Sleeping Queens Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of Sleeping Queens is to be the first player to awaken enough queens to win the game.

Setup

Separate the cards by their card backs.
Shuffle the Queen cards (green back). In normal versions of the game you will place the 12 cards facedown into four rows of three cards. You should leave a space between the second and third rows. In Deluxe versions of the game you actually get 16 queens. You can either choose to use all 16 cards or leave four cards out of the game.
Shuffle the red backed cards and deal out five to each player. You can look at the cards you were dealt, but you shouldn’t show them to the other players.
Place the rest of the red backed cards facedown in the space between the Queen cards to form the draw pile. Below the draw pile you will form a discard pile.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game.

How to Play Sleeping Queens

On each of your turns you will take one of two actions:

Play a card
Discard a card(s)

After you have taken your chosen action, you will take cards from the draw pile until you have five cards in your hand.

If the draw pile ever runs out of cards, you will shuffle the discard pile to create a new draw pile.

Play then passes to the player on your left who takes the next turn.

Playing a Card

If you choose to play a card on your turn, you can only play one card. Each type of card has a different special ability which is activated when you play it. See the corresponding section below for details on what each card does.

Kings

When you play a King card you get to awaken one of the Queens. Place the King card on the discard pile and then choose one of the facedown Queen cards from the table. You can pick whichever Queen you want. Flip the card over and place it in front of you so all of the other players can see it. The Queen is now awake.

Play King card — The current player has played the Hat King. They choose one of the Queen cards to reveal. The player takes the Sunflower Queen that they revealed and places it in front of themselves.

Should you flip over the Rose Queen, you get to wake up an additional Sleeping Queen. See the Special Sleeping Queens Cards section below for more details.

Knights

Should you play a Knight card, choose one of the awake Queens in front of one of the other players. You can choose any Queen in front of another player. Take the chosen Queen from the other player and place it face up in front of you.

Playing a Knight card — One of the other players had the Book Queen in front of them. Since the card is worth 15 points, another player plays a Knight card to take the Book Queen for themselves.

Dragons

Whenever another player uses a Knight card against you, you can immediately play a Dragon card even if it isn’t your turn. If you forget to play the Dragon card, you cannot play it later to block the Knight card. The Dragon card blocks the Knight card preventing the other player from taking one of your Queens. Discard both the Knight and Dragon cards.

Both the player who played the Knight and Dragon card get to draw a new card.

Playing a Dragon card does not count as your turn. After playing the Dragon card, the next player in turn order after the player who played the Knight card gets to take the next turn.

Sleeping Potions

You can use a Sleeping Potion card to put one of the awake Queens back to sleep. When you play the card, choose one of the Queen cards in front of one of the other players. You can choose whichever Queen you want. After you discard the Sleeping Potion card, take the chosen Queen and place it face down along with the rest of the sleeping Queens.

Play Sleeping Potion card — The current player has played a Sleeping Potion card against the player who has the Peacock Queen card. The Peacock Queen card will be flipped over and placed back in the middle of the table.

Wands

Should another player use a Sleeping Potion card against you, you can defend yourself by playing a Wand card. You must play the card immediately after the Sleeping Potion is used against you even if it isn’t your turn. If you forget to play the Wand card right away, you cannot use it to block the Sleeping Potion card.

Using a Wand card in Sleeping Queens — A player tried to use a Sleeping Potion card against the Peacock Queen. The player who has the Peacock Queen card has decided to play a Wand card to block the Sleeping Potion card. The player gets to keep their Peacock Queen card. The Sleeping Potion and Wand cards are discarded.

The Wand card blocks the Sleeping Potion so you won’t lose any of your Queens. Discard the Wand and Sleeping Potions cards.

Both players who played a card will draw a new card to replace the card they played.

Playing a Wand card does not count as your turn. After playing the Wand card, play continues with the player to the left of the player who played the Sleeping Potion card.

