Small Shelf Games: Skull

Welcome to the first post in the Small Shelf Games series! Every post in this series will be about a game that can be played with generic game components that are small, easy to store, and don't need you to break the bank to play. Board games increasingly need large boxes full of custom components, and while I love those games, I'm even more in love with items that can you can use to play an infinite number of games, while taking up less space than a single hardcover book.

With that said, let's talk about Skull! Skull is a super simple bluffing game that doesn't need you to hold a lot of cards or tokens, and has a surprising amount of depth. It has all the tension of a poker game, but with a fraction of the setup time and complexity, and can be taught in minutes.

Skull

• Players: 2-8
  • Recommended: 3-6
• Complexity: Low
• Type: Bluffing
• Required:
  • A deck of 52 Standard Playing Cards.
• Optional:
  • Another two decks of 52 Standard Playing Cards, identical to the first.

Setup

1. Give one King card to each player. This is their Skull card.
2. If you have three decks, pick out a group of three identical numbered cards (one from each deck) for each player. If you only have one deck, just give each player three cards of the same number. This is their Flower cards.
3. Give each player two random cards from the deck, and place them face up in front of the player. This is their Win Markers.

Each player should now have a hidden hand of four cards (one Skull, three Flowers), and two face-up Win Markers in front of them.

Example Setup with three decks:

• Player 1: ♣️K, ♥️2, ♥️2, ♥️2
• Player 2: ♦️K, ♦️2, ♦️2, ♦️2
• Player 3: ♠️K, ♣️2, ♣️2, ♣️2

Example Setup with one deck:

• Player 1: ♣️K, ♣️2, ♥️2, ♦️2
• Player 2: ♥️K, ♦️3, ♠️3, ♣️3
• Player 3: ♦️K, ♠️4, ♥️4, ♦️4

Gameplay

1. Choose a starting player to go first in the placement round.

Tip: Not sure who should go first? Use the player that most recently smelled a flower!

Placement Phase

1. At the start of each round, every player simultaneously places one of their cards face down in front of them to form the beginning of their stack.
2. Then, starting with the first player, they can either:
   1. Place another card face down on top of their stack, passing control to the next player.
   2. Or, make a bid by saying out loud the number of cards they think they can flip over without revealing a Skull card.
      • This immediately ends the Placement Phase, and starts the Bidding Phase, starting with the next player in turn order.

Bidding Phase

1. Once a player has made a bid, no more cards can be placed.
2. The player that has control can now either:
   1. Increase the bid, stating a higher number of cards.
   2. Pass.
   • In either case, control passes to the next player in turn order.
3. This continues until a player states a bid that everyone else passes on. This player is now the Challenger, and play continues to the Reveal Phase.

Reveal Phase

The bid is now the number of cards that the Challenger must flip over without revealing a Skull card. The moment they flip over the amount of cards they bid, or they reveal a Skull card, the Reveal Phase ends.

1. The Challenger starts by flipping over all of their own cards, starting from the top of the stack, one at a time.
2. If they reveal a Skull card in their own stack, the Reveal Phase ends in their failure.
3. If the Challenger successfully flips over their stack without revealing a Skull card, but still needs to reveal more cards to meet their bid:

   1. The Challenger can then pick any stack to reveal the top card from.

      It is not required to completely reveal a stack before moving to the next one; the only requirement is that the Challenger reveals the top card from a stack before revealing a lower card in the same stack.

4. If the Challenger reveals a Skull card in someone else's stack, the Reveal Phase also ends in their failure.
5. If the Challenger successfully reveals the number of cards they bid without revealing a Skull card, the Reveal Phase ends in their success.

Consquences Phase

1. All players then pick up their stacks and reintegrate them into their hands.
2. If the Challenger:
   • Revealed a Skull card in their own stack, they choose a card from their hand to discard for the rest of the game. (Normally, this would be a Flower card so they can still catch out other players with their Skull card.)
   • Revealed a Skull card in someone else's stack, the Challenger shuffles their hand and allows the player whose stack contained the Skull card to draw a card at random from their hand to be discarded for the rest of the game. They might still have their Skull card, or they might not! Some careful bluffing might be needed to keep the other players guessing.
   • Revealed the number of cards they bid without revealing a Skull card, they discard one of their Win Markers.
     • If the Challenger has discarded both of their Win Markers, they've won the game!
3. If the Challenger has lost their last card from their hand, they are out of the game.
4. Play then restarts at the Placement Phase.
   • If the Challenger won or revealed a Skull card in their own stack, the Challenger starts the next round.
   • If the Challenger revealed a Skull card in someone else's stack, the player whose stack contained the Skull card starts the next round.

End of the Game

The game is over if either of the following conditions are met:

• A player has managed to discard both of their Win Markers. They are the winner!
• Every player except one has lost all of their cards. Whoever still has cards remaining is the winner!

Variants

• Open Bid: Players can bid at any time during the Bidding Phase, not just when it's their turn.
  • This makes the game a lot more dynamic, but care should be taken to ensure quiet players aren't drowned out.
• Fortune favours the Bold: The Challenger always starts the next round, win or lose.
  • Good for introducing new players to the game, as it softens the consequences of losing a round and encourages them to bid more.

Why Three Decks?

While you can play Skull with a single deck of cards, it's possible to reveal more information than intended. Here's a simple example:

• Player 1 has lost one round, and lost their Skull card. They have three cards in their hand: ♣️2, ♣️3, ♣️4.
• Player 2 notices over a couple of rounds that Player 1's stack has consisted of the 2, 3, and 4.
• Because their hand only has three cards and they've revealed three distinct non-Skull cards, Player 2 can now be certain that Player 1's Skull card is gone, and can safely reveal their stack without fear of revealing a Skull for the rest of the game.

While this is a worst-case scenario, and the information gained is minimal, if you already have three decks of cards, it's a simple way to add a little more fairness to the game.