Sedlec Ossuary, 16th Century AD.
The Black Plague and Hussite Wars have overcrowded the graveyard. Help the Bone Collector, a half-blind monk, by exhuming graves and arranging the skulls inside the crypt.
You are novice monks, competing to create the best arrangement of skulls.
Dig up graves from the graveyard to reveal cards, take cards into your hand to collect skulls, and arrange the cards from your hand into a stack. Whoever better honors the deceased’s last wishes will score more points.
The Bone Collector will then judge each player’s completed stack and declare one as the most exceptional.
—description from the publisher
Released in the June 2020 Board Game of the Month Club $20+ package.
Finalist (top 3) of Button Shy's 18 Card Challenge: Design a game about a real life location.
- Extremely portable with an 18-card deck
- Engaging blend of drafting and set collection
- Strong thematic alignment with the Sedlec ossuary
- Expandable through The Executioner's expansion for multiplayer
- Compact footprint that supports a catalog-like experience
- End-game scoring is delayed; gratification is not immediate
- Hand limit of two can constrain early decisions
- Not revolutionary in isolation, but exemplary as a Button Shy product
- mortality and ceremonial arrangement of skulls
- Sedlec Ossuary, Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
- theme-first microgame with historical setting
- Sushi Go!
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting — On your turn you reveal a top card and may either take it, or flip two more and take one of those; hand limit of two drives pacing
- Domino-like placement — Placed cards form a pyramid-shaped display; skulls interlock by placement and adjacency
- End-game scoring by position — Scoring is determined by positions within the pyramid and adjacency bonuses
- set collection — Cards function as two-skull domino-like pieces; players collect skulls to form scoring opportunities
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Skulls of Sedleck was a finalist in a challenge where designers were asked to design an 18 card game based on a real-life location
- Button Shy released one new hand assembled wallet game every month that's 12 very affordable games per year
- The real product is Button Shy itself and that's a great concept well executed
- a catalog of tiny games in cute wallets curated experiences sold at an affordable price
- If you'd like to hear more about some simple portable games then click on the link and until next time all the best