Advert: A prototype of this game was gifted from Raven Portents in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are ours. Components subject to change.

Editor’s note: regular readers may notice that some of this review is updated from our Sepulchre review, and that’s because Heart and Skull is a new, card-based version – most of the gameplay is identical.

There’s almost a chill in the air, the PSLs are officially here, and I am definitely ready for the -ber months to start. So today I want to share Heart and Skull, a game coming to Kickstarter just in time for spooky season!

Key stats

2 to 6 players | 20 to 60 mins 

Publisher: Raven Portents
Designer/Artist: Matt Johnson

Categories: Spooky, Card game, Party game(ish)
Key mechanics: Take that, Set collection

Game overview

Heart and Skull is a grave-grabbing race to build 3 complete skeletons. On your turn you can play as many cards as you want from your hand of 7, in whatever order you like (unless the cards specify otherwise). Use Skeleton cards to build up your own skeletons, Decay cards to remove parts of your opponents incomplete skeletons, and Cemetery cards for all kinds of hijinks to give you the upper hand. Draw back up to 7 cards when you’re ready to end your turn.

There is some important etiquette when it comes to skeleton swiping:

1. You must always start a new skeleton with a skull.
   
2. You can’t start a new skeleton until the current one is completed, and you can’t do both on the same turn.
   
3. You can usually only mess with the player’s ‘active’ skeleton, that is the one they are currently building (a freshly completed skelly remains ‘active’ until a new one in started).
   
4. You can’t be too much of a boneyard bully – each turn you can only play one card per opponent that directly messes with just them (helpfully identified by a Scythe symbol). BUT you can still be mean to them with Cemetery cards that affect a group – yay!

Some Cemetery cards do have specific rules about when they can be played, e.g. they have to be played first/last on your turn, or it can be the only card you play on your turn. There’s also a couple of Cemetery cards that can be played out of turn to defend skeletons or interrupt an action.

Rounds continue until the first person completes their 3 skeletons.

Our first impressions

• The artwork is incredibly cool. It’s giving vintage American-gothic witchy vibes, which I LOVE and would happily have some of the designs as framed prints – Matt said it’s the kind of style he would like as a tattoo!

• Layering transparent cards to build skeletons is such a clever idea!

• Most of the Cemetery cards have unique abilities and design, and can range from take-that thievery (from other players’ graves or hands), to defensive cards that protect your own skellies. Player interaction and competition is high, and there’s a nice layer of tactics, such as timing which pieces to add to your skeleton or saving that game-changing Cemetery card for the right moment. Some cards can (intentionally) dramatically swing the game in favour of one player or another – for example, Gold Tooth acts as an instant complete skeleton, and Graverobber lets you destroy someone’s active skeleton, taking the parts you need. We really enjoy the dramatic twists and turns, but it’s possibly not for those who find random swings of luck frustrating.

• A few of the Cemetery cards can seem all nice and helpful to other players – until they’re not! Exhume lets you add 1 skeleton part to another player’s active skeleton, but often that’s because you plan to play a second card to steal it from them (or you’re doing it to form an alliance in the hopes they don’t target you in future!). You can use Midwatch and Broken Column to ‘protect’ someone’s active skeleton, so no one can remove pieces – but that player can’t add to it either, because the block is only removed on YOUR next turn.

• All the Cemetery skullduggery does means that a game length can vary, and with more players there’s a risk of rounds dragging if people aren’t locked in.  Not knowing how long the game will take might make it trickier when timings are important (like a multi-game sesh or a toddler nap!) – but in our opinion it’s a game you should build a game night around anyway!

• I’ve played this at various player counts, and unlike many similar take-that set-collection card games, Heart and Skull is one that I’m just as happy playing with 2 players all the way up to the full 6 players. You do get to see more chaos and player dynamics at a higher player count though (like the aforementioned alliances).

• The prototype came with a micro-expansion of ‘Cemetery Denizens’ – additional cemetery cards that you can use to add variety to the gameplay.

Verdict

Heart and Skull has excellent bones: it looks ghoulishly gorgeous and the tug-of-skeleton gameplay is a lot of fun! The theme is wonderfully executed and the gameplay is simple enough for anyone to pick up (it just takes a game to familiarise yourself with the unique cards and iconography). It’s very rare I enjoy a game where I lose so badly so often, which says a lot about how much fun we have with this game!

So if you’re after a fun card game where the spooky vibes are on point, make sure you sign up for the campaign here.