Skull King is totally King in our family

When a game takes over almost all our family game time, it must mean it’s time to review it.

And while we have a large stack of games on our “to review” shelf, some games just shoot right to the top of the stack.

Such is the case with Skull King!

One of our biggest predictors about how great a game is for families is if mom likes it. And in the case of Skull King, mom not only enjoys playing it, but she’s also the one pulling it out and getting it to the table!

So even though we just got Skull King from Grandpa Beck’s Games in November, we can’t wait any longer to share this game treasure with you.

So batten down the hatches and get ready to set sail with this load of pirates!

 

How to play Skull King

Skull King is a trick-taking card game where players declare how many tricks they’ll win each round. Players score points based on how well they guess the number of tricks they get as well as potential bonus points.

The catch is that players make their declarations simultaneously before each round. With each higher round players will have more cards in their hand. So as the game progresses, both the potential scores and the anticipation of each winning trick increases.

For those unfamiliar with the term “trick-taking”, we’ll briefly explain it. It’s a mechanic in games where all players play a card from their hand to the table and then one player claims the cards played. This is referred to as a “trick”. Games such as Hearts, Spades, Rook, Euchre, or Pinochle are trick-taking games.

 

Rounds and Declarations

Skull King is played over 10 rounds.

In each round, players are dealt a number of cards equal to the round. So in the first round, each player will have 1 card in their hand. In the second round, each player will get 2 cards in their hand and so on.

There are 4 suits in the game (green, yellow, purple, and black) with values from 1 to 14, 5 Pirate cards, 5 Escape cards, 1 card that can be played as either a Pirate or an Escape (the Tigress), and 1 Skull King.

After players examine their cards, they decide how many tricks they think they’ll win that round. As an example, in the 5th round, there will be 5 tricks played. So players must decide how many of those 5 tricks they’ll win. Once decided, players simultaneously make their declaration.

In our house we all hold our fists in the center to show we’re ready. Then on the count of 3, we reveal with our fingers. (If it’s more than 5, we just shout it out.)

The game also includes large number cards that can be handed out as reminders to show how many tricks each person declared they’d win.

 

Playing cards

Starting with the person to the left of the dealer, each player plays a card from their hand. The first card played that is one of the 4 suits determines the color that the other players must use. However, if a player doesn’t have a card of that suit in their hand, they can choose to play a card of another suit.

Also, whether a player has the established suit for that trick or not, they can always choose to play a non-suit card (Pirate, Escape, or Skull King).

After everyone has played one card from their hand, the player that wins the trick takes the cards. That player will also begin the next trick.

Now the important information — determining who wins a trick!

 

Winning a Trick

If all cards played are of the same suit, the highest numbered card wins.

Numbered cards that are different from the established suit for that trick are worthless and always lose. For example, if the first card played is a purple 6, the next card a purple 8, the next card a yellow 10, and the last card a purple 2, the player who played the purple 8 wins the trick.

The black suit (Jolly Roger suit) outranks the other 3 suits, no matter their value. However, players are still subject to the same rules – in that if a player has a card in their hand of the established suit for that trick, they can’t play a black card. If playing a number card, it must match the suit established.

In the example before, if the third player had played a black 3 instead of the yellow 10, they would win the trick because a black 3 outranks the purple 6, 8, and 2.

Pirates beat any numbered card (even black). If multiple Pirate cards are played, the first player to play a Pirate wins the trick.

Escape cards are the lowest card in the deck and always lose. That may sound bad, but in Skull King, there will be plenty of times you won’t want to take a trick.

The Tigress has both a sword and a flag icon on the card and can be played as either Pirate or Escape. The player must declare at the time they play the card whether it’s a Pirate or an Escape. If played as a Pirate, it can win a trick like all the Pirates.

The Skull King card is the highest card in the game and beats everything else!

If players still have cards in their hand, play continues with another trick. The player who won the last trick begins the next trick. Once all tricks are played for a round, players total their scores for the round.

 

Scoring

Players that win as many tricks as they declared for a round will earn 20 points for each trick. (Example: declaring and winning 3 tricks will net 60 points.)

Players that win more or less than they declared for a round will lose 10 points for each trick they were off. (Example: declaring 5 and winning only 2 will net -30 points.)

Players that bid 0 and succeed will earn 10 times the number of cards in that round. However, if they even win 1 trick, they’ll lose 10 times the number of cards in that round. (Example: declaring 0 and winning 0 tricks in round 7 will earn 70 points. However, declaring 0 and winning any tricks in round 7 will lose 70 points!)

Players can also earn bonus points by capturing certain cards when they win tricks. However, to earn bonus points, they must also have won as many tricks as they declared.

• Capturing the green, yellow, or purple 14 earns 10 bonus points.
• Capturing the black 14 earns 20 bonus points.
• The Skull King capturing pirates earns 30 bonus points per pirate played prior to the Skull King.

