Originally released in 2015 Skyjo is a card game designed by Alexander Bernhardt. The game is a simple straightforward card game meant for the entire family. The goal is to try and replace high value cards in front of you with lower value cards.
Year: 2015 | Publisher: Magilano | Designer: Alexander Bernhardt | Artist: Alexander Bernhardt
Genres: Card, Family
Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-8 | Length of Game: 30-60 minutes
Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate
Components: 150 cards, instructions
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Objective of Skyjo
The objective of Skyjo is to try and minimize the number of points on your cards.
Setup for Skyjo
For each round that you play, you will complete the following setup steps.
- Shuffle all of the cards together.
- Deal twelve cards face down to each player.
- The rest of the cards form the draw pile. The top card from the draw pile is turned over to start the discard pile.
- Each player places the twelve cards they were dealt into a 4 x 3 grid. All of these cards will remain face down as players can not look at them.
- Each player chooses two of their face down cards and flips them over.
- To determine who starts the first round, all of the players total their two face up cards. Whoever has the highest total will start the round. In future rounds, the player who ended the previous round (turned over their last face down card first) gets to start the next round.
Playing the Game
You will begin your turn by drawing a card. You can choose to draw one of two cards.
First you can take the top card from the discard pile. If you choose this option, you must exchange this card for one of the cards in your grid. You can exchange it for one of your face up or face down cards. You may not look at a face down card before you choose it. Once you have chosen a card and turned it over, you must exchange it for the card that you took from the discard pile. The card that you replaced with the new card will be placed on the top of the discard pile.
Otherwise you will take the top card from the draw pile. When you choose this option you can look at the card. At this point you will choose one of two options.
If you would like to keep the card, you will exchange it for one of the cards in your grid. You can either choose a face up or face down card. The card you exchange it for will be placed on top of the discard pile.
If you don’t want the card after looking at it, you can choose to discard it. After discarding it, you will flip over one of the face down cards in your grid.
After taking one of these actions, your turn ends. Play will pass to the next player clockwise (to the left).
Special Rule
Skyjo has a special rule that you can choose to use. If at any time a player has three revealed cards of the same number in a vertical column, they will discard the entire column. These three cards will be placed on top of the single card the player discarded on their turn.
End of Round
A round will end once one of the players has turned all of their cards face up. The rest of the players will get to take one more turn.
All of the players will then flip over any cards that are still face down. Each player will total the points printed on all of their cards. This total is added to each player’s game total.
The player that ended the round (was the first to flip over all of their cards) must score the least points in the round. If another player scores the same number of points or less, the player that ended the round will double the amount of points they score in the round. This only applies to positive points. You will not double their score if their total was negative.
End of Game
At the end of each round, the players total how many points they have scored in all of the rounds. Once one player has scored 100 or more total points between all of the rounds, the game will end.
The player who scored the least amount of points in the game wins.
Sug
Saturday 17th of August 2024
Does a player always have to take a new card (from draw pile or discard pile) whenever they have their turn? Or can they choose not to draw but just flip a face down card?
Eric Mortensen
Monday 19th of August 2024
Based on how the rules are written, it seems like you have to draw a card to start your turn. You can either choose the top card from the draw or discard pile. If the top card on the discard pile is low, I would say to take that card and choose one of your face down cards to switch it with. If the top card on the discard pile is not low, you should take the top card from the draw pile. When you take the top card from the draw pile you can choose whether you want to keep it or if you want to immediately discard it. If the card is low it is probably best to choose one of your face down cards to swap it with. If the card is high, you probably just want to discard the card you just drew.
If you want to flip over a card with no intention of changing it out, you could choose to just take the top card from the draw pile and discard it right away. You would probably be better off checking out the card you draw though because it could be really low or possibly even negative.
I hope this answered your question.
Ls
Sunday 14th of April 2024
If a player has 1 unturned card left can they draw from the face up draw pile and exchange with another card so they don't have to go out?
Eric Mortensen
Monday 15th of April 2024
For your turn you can always choose to swap the card you draw with one of your face up cards. You may choose to do this if you want to extend the game because you don't think you will win with your current cards. You may do this whether you take the top card from the face down draw pile or the face up discard pile.
Fernando
Saturday 20th of January 2024
If the Draw cards finish, what should we do
Eric Mortensen
Monday 22nd of January 2024
This is not directly addressed in the official rules so it is kind of up to interpretation. It ultimately comes down to what the players agree to do. Since there is no official rule, it would be best if all of the players could agree on how to handle the situation. There is really three different options in the game.
First you could shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile. This is probably how I would handle the situation.
The second option is to just not have a draw pile anymore. In this case players could only take the top card from the discard pile.
The final option is to end the game when the draw pile runs out of cards. In this case everyone would flip over the cards that they haven't flipped over yet. Scoring would then be conducted based on all of the cards in front of each player.
Friday 15th of December 2023
If you have 3 of the same minus cards in a column do you have to get rid of column.
Eric Mortensen
Monday 18th of December 2023
The rules say that whenever a triplet is formed (three of the same number in a column), you must discard the entire column. As there is no specific rule that says it doesn't apply to minus cards, in this case you would have to discard all of the minus cards in the column as long as they are the same minus number.
Sunday 24th of September 2023
How do you start the second round . do you keep them all face down?
Thursday 27th of June 2024
But I believe the question is, in subsequent rounds does each player still flip over 2 cards to begin, or only in the first round to determine who begins round 1?
Eric Mortensen
Monday 25th of September 2023
To start a new round you will gather up all of the cards and shuffle them together to mix them up. Twelve cards are dealt face down to each player and each player arranges them into a 4 x 3 grid. Basically you set up the second and any subsequent rounds in the same way as you set up the first round.