When I think about pirates roaming the high seas, plundering goods and stashing away their booty, I think about Grace O’Malley—the 16th century pirate queen who ruled the western Irish seas from Rockfleet Castle in County Mayo with strategic finesse and political bravado.
With evocative artwork, quality components, and a theme dripping with treachery and ambition, it’s no wonder my husband heard the siren’s call and picked up the game at our local game store. Does the promise of bold moves and hidden information in a small package with a quick play time set sail for fun family game nights and bold board game marathons with friends? Unfortunately, Skullduggery walks the plank.
Gameplay Overview:
Skullduggery is essentially a card game. There’s a deck of 55 cards with numbers ranging from one to nine. The goal is to have the highest number possible as you read the numbers from left to right.
Each player begins the game with four face-down cards which are arranged in a row in front of them. You may look at your cards at the start of play. You then go around the table, each player drawing a card and deciding whether to swap the drawn card with one of their own or with the player to their right or left. At the end of each turn, the player discards the one card which remains in their hand and everyone takes the action on the discarded card. In addition, each player also has two skullduggery tokens which may be used to replace a neighbor’s card once. Play ends when 3 of the spy glass cards have been revealed. Each player then reveals their cards to show the amount of loot they’ve collected.
Game Experience:
At first glance, Skullduggery, produced by Outset games, seems to offer a light mix of deduction and sabotage. A real pirate story indeed. However, after playing several rounds with four players, the experience was a bit of a ship wreck, felt pointless and left me and my fellow players putting the booty back in the box.
The biggest issue is how easily the game state unravels. Just as you begin to form a mental map of your own hand—or perhaps gain an edge by spying on someone else’s hand—another card’s action reshuffles the table, undoes your memory work, or swaps cards with little room for reaction.
This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the game rewarded clever deduction or allowed players to build toward something. But the frequent forced changes prevent any lasting progress or planning. It’s false to think this game relies on memory because the mechanics around card exchange and shifting don’t even allow a player with a good memory any real advantage. Outstanding memory skills are rarely rewarded, because so many actions throw off the information you just learned.
Player interaction feels like random cannon fire rather than strategic navigation. Using the skullduggery tokens to switch out your neighboring opponents’ cards seems strategically important as you read the rules, but you soon learn that even tactically there’s no advantage. And, having that option just once to your right and left respectively feels pointless. The endgame trigger of exposing the third spyglass card can come early in gameplay, erasing any attempt at setting up a possible win. I wondered if some house rules to allow players to keep a small hand might improve the game.
Thematically, the game looks like it should be about trickery and manipulation, but in practice it’s more about weathering stormy seas of chance. The theme is loosely connected to the game play at best. I prefer alternatives like Exploding Kittens or Unstable Unicorns where I find similar chaotic elements while those games still let me feel like my decisions matter.
The game feels like an elaborate shell game where no one at the table is in on the sleight of hand. Perhaps this could make for some chaotic fun with six players, knowing you’re not in control so you simply make any choice and see how it all ends when that third spyglass card appears? Is that how it felt on the high seas and seeing the Jolly Roger appear over the horizon? Pahrrrhaps!
Final Thoughts
Skullduggery clearly aims for fast, chaotic fun in the party game space, but it stumbles by failing to give players enough control over their fates. It might work for groups who enjoy random interaction and don’t mind having plans overturned repeatedly, but anyone looking for even light strategic satisfaction is likely to walk away disappointed.
A pirate’s life is not for me, especially when that life involves this much frustration over circumstances beyond my control. The pirate’s life should be thrilling—but this card game rarely feels like an adventure worth taking.
Final Score: 2 Stars – The memory and take that mechanisms did not work well for me or my game group and won’t be returning to our rotation.
Hits:
• Pirate-themed artwork and high-quality components
• Simple rules and quick setup
Misses:
• Constant card-swapping actions undermine planning
• Memory and deduction offer little advantage
• No cunning, no daring, no swashbuckling