The included score pad looks confusing at first, but it’s actually really handy once you get rolling.

After 10 rounds, the player with the most points wins!

The first play may take a bit of getting used as players learn how to win tricks, how to avoid winning tricks, how to snag bonus points, and how to hedge your bets when declaring how many you’ll win. But once that’s under your hat, the game flows super well.

 

Can the whole family enjoy Skull King?

Skull King is a blast to play for the whole family.

The recommended age on the box is 8+ and we can see why. Younger kids will easily understand how higher number cards will beat lower number cards and that the black suit will beat the others. But then you throw in the mix of Pirates, Escapes, and the Skull King and the complexity for kids gets bumped up a notch. Then throw on top of that the scoring and they may pass. As such, we can’t imagine a group of kids younger than 8 playing Skull King on their own.

That being said, when played with and initially being coached by their parents, younger kids may be able to pick up on it as well.

One of the things we really love about Skull King is that up to 6 people can play — which makes it perfect for our family of 6.

We’ve played at every player count 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 and we’ve had a fun time every time.

With 2 players, trying to get away with zero tricks is super hard. And it also makes guessing the correct number of tricks you’ll win difficult because once a player has won a trick, they may get on a roll because they’ll set the suit for the next trick. But we enjoy that fun, 2-player back and forth play.

Of course, guessing is hard in later rounds no matter how many players there are. The more players there are, the more ways your best laid plans can get messed with. You may have high number black cards and think you’ll win lots of tricks. But then other players swoop in and win the tricks over your blacks with pirates.

We love the tension in the game.

It’s not extreme, but it’s enough to keep you on your toes the whole time.

At the outset of each round, when players declare the number of tricks they’ll win, we frequently laugh or squirm when the numbers don’t add up. For example, if it’s round 5 and the total sum of what we’ve declared is 8, we immediately know someone (or many) will get negative points. Of course, we should say that in most rounds at least someone loses points.

And this may be our only caveat when playing with younger players. They’ll have to stomach losing points. We have yet to play a game where anyone sailed through 10 rounds without losing points in at least one round. And we’ve finished a number of games where a player ends up with a grand total below zero.

We just can’t seem to get enough.

In addition to standard rules, players can choose to play with the 5 expansion cards and additional rules. The expansion cards include 2 Mermaids (which lose to pirates but beat the Skull King), 2 Loot (which add more bonus point potential), and the Kraken (which completely destroys the trick).

 

An experience we’ll never forget

While Skull King has been an immediate hit in our family for the fun game play, the unique situation of when we first played it just makes it even sweeter for us.

Here’s our story…

Like mentioned earlier, we got a copy of Skull King from Grandpa Beck’s Games in November. And like all games do when we first get them, it went to the “to play” game shelf — waiting for the right setting/moment to get read, learned, and played.

Well, over the Christmas break our family went on a Caribbean cruise. With the whole family back together again, we decided this year was the right year to do something like that as our Christmas present. And we had a blast!

When preparing for the trip, I grabbed a handful of card games to take along to play on the ship during down time. And Skull King was one of those games.

However, it stayed in my small card game bag until after we left our third port — Roatan, Honduras (so beautiful!). That was the day Caleb pulled it out and decided to read the rules. After dinner that night, he taught us all how to play it and we dove in.

Imagine our surprise when the first pirate card played in our game that night was the “Rascal of Roatan”!

Since it was our first play, we hadn’t realized all the pirates were named.

But since it was Caleb playing that pirate (he pays attention to every detail on cards), he called it out when he played it. We all thought the timing was impeccable.

Our one and only visit to Roatan and our first play of Skull King, with the Rascal of Roatan, just happened to be on the very same day!

What are the chances of that happening?

We got caught up in the fun of the game and played it a ton of times over the following days on the cruise. We even played it in the hotel room after the cruise. And we’ve continued to play regularly since then (see above with mom being the instigator).

So yes, the game is a hit with our family for the game play itself. But it also has a special place in our collective memory.

We’ll never be able to play Skull King without remembering our wonderful day in Roatan!

 

How does Skull King score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

It probably goes without saying that Skull King rocks our “let’s play again” game meter. Over our 9 years of reviewing family games, only a handful of games have had such an immediate impact at our family game table to be played over and over.

In fact, Skull King hasn’t even been put back on our game shelves yet. Because if it does get put on the shelf, we know it will immediately be pulled right out again to play.

And we’ve often played games back to back because of how simple it is to play. But mostly it’s because we love the light nature of the game mixed with the fun tension of guessing and choosing when to play which cards to get the tricks we want.

We highly recommend Skull King for a fun game for your family!

We’d like to thank Grandpa Beck’s Games for a review copy of Skull King.