Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

• Designers: Daniel Byrne, Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Pleaez, Tirso Virgos
• Publisher: Bezier Games
• Players: 3-6
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30-45 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and many other fairy tale princesses are celebrating a five-day party. The prince charmings, who have not been invited, will try to infiltrate the ball to propose marriage to the girls. As a princess, you have to avoid marriage proposals and remain single and independent after the celebrations.

Rebel Princess takes place over five rounds, representing the five days of a party, and each round has a special rule that makes each game totally different. The general mechanisms are those of trick-taking games, in which each player plays a numbered card into each trick, following one of the four suits in the game. The player with the highest number of the suit that started the trick takes all the cards of that trick — but that’s not necessarily good as players want to avoid taking cards with prince charmings, who each bring one marriage proposal, aside from the enchanted frog who brings five proposals. The player with the fewest marriage proposals after five rounds wins.

Importantly, each player assumes the role of a different fairy tale princess and has a special ability that they can use once per round.

To set up the game, deal each player two Princess cards and each player simultaneously chooses one to play in this game.  When the Princesses are revealed, read off the special ability associated with your character.  Then prepare the deck (based on player count) and shuffle it and then completely deal out the deck to the players.  Choose 5 Round cards, one for each Round of the game – either at random or using a pre-determined set.  Try to save the darker Round cards for use only in the final round of the game.

At the beginning of each round of play, flip up the Round card for this round and read the rule aloud.  Also note the passing rule found just above the card title.  All players should simultaneously choose which cards they are passing.  The starting player leads the first trick (determined randomly to start the game). 

Gameplay here is very similar to Hearts – if you are familiar with that traditional card game.  The start player leads a trick by playing any card from his hand face up. Then, going clockwise around the table, players must follow the suit of the lead card if possible.  If they do not have any cards in the suit of the first card, then they are free to play any card.  When each player has played one card to the trick, it is evaluated, and the player who played the highest card of the suit which was led wins, and the winner takes all the cards and places them face down in their pile.  The winner of the trick now leads the next trick. Continue this until all the cards are played.

The Prince suit is a special suit – every card in this suit is worth a point (and you generally don’t want to take points in this game!).  As such, players are not allowed to lead a Prince to start a trick unless someone has already played one.  Generally, this happens when a player does not have a card in the suit that was led in a trick, and they play a Prince in order to cause someone else to take that point.  Of course, if you only have Princes left in your hand, then you are allowed to lead a Prince.

Once per round, each player may also use the special power granted to their Princess.  Simply announce that you want to use your power, flip your Princess over so that you don’t try to use it again this round, and then execute the power.  The only exception to the Princess power rule is that you cannot use your Power if it would immediately “undo” another Princess power just performed.

When all the tricks are played, the hand is scored. All players turn over their collected card stacks and see how many Prince cards they have; these are each worth 1 point.  There is one other special card, the Frog (the 8 of the green Pet suit) which is worth 5 points.  You can easily see the point value of each card by looking for the skulls in the bottom center of the card.  Players mark their scores down on the sheet.

There is one exception to the scoring rule – if one player manages to collect all the scoring cards, that is all the Princes as well as the Frog, then they have become the Rebel of the Ball.  Instead of scoring a large amount of positive points, they instead score negative 10.

At the end of the round, reset all the Princess cards, gather up all the playing cards to shuffle and re-deal them.  Repeat this process for all 5 rounds.  At the end of the game, the player with the fewest points wins!  Ties are broken in favor of the player who was able to score zero or fewer points in the most rounds during the game.

My thoughts on the game

Rebel Princess first came out at Spiel 2023 from Zombi Paella.  Our group got a copy, and we did enjoy exploring that game.  It was a nice way to get a variant on a simple trick-taking game that we all enjoyed. The combination of the Princess powers and the Round rules made for an exciting and unpredictable game.  The art was fun and whimsical as well.  

This new version of the game feels like an improvement on the original version. Compared to the original edition, Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition features:

• Two new Princesses and six new Round cards
• Princess cards upgraded to thick punchboard tiles
• Round cards upgraded to Tarot-sized cards with rules text on each card
• Balance tweaks to existing rules, rounds, and princesses
• A new “Rebel of the Ball” mechanism to allow players to catch up if they are falling too far behind

The artwork remains the same (as far as I can tell) and the new cards are done in the same style.  Ergonomically, there are a number of improvements.  I really like the tarot card sized Round cards.  They are much easier for all players to read around the table, and they prevent them from being accidentally shuffled into the deck.  Second, the Princesses come on thicker tiles and this gives them a nice bit of heft (and again stops them from being shuffled in).

With the increase in both Round cards as well as Princess powers, there is a lot more variety in the game, and many more chances for players to come up with unique combinations to take advantage of strategically.   The base of the game is still a straightforward point avoidance trick-taker, but trying to manage the Round effect makes every hand different.  And, since players can only use their Princess power once each hand; it can be a challenge to find just the right time to use the power for maximum effect.  There’s always the risk of waiting too long, and then not having an appropriate opportunity to play the power at all!

Interestingly, the original version of the game did not have a “shoot the moon” scoring rule – which is a bonus given to a player who was lucky/unlucky enough to take all the points.  It is not a common occurrence, but it is nice to have a rule in place to save someone who simply gets a very unfavorable deal.  With some clever play, a player with an exceptionally bad hand can turn it into an exceptionally good one!

The game feels just right at 5 rounds, though the rules suggest you could also cut it down to three.  I don’t mind playing extra hands here because I like exploring the combination of Round rules and Princess powers that come up in each hand.   Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition is a great addition to anyone’s game library, and its similarities to a well known traditional card game should make it accessible to nearly everyone.  

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Dan B (1 play of what I guess was the 2nd edition): Do we really need another Hearts variant? I find Hearts pretty dull and all the extra stuff pasted onto it here didn’t help all that much, especially since the various princess powers don’t seem balanced at all. That being said, it’s not actively terrible, just blah.

Lorna cute game of trick avoidance, perfectly pleasant to play but nothing earth shaking here

Justin B (three plays): I love Hearts, so it was no surprise that I loved Rebel Princess. Most players I know don’t have extensive amounts of games in their collection that mimic what is going on here, myself included, so a fresh take on Hearts with gamebreaking powers and new rules each round worked wonders for the players who joined me at the table. The price point is a bit high, but I otherwise have no complaints about Rebel Princess and I have already done a six-player game with my family to great success.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Justin B
• I like it. Dale Y, Lorna
• Neutral. Dan B
• Not for me… Steph H