Skull King

Ages 8+ 2 – 8 Players 30 – 45 Min

Skull King is back with a brand new edition! With mechanics derived and then enhanced from classic set collection games, Skull King is considered by many to be the ruler of all bidding games! Predict each round how many tricks you think you can win after taking a look at your cards. Get your bid correct and you’ll gain points! Get it wrong, and you’re out of luck! Our new version for 2021 includes refined card art, updated graphic design, new advanced rules and scoring, a brand new score pad, 2-player rules, and more! Plus the infamous white whale!

Skull King is a trick-taking game similar to ‘Oh Hell!’, ‘Wizard’, ‘Euchre’ and ‘Spades’, with players needing to state how many tricks they think they’ll win each round. A unique element of this game is that bidding takes place simultaneously, leading to rounds that are sometimes over, or under-bid. As players must win the exact number of tricks that they bid to earn points, winning too many tricks is just as bad as winning too few and this leads to intense competition where losing a trick can be as exciting as winning one.

Skull King uses a 66-card deck that consists of Escape cards, four suits numbered 1-13, Pirate cards, loot cards, the Tigress card, the Skull King card and two mermaids. The new 2021 edition of the game also includes the kraken and white whale cards. The game lasts ten rounds, and in each round, each player is dealt as many cards as the number of the round. All players simultaneously bid on the number of tricks they think they’ll take by holding out a fist and on the count of three revealing a certain number of fingers (or possibly a closed fist for a bid of zero tricks).

Standard rules apply for the playing of cards, with one player leading off a card and other players following suit, if possible, and playing something else if not; however, a player may always choose to play one of the special, unnumbered cards and the power of those cards might let you win a trick that otherwise would have gotten away. In more detail, the black Jolly Roger suit trumps the other three suits, a Mermaid trumps all numbered cards, a Pirate trumps the Mermaid, and the Skull King trumps everything except if he appears in the same trick with a Mermaid, in which case she captures him and wins instead. An Escape card loses to any other card, and the Tigress card serves as either a pirate or escape card as desired by the player. Whoever wins a trick leads in the next trick. The kraken and white whale cards each have their own special ability as well!

The 2021 version of the game replaces the previous version which will no longer be sold.

– From the Publisher

Summary of the changes over older versions of the game include:

• The new white whale card
• 2 player rules
• Playable up to 8 players
• New rascal scoring rules
• New card backs
• Refreshed card faces
• New suit icons
• New box art
• New score sheet design
• New rulebook