Acting silly in Action Princesses is encouraged!
Kids love to play pretend.
One of the many scenarios I commonly find my daughter pretending is being a princess.
She loves to dress up and have us play together.
In Action Princesses by Haywire Group, she can take control of a princess and together we can save her castle from a “mean ‘ol dragon” all while dancing, laughing and acting silly.
How to Play Action Princesses
The object of Action Princesses is to lead your princess (or knight) in their quest to defeat the dragon and take back their castle.
This is accomplished by finding the Sword and Key tile before turning over 3 dragon tiles.
This is a cooperative game, so all players work together to find the right tiles.
Set Up
Setting up Action Princesses is quite simple.
Players place the castle on the table and randomly build a circle around it using the 15 moat tiles face down.
Each player receives 10 random path cards without looking at them. They lay their cards face down to create a path leading towards the moat.
The game plays up to 4 players and there are choices of 4 different princesses and 1 prince.
After the characters are selected, players place the dragon on top of the castle and they’re ready to begin.
Player Turns
Start your quest to defeat the dragon off right by giving everyone in your group a high five and then the youngest player gets things started.
On a player’s turn she will roll the die. Die results include moving 1, 2, or 3 spaces.
The player moves their princess pawn along the path and wherever she lands, she will turn over that path card.
The path cards each contain different actions that the player must do.
Actions include thing like “Acting like a duck”, “Sing ‘I’m a little tea pot'”, “Wiggle your nose”, “Do the crab walk”…etc. Basically just a bunch of fun silly actions.
After the player completes their action, it’s the next player’s turn.
When a players reaches the moat, they can choose which direction they want to go: left or right.
Player turns on the moat are the essentially the same — players roll the die and move in the direction of their choice. However, when you flip over a moat tile, the actions are group actions and everyone does the action together.
Somewhere in the moat are 3 Dragon tiles, 1 Sword, and 1 Key card. If you collectively uncover the Sword and Key tile before the 3 Dragon tiles are turned over, you win the game.
Components/Durability
One of my favorite parts of Action Princesses is the cardboard castle.
It really makes the game standout from other games and helps kids feel as if they’re playing pretend rather than playing a game.
The box also doubles as a storage box for all the pieces. Double Win!!
The character pawns and moat tiles are solid cardboard as well.
The path cards are little bit thin and may be subject to getting bent. But even if they don’t it won’t have a negative impact on the game.
All around I am happy with the quality of the components.
Oh, and I did I mention I love the castle!
Can the whole family enjoy Action Princesses?
Everyone in the family can have a great time playing Action Princesses together.
The goal of the game is simple. Just have fun!
That’s what games are all about right?
It’s also so fun to do some of the silly actions together as a family.
We know it’s fun to see your child act silly. But for me what was even more entertaining was seeing my wife do some of the silly actions. This game will truly bring out the inner child in adults if played with their kids.
Youngers kids are able to understand the concept very well.
The path and moat cards contain both text and pictures so that kids who are unable to read are still able to tell what action they are supposed to do.
The game’s recommended age is 5+ but my 3 year old daughter was able to play without any problems and was able to explain the game to my wife when we sat down to play it together.
I can definitely recommend Action Princesses for any family who wants to have a fun and silly family game night.
— Jason
We’d like to thank the Haywire Group for a review copy of Action Princesses.
