Skull
Hide roses and skulls, increase the challenge when you think you can expose enough safe tiles, and read the table before somebody’s bluff costs you a card.
Each player secretly places roses or a skull, building hidden stacks in front of the table.
A challenge begins when someone declares how many safe tiles they believe can be revealed. The highest bidder must start with their own stack and avoid every skull.
Why We Love It
Skull works because the information is almost entirely social. The components are simple; the real game is deciding whether a confident bid reflects a safe stack or an opponent trying to lure you into a skull.
About Skull
Each player secretly places roses or a skull, building hidden stacks in front of the table.
A challenge begins when someone declares how many safe tiles they believe can be revealed. The highest bidder must start with their own stack and avoid every skull.
Game at a Glance
Place a Tile
Add a rose or skull face down to your stack.
Read the Table
Watch confidence, timing and previous reveals for clues.
Raise the Bid
Increase the number of safe tiles you believe can be revealed.
Avoid the Skull
One bad reveal loses a tile and can cost the round.
What is Skull?
Skull is a bluffing game for 3–6 players. The current Space Cowboys edition is listed by Asmodee at about 30 minutes for ages 10+.
Each player has three rose tiles and one skull tile, creating a tiny component set where almost all the depth comes from what players claim and what they believe.
How the game works
Players take turns placing one tile face down onto their personal stack. Instead of adding another tile, a player may start a challenge by declaring how many face-down tiles they believe they can reveal without finding a skull.
Bidding continues upward until one player takes the challenge. They must reveal their own stack first, then choose tiles from opponents. Revealing only roses wins a point; hitting a skull costs a tile.
The decisions that define it
The strongest bluff is not always placing a skull. Predictable aggression makes you easy to read, while an apparently safe stack can lure opponents into overbidding.
Because losing tiles changes your future bluffing range, each failed challenge also changes the information landscape.
Who is it for?
Choose Skull if your group enjoys bluffing, table talk and short rounds with almost no rules overhead.
Choose Love Letter for more deduction structure or Codenames for teams and wordplay.
Learn Skull in depth
Publisher sources & scope
Checked September 16, 2026. This hub covers the current Skull base game.