Back in a while, we needed to find a birthday gift for one team member. We wanted to buy a new board game. And, you know, it’s really tough to make an interesting choice in the land of board game geeks. We’ve almost seen it all… Once we start playing a few rounds of any game, we already ‘feel’ how the gameplay will roll out. And also, we kind of know each other very well. For all these years it’s been very difficult for us to see something unexpected… At least we thought so…
And then… we stumbled upon this game - Skull.
The game of skulls and roses. The land of lies and bluffs. It seemed so easy at the beginning, but then… It became… wild.
Let’s begin.
Why We Love Skull?
It all started on a lazy Sunday morning. Six of us gathered around the table, opened the game set, took cards that seemed like some lovely beer mats, and started playing.
Each of us got one square card that had four circular cards to go with it. Three flower cards and one skull. The winner is a player who guesses the number of flower cards on the table twice without stumbling upon the skull card, they said. Sounds easy, right?
And yes, Space Cowboys did a great job with visuals, and The New York Times did have a lot of good things to say about it, but the rules just seemed so easy that we thought “uh, why are we doing this?” Like many who tried, we wanted to drop it off… And then it became clear why the game was a great choice. It was not the rules that made the game. It’s in the little noises and moves that players make. A full-thoughted chuckle, a soft sight, an eye roll, a facepalm, a loud tsk! tks!, the bluffs and lies, the “no, you didn’ts,” the laughing out louds. That Sunday became memorable! We spent endless hours playing Skull, and now we have a tradition that the first Sunday of a month starts with Skull.
Let’s break down the rules.
Skull Game Set Up
Setting up a Skull game is rather easy. It takes just a few minutes.
- When you unpack the box, you will find 6 square cards and 24 matching circular cards (and no, these are not beer mats, we promise!);
- Give each player 1 square card, and 4 matching round cards that consist of 3 flower cards, and 1 skull card;
- Pick a first player using any method that you like - flip a coin, throw a die, use Chwazi, play rock-paper-scissors, play a game before the game, play music chairs, the list is long…;
- Start playing.
Rules
Each player starts with 4 cards they keep secret: 3 flowers + 1 skull. Every player chooses one card and places it face down on the matching square card. Now the first player has its turn. They can either:
- Play another card on top of their first, and the round moves on to the next player on their left;
- Or start bidding by saying the number of flower cards on the table they can flip in a row without revealing the skull card.
Once a player starts bidding, no more cards can be added to the table. When the first player says his bid, the next player on their left can either raise the bid (by stating a larger number) or pass (in this case, they wait for another round).
Gameplay continues in the clockwise direction, and the ante is raised until all players but one have passed the bid. This leaves one player, the Challenger, with the highest bid.
Here comes the fun part!
It’s now time for the Challenger to start turning the cards. If in any case, they reveal the skull card in the process, the round ends, and the Challenger loses. And this is where the drama jumps in. The person who dropped the Skull card will be at least honored with a loud TSK!, or an eye roll, or with the look (and we all know that look…). And that person will in return randomly choose and remove one of the Challenger’s cards blindly, which will be returned to the box.
Now, everyone goes back to the beginning and repeats the process. The Challenger that failed will now be the one who plays first.
However, in case the Challenger manages to guess the number of Flower cards on the table, they win the round. They will turn their square mat over, to show they are halfway through the game. Now, everyone goes back to the beginning and starts the game process again, and the Challenger that won is now the first player.
But, there is a twist…
When the Challenger starts flipping the cards over, yes, they can decide on the direction, but, they must start with flipping their own cards first. If any of the Challenger’s cards is skull (because they might have been bluffing), they instantly fail. On the other hand, if the Challenger successfully reveals their cards, they can move to other players’ piles. Note that the Challenger can turn whatever number of cards are on other player’s pile starting from the top.
And the winner is: anyone who guesses the number of flower cards correctly twice! However, sometimes happens that no player can win two rounds, in this case, the winner is the last one standing. The player who loses all the cards is eliminated from the game.
As for the first-hand view of the Skull Game inventory, design, and card quality, you can check out this cool video below.
Skull Game in a Nutshell
Long story short: you set up a game, place your cards, decide the first player who will add a card/bid on a number of flower cards on the table, bluff and deceive along the way, flip, repeat. And we promise you will want to do that endlessly. And expect A LOT OF the unexpected! And a lot of noise along the way...