Skeleton Shuffle

Par Benjamin Sperling

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Statut actuel

Campagne close Fin de campagne : 20/10/2026

Fonds récoltés : 104 €

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It's Dia de Los Muertos and it’s your job to help the Ancestors get themselves back together to celebrate with their families. Unfortunately, their bones just aren't where they used to be, so it's up to you to help them unscramble them. That dance of the dead yesterday drew a lot of mischievous imps who had too much fun mixing up the performers.

In this cooperative card game, you will attempt to rearrange each Ancestor in the most favorable way before the night is over.

SETUP:

Shuffle all 18 body parts. There are six parts to each ancestor (Upper Left/Right, Middle Left/Right and Lower Left/Right). Build three Ancestors face down from the shuffled cards, making sure to note the background of each card to determine its placement. it is suggested to deal one card to each Ancestor separately, cycling through until each face down Ancestor is fully randomized.

***In order to familiarize yourself with how the Ancestors are assembled, we recommend building them correctly and analyzing their characteristics. For instance, the guitar player has a bird and purple shoes, the lady with the fan has a black and white cat and yellow shirt and the accordion player has an orange cat (love you Sam!) and a peacock.

The person who last saw something spooky goes first.

Starting from the first player, each player will pick one face down card to take into their hand. This is the only card they will know about at the start of the game.

Then, starting with the first player, each player will take one of three actions in clockwise order:

Peek at one face down card and declare a color or Ancestor that it is not, THEN flip any one card face up. Once face up, a card cannot be moved.
Swap two face down cards.
Place the card in hand face down and declare a color or Ancestor that it is not (once per game).

ENDING THE GAME:

The game ends immediately when nine cards have been flipped face up.

If you want to have a bigger challenge, play until seven cards have been flipped face up instead.

Consider playing until ten cards have been flipped face up for younger players.

SCORING THE ANCESTORS:

Reveal all of the facedown cards but do not move them from their place.

Each Ancestor will score one point for each part matching the majority color/performer type (guitar, fan, accordion) in an Ancestor.

Then score 1 point for:

each match at the Upper levels in the same Ancestor,
each match in the Middle levels,
each match in the Lower levels.

Aim for the highest score you can! 16 is considered Ghoulishly Good!

Learn to play from the video here

Learn to play from the rules here

Aaron Kempkes is a highly talented designer whose games have received a lot of attention as contest entrants. He is an Ion Award winner (Best Light Game- 2023), BostonFIG award winner (Best Family Game- 2024) and a Ciutat de Granollers (2026), Cardboard Edison (2022) and Board Game Design Lab Challenge (2019) runner-up. Aaron has been a finalist 21 times and a semi-finalist 13 times in national and international board game design contests including Premio Archimede, Hippodice, the Ion Award, the Boulogne-Billancourt International Design Contest, Cardboard Edison, Fastaval, the Ciutat de Granollers Design Contest, SAGA, BostonFIG, the LUCI Award, The Game Crafter, Board Game Design Lab, the HABA Game Design Contest and the World Original Design Contest. Aaron’s collaborations with Roll and Write Revolution were Cool Cats in 2023 and Rome and Write in 2025! His first physical published game is Fly Away from HUCH, releasing at Essen Spiel in October. You can find him on Twitter here and Facebook here.

Amber Kempkes is Aaron's sister and helped co-design design Hectic Harvest, a finalist for the HABA Game Design Contest in 2020, and The Great Cookie Challenge, semi-finalist in the World Original Design Contest in 2022. She does Tarot readings, enjoys spooky season and strongly suggested Aaron make a game for her first love, Halloween. She's also Aaron's biggest supporter and is his first playtester, voice of reason and from Aaron's own words "the one that believes in me even when I don't believe in myself."

Benny Sperling is the doer of things and the one who helped make Cool Cats an absolute success, never shying away from bringing Aaron back to see what cool things they can make together.