Publisher: Asmodee
Price*: £14.99
No. of players: 3–6
Play time: 30 mins
Age: 13+
There’s one game that repeatedly comes to the table when a group of us are down at the pub, and that’s Skull.
Easy to pocket (out of its box!), easy to teach and incredibly social due to its bluff-heavy gameplay, it’s the perfect round-table accompaniment to your ale and general banter. It’s a looker too, which never hurts.
Gameplay
Up to six players each take a play mat of their colour and four matching cardboard discs, all of which (appropriately) look a bit like beer mats. Three of the discs depict a flower, and one a skull.
Each round starts with each player choosing one of their discs and placing it face down onto their play mat. The first player (determined randomly for the first round) then either places another disc, or can make a Challenge.
If they place another disc play proceeds around the table clockwise, with each player either placing a face down disc on top of the one(s) already played (slightly spread out so all players can see how many have been played) or making a Challenge.
The Challenge is made when a player whose turn it is makes a call of a single number, which is how many discs currently played on the table they think they can turn over, without revealing a skull in the process, starting with (and this is important) ALL of their own discs first.
Once a Challenge is made, no more discs can be placed. On their turn players can only increase the Challenge number, or Pass, bowing out of the round and taking no further part.
Once every player has passed, the Challenger with the highest bid must make good by flipping over a number of discs equal to their Challenge, starting with every disc in their stack.
If they hit a Skull on the way, the Challenge is over and they lose one of their four discs, chosen randomly by the player whose skull the Challenger revealed and kept secret until the end of the game.
If they flip nothing but flowers, they’ve won the round and turn over their play mat to indicate their victory.
Win two rounds and you’ve won the game!
Final Thoughts
These days you have your pick of social deduction games, but few are simpler to teach and more engaging than Skull.
Reliably, with every round played, there will be some sort of round-table uproar, whether congratulatory after someone has made a good call and dodged a skull, or gloatingly as some poor sap flips a skull and loses a disc.
Your easily-readable friend suddenly become inscrutable as everyone’s bluffing game cranks up several notches. It’s like poker, but so much more accessible and less intimidating for a novice.
I mean you could play for money if you wanted to, but the joy of Skull is the sideways glances, tense silence as someone starts to flip discs and then explosive cheers and laughter at the result.
You can certainly get the same kind of vibe from Perudo/Liar Dice, but those require the repeated noisy rattling of cups and dice, which isn’t necessarily the most sociable of things to do at the pub — not when six of you are doing it. After several pints.
With Skull you might ostentatiously slap your discs down on the table, but the only looks you’ll get from other patrons are in curiosity at what seems to be entertaining you all so thoroughly.
It’s a no-brainer. Skull deserves a place in everyone’s collection.
*Quoted prices are recommended retail prices (RRP) only and do not represent the real world prices available in stores and online. Shop around for bargains!
