Skull

Based on the game by Herve Marly

A easy-to-understand game of bluffing that tests your ability to read people more and more as it goes on.

Setup

Each player chooses a suit and takes ranks 0–3 from their suit into their hand.

• Ranks 1, 2, 3 are Flowers.
• Rank 0 is a Skull.

You also need a way to track wins. A coin per player works well (tails means no wins yet, heads means one win). Two wins and you win the game.

Gameplay

Choose a player to go first however you would like. Your goal is to be the first player to successfully flip cards twice without revealing a skull.

Each round has two phases: placing and challenging.

Placing. Going clockwise from the starting player, each player places one of their cards face-down in front of them. All players must place at least one card before challenging. Once each player has placed a card, on each subsequent turn, you must either place another card face-down on top of your previous card, or start a challenge (see below). You can stack up to all 4 of your cards before challenging. Once you have placed all your cards, you must challenge at your next opportunity.

Challenging. Instead of placing a card, you declare a number: “I can flip [number] cards.” You’re claiming you can flip that many cards across all players’ stacks without hitting a skull. Going clockwise from you, each other player must either raise the bid (say a higher number) or drop out of the bidding for this round.

Once everyone has dropped out except the highest bidder, that player must attempt their bid.

The flip. The highest bidder flips cards face-up one at a time.

1. You must flip your entire own stack first before touching anyone else’s.
2. When flipping another player’s stack, you always flip from the top (most recently placed card). You choose which player’s stack to go to in any order, but you cannot skip cards within a stack.

Continue flipping until you’ve flipped a number of cards equal to your bid, or you reveal a skull.

If you succeed (flipped your bid number, all flowers): Flip your coin to mark one win. The first person to 2 wins takes the game.

If you hit a skull: You lose one of your 4 cards permanently. Take your cards, shuffle them, and lay them out face down. The player who owned the skull gets to choose one card at random (without looking) and remove it from the game. No one may see what card was chosen. Only you will know what card was taken once you look at your remaining cards. If you lose all your cards, you’re eliminated.

After a challenge resolves (win or lose), gather all face-up cards back to their owners. The next round begins, starting with whoever won or lost the previous challenge.

Winning

First player to 2 successful flips wins the game.