top of page
Search

Skull Review: Did I Get a Rose?

  • Writer: Coty
    Coty
  • 2 days ago
  • 2 min read

I’ve had a weird long standing relationship with sugar skulls and I honestly cannot explain it. About 20 years ago my childhood best friend and I were traveling through Colombia when we walked past a tattoo shop with a sugar skull in the window. We looked at each other, made a very questionable life decision, and walked out with matching tattoos. I was barely 18. My family was thrilled, obviously 😒


Fast forward to now and nothing has changed. If I see sugar skull art, I’m instantly interested. So, when I spotted a small box named Skull on a shelf a few years ago, I didn't need to read the back. The art looked cute, and trusting my gut, I just bought it. It turned out to be a delightful surprise


Skull looks like a cute little art piece, but it’s actually one of the cleanest bluffing games out there. And I say that as someone who is famously bad at bluffing games. Skull is basically math wearing a Day of the Dead poker face


Skull board game and components

💀 Skull

🏛️ Designed by Hervé Marly🎨 Art by Rose Kipik and Thomas Vuarchex

👥 3 to 6 players | ⏳ ~20 minutes | ⚙️ Bluffing and deduction


🛍️ COMPONENTS

  • Rulebook

  • 24 Thick Coasters: 4 for each player. 3 roses and one skull

  • 6 Player Mats: square coasters to keep score


🎮 HOW IT PLAYS

Everyone starts with four discs. Three roses and one skull. The vibe is pure speakeasy energy. You secretly choose one coaster and place it face down on your mat

  • On your turn you: add another disc or start a challenge by calling a number

  • Then everyone can raise the bid until someone commits

  • The challenger flips their own stack first. If it’s all roses, they start flipping from other players until they hit their number

  • Hit only roses and you score a win. Hit a skull at any point and you lose a disc at random permanently


🏆 First to complete two successful challenges wins


It sounds simple. It absolutely is. And yet it turns into pure table tension every time!


PROS

😄 Easy teach

⚡ Zero downtime

🎲 Fast turns

🌍 Language independent

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Works with almost anyone

🧳 Super portable, I take the coasters out of the box throw them on my meeple bag or in a ziploc bag and voila!


CONSIDERATIONS

💀 Player elimination can feel rough if someone loses all their discs early🧍Analysis Paralysis: some turns can drag when people overthink the bluff


BOTTOM LINE

Skull is bluffing at its purest. It strips everything down to tension, timing, and nerve. Quick, sharp, and way more thoughtful than it first looks. It’s my default pub game when we want a bluffing game to settle something mildly important like who is picking the restaurant for dinner


🎯 MORE GAMES LIKE SKULL

💚 Flip 7 for the same shared experience with lighter chaos

🎲 Dubito for a similar experience but with dice

😈 For the same feel: Cockroach Poker for more table lies

🧠 No bluffing and harder? Any game in the Clever Series if you want to suffer in a different mathematical direction


Comments

bottom of page