For a Crown is a take-that, deck-construction game.

Title: For a Crown

Year Published: 2025

Designer: Maxime Rambourg

Publisher: Repos Production

Players: 3-5

Game Time: 45 mins

Set-up Time: ~5 minutes

Ages: 8+

Theme: Elizabethan anthropomorphic royal families.

Mechanisms: Take-that, deck construction, points as a resource

How to win: Have the most rubies after 4 rounds.

Game Description

Coming from noble families, you are ready to do anything to accede to the throne…except that the competition between the pretenders is fierce!

How to play For a Crown

For a crown tutorial, including all the rules to be used as a rules refersher or as an alternative to a review style video.

Main Mechanisms

The main mechanism is take that. You spend a lot of the game not just gaining things form yourself, but forcing opponents to lose Rubies.

There is also this weird deck-building/deck-construction thing where everyone builds a single deck. I’m not sure what to call it but it’s closer to just action selection and/or engine building.

USP

The USP is that all of the players build that single deck and then resolve it card after card.

Theme

The theme of waring royal families has been done a lot. At least here it’s more theft and figuratiive back-stabbing instead of murder.

Setup & Rulebook

Setup is fine. As long as you desleeve and sort the cards out at the end of the game it’ll be straight forward to setup.

The rulebook also does a good job but there isn’t that much to cover.

Components & Artwork

The components are really nice. I got this mini expansion that upgraded the cardobard heirlooms to wood for some reason, no idea why. The sleeves are cool and come with 3 spaces for each player colour and the neutral event cards.

The boxes that all the components can be kept it are really nice and help with setup and tear down.

The artwork is fun and cartoony so the animals are cute.

Ease of Teaching

The game is very easy to teach with just 6 symbols to let all of the players know about.

You can always remind players what they so when their card is revealed from the stack.

Similar Games

Any light take-that game really. From the light Love Letter to the heavier El Grande.

For a Crown Review

Positives

The single deck building and resolution is unique and fun.

The components and artwork are really nice, especially for the pice.

The game is simple allowing the players to concentrate on table talk…

Negatives

…but it’s maybe too simple? 5 different event cards and only 6 different actions doesn’t feel like enough.

It’s up for the players to provide the fun.

For a Crown Round-Up

A fun game that needs more to it to be top level.

Rating

I give it 5/10