Jesters

When you play a Jester card you are taking a chance. Place the Jester card face up in the discard pile. You will then take the top card from the draw pile and reveal it.

Should you reveal a power card (King, Knight, Dragon, Potion, Wand, Jester), you will add the card to your hand and take another turn.

Play Jester card and reveal King card — After playing a Jester card, the player reveals a King card from the draw pile. The player who played the Jester card gets to add the Chess King to their hand.

When you reveal a number card check the number on the card. Starting with yourself and moving left/clockwise, count off the players until you reach the number on the card. The player that matches the number on the card gets to choose one of the Queen cards to awaken.

Play Jester card and reveal a number card — After playing a Jester card, the player reveals a number card from the draw pile. The players will count to six. The sixth player gets to awaken a Queen card.

Discard a Card

If you choose to discard a card, there are three different ways to discard cards.

First you can choose one card from your hand to discard. You will then draw one card to replace the card you discarded.

Second if you have two cards in your hand that are the same number, you can choose to discard both of them at the same time. In this case you will get to draw two new cards.

Discarding a pair of cards in Sleeping Queens — This player had two seven cards in their hand. They discard both cards and get to draw two new cards.

Finally you can use the number cards in your hand in order to make an addition equation. You can use any number of number cards which when added together equal another number card in your hand. For example say you have a 1, 4, 5, and 10 cards. You could make an equation like 1 + 4 + 5 = 10. In this case you would get to discard all four cards and draw four new cards.

Discarding an addition equation in Sleeping Queens — A player has these four number cards in their hand. If you add 2 + 3 + 4 you get 9. The player could choose to discard all four cards in order to draw four new cards.

You are not allowed to make an equation that has more than two numbers on each side of the equal sign. For example 2 + 4 = 1 + 5 is not allowed.

Special Sleeping Queens Cards

Each awake Queen card in front of you is worth the number of points printed on the card. A few of the Queen cards also have a special ability which is activated when they are woken up.

Cat Queen and Dog Queen

If you already have the Cat Queen or Dog Queen, you cannot acquire the other card since cats and dogs don’t get along. For example if you have the Dog Queen and awaken the Cat Queen, you cannot take the Cat Queen card and must return it facedown to the table. Your turn then ends.

Rose Queen

When you reveal the Rose Queen, you immediately get to choose another Queen card from the center of the table to awaken. You will place both Queens in front of you. This ability is only activated when you first awaken the Rose Queen.

Should you take the card from another player, you don’t get to activate the ability again. If the Rose Queen is put back to sleep and a player awakens her again, the player that awakens her does get to take the ability.

Strawberry Queen

This Queen card is only in the Deluxe and 10th Anniversary editions of the game.

When you awaken the Strawberry Queen, you will keep it for the rest of the game. No player may play a Knight or a Sleeping Potion card against it.

Winning Sleeping Queens

The game will end once one of the players acquire enough Queens or have enough points between all of the Queens they have acquired. Each Queen card is worth the amount of points printed on it.

In two and three player games, a player needs to have five Queens or their Queens have to be worth 50 or more points.

In four and five player games, a player needs to have four Queens or their Queens have to be worth 40 or more points.

Winning Sleeping Queens — Here are two different ways you could win in a four player game. The top player would win because they woke up four Queen cards. The bottom player would win because they woke up Queen cards worth more than 40 points.

Should all of the Queen cards be collected by a player and none of the above have happened, each player counts up how many points their Queens are worth. The player who has the most points wins the game.

Sleeping Queens FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

12 Queen Cards (the deluxe versions have 16)
8 King Cards (the deluxe versions have 10)
5 Jester Cards
4 Knight Cards
4 Sleeping Potion Cards
3 Wand Cards
3 Dragon Cards
40 Number Cards (4 of each number 1-10)
Instructions

Year: 2005 | Publisher: Gamewright | Designer: Miranda Evarts | Artist: Jimmy Pickering

Genres: Card, Children’s, Memory

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-5 | Length of Game: 20 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.