiles which means there will always be ones better than others, but the game is pretty fast and the powers are never game breaking so it doesn’t really matter too much.
Played over five rounds, each round will also have a story card that will bend the rules temporarily from round to round. This may change the win condition for that round, or make other suits score points as well as the princes. There are a load of these cards and so the replayability in this game is huge.
Happy Ever After
This deluxe version offers great quality tiles and really nice quality cards all in a neatly designed insert, and the artwork by Alfredo Caceres is characterful and colourful and really elevates a game that otherwise has no theme or story to tell.
If you like Hearts then this version will offer a shed load of replay-ability and variation to keep the game fresh but it won’t ‘fix’ the game if you don’t like it. But for a small box game at a great price, it is a wonderful addition to any collection and offers a strong and independent experience from the classic that inspired it!
Score: 85%
Artwork: 4/5
Player interaction: 5/5
Complexity: 3/5
Replayability: 4/5
Component quality: 4/5
You might like:
● If you love Hearts and want an added twist
● Lovely components
● Great artwork
You might not like:
● If you don’t like hearts this won’t fix that
● The princess powers are very situational
