The Crooked Crown Review

Heavy is the head that wears the crown

I was at my local gaming get-together last week, shout-out to the amazing St Albans Games Group, and was being taught a silly looking game about goblins and their scrabble to be the new king. I had no expectations and no initial interest as I was simply playing as a short amuse-bouche before delving into a pre planned game of the new Undaunted Callisto 2200, however very quickly I found myself really getting into this small but highly entertaining party game: The Crooked Crown. At the end, when the victory was snatched away from me in the final seconds I found that I had unexpectedly become really invested!

The game, The Crooked Crown, from Outset Media. To begin, the king is dead! And the court, you, are all out to get the crown. It is essentially a card game with a little light social deduction and bluffing. Simple right? Well yes but over only 8 speedy rounds you are trying to find the crown and then keep it in your hand until the end. The usual poker faces are out to play and the playful gasps of mock upset which all leads to a very fun and silly game.

In the box you get a small board showing the steps to the throne. Each step is numbered one to eight and represents the rounds and a meeple is moved along to mark the timer of the game. It also plays up to six players and each player gets a unique characterful standee. The theme is thin, you are simply trying to ‘get the crown’ but the world building is nice and although it won’t be to everyone’s taste, the colourful goblins do make me smile! Also on the board are sections numbered two to seven. This is your hand limit and these are the areas your standee will be moving between. And they will be moving!

A crown should not sit easy on the head

Players start with a hand of four cards and on their turns they will play any number of the same card before drawing up to their current hand limit. The cards are broken down into some very simple types. First and perhaps the most interesting is the spy card. Quite simply take a look at another player's hand. Play more than one card and look and multiple players hands, so much information! But don’t give away the knowledge you now have. Go after that player too soon and everyone will know that they have the crown but wait too long and someone else might have inadvertently nabbed it. That’s because the next card is steal. Steal as many cards as you play, from one or multiple opponents. This is always done and random and the person whose hand you are after may shuffle them up as much as they like before you make your choice. This is where most of the bluffing comes. Offer the crown in the hope they don’t take it or try to conceal it. There are also ways to change hand limit. Eating pies will allow you to move up the hand limit track and therefore having more options in your hand, but there are also sabotage cards that can decrease the hand limit of others. Finally there are magic wild cards that can be played as anything and can come in very useful towards the end of the game.

A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in

The Crooked Crown is not a game changer by any means and by taking place in a generic fantasy world might put some people off but the simple mechanism of ‘who has the MacGuffin’ is such an enticing one that I urge you to give it a go. The illustrations are colourful and charming and the cards are so easy to learn that you can be up and running with anyone pretty quickly. I am not usually a social deduction kind of gamer but I found myself having a lot of fun and it plays so quickly you might just want to go round again and again!