Episode: 2164
Title: HPR2164: Skipbo Tabletop Game
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2164/hpr2164.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 15:08:28

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This is HPR episode 2,164 entitled KIPPO Tabletop Game.
It is hosted by Klaatu and in about 22 minutes long, the summer is.
Klaatu talks about the surprisingly amazing game from Mattel.
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You're listening to Hacker Public Radio.
My name is Klaatu.
This episode is about Skipbo, the car game that broke tabletop gaming for me.
So Skipbo is this really simple car game by the makers of UNO.
So it's like one of those classic kind of car games that you're going to find in, you know,
the town, the local town general store.
It's not a themed car game.
And this, for me, when I was gifted this game, when I saw it, I just didn't want to play it at all.
There was nothing about this game that made me curious to play it.
What, so ever, like the cards are all sort of designed in these bright primary colors.
There's absolutely no thematic element to it.
Not even a suggestion or a hint of a backstory.
You know, there's no, there's no story to this game.
It's, it's, it's, they didn't even try, you know?
Like they could have at least in my mind when I was looking at it.
Like they could have at least called it, you know, gold rush, 48 or gold rush
48. Let's go with that.
And then you would have gotten like 48 cards and they would have all been
themed with the old west.
The backstory would be that you're a gold miner and that you have to
collect these things in this particular order in order to strike gold or something.
And you have to talk like a cowboy the entire game.
They could have done something to make it more imaginative, right?
But all they, all it was was these, by the way, I don't want to play gold rush 48.
That's a really dumb idea.
But my point is they could have made it more thematic.
They could have skinned it with something for me.
But instead they just delivered like these cards,
primary colors, big numbers, you know, it looks like a child's game.
It looks like, you know, it looks like something I played when I was in third grade.
And I was really disappointed and really just absolutely
did not want to play had no interest in this game whatsoever.
And I was polite and I was like, oh, thank you.
You heard that I liked card games and you gave me a card game.
That's so nice of you.
Thank you so much.
And, you know, put it on the shelf,
vowed never to touch it.
But I could re-gift it.
I'd probably like re-gift it next year.
So yeah, that was, that was that.
And then as luck would have it,
me and the girlfriend were sitting around thinking,
oh, we, we, we only have like two, two player games.
Let's, we should, we should try to find another two player game.
And then our eyes fall on this stupid skip bow box on the shelf.
And we're like, well, if we open it really carefully,
maybe we can re-gift it still.
You know, we'll do like one of those like,
slightly used re-gifting, but we'll open it super, super carefully.
So it looks unopened and we'll play around just to see just to convince ourselves that it's not
it's not a good game.
Okay, so the gameplay is actually pretty complex.
Like, especially, you know, if you've played any of those,
those sort of new kind of like modern themed card games that
that people think of when they say fancy terms like tabletop gaming instead of,
yeah, it's a card game.
You know, their, their rules are frequently really well actually done.
They're, they're like, you know, one, one page, one side of one page,
big numbers, they're like, do this, do that,
on each turn, do this or this, and then start playing.
And then maybe there's some like additional rules afterwards, you know, it's like,
oh, by the way, if you run into this situation, this is what to do.
But, you know, they, they, they kind of like, they get you up and running fast,
and they don't expect you to like sit down and study the rules for an afternoon before
engaging, well, unless you're playing magic, the gathering.
Then you basically need like a, a degree.
But SkipBo, the rule set is, yeah, it's, it's pretty, it's, it is not nice.
It's small print, it's, it is, it gives you a lot of detail.
It throws a lot of terms around, and it's, it's a little bit intimidating.
And, and in a way, I kind of thought, I kind of noticed that, you know,
like Parker Brothers or, or, or Hasbro, or whoever this SkipBo thing is by,
they, they, they still haven't gotten the memo, you know, like,
they're kind of like, it's, it's kind of like the Microsoft of, of card design, you know,
it's kind of like, hey guys, if you, if you give people instructions that,
that are short and simple, people get started a lot faster and they don't feel like there's
as much of a barrier to entry. But apparently it didn't matter that much because we, we,
we read through all the instructions and it is, it, it's simpler actually than it seems.
So the first hurdle that you have to get over is the sheer number of cards involved.
Each player gets 30 cards in their reserve deck, which, and then five in their hand.
So 30 cards initially, we never play with 30 cards, me and my girlfriend, but,
you're supposed to get 30 cards and you set them down on the, on the table, face down.
And that's the deck that you have to burn through. So you each have a deck of about 30 or 11,
or whatever you're playing with cards that you have to burn through through the course of the game.
And the way that you burn through those cards is you set them on the play area of the table,
face up, but you have to do that numerically. So what you do is on this stack of 30 cards,
you turn over one, you know, you turn the top card over, whatever that number is, you need to
get to that number in the play area. And then you can take that card, complete the sequence,
with it, and then turn over the next card. The play area gets populated by the cards from
each player's hand. So if you've got five cards in your hand and you have a number one,
then you take one and you put it in the middle of the table. And in the next player, if they have a two,
they can put two down. And then if you have three, you put a three down. And then, oh, look,
the top card on your reserve deck, on the thing that you have to burn through, that's a four.
So we'll take the four from our reserve deck, put it down, and then flip the card over on our reserve
deck, and by chance, by coincidence, that's a five. So we'll take that and put that down. And now,
we'll turn over the next one. Oh, darn, that's an 11. Okay. So what we'll do is we'll keep playing
until we get, you know, near, until we get to 10, and then we'll put down the 11. And that's
that's the sequence of events in the ideal world. What really happens, of course, is that you've
got a three on your deck. And so you get one, and then the next player doesn't do anything.
So I can't put any cards down. So you put two down. Well, no, that wouldn't, that wouldn't
actually illustrate my example. So what happens is the other opponent says, oh, I've got a two,
so they put down a two, and you're thinking, oh, perfect. This is my chance to put my three down,
but your other player has three in their hand. So they put that down. And so now you're screwed,
because you don't have, you know, you've got this three on your burner deck, and you don't have
a place to put it. So now you've got to get it go through a whole other cycle, so that you can put
your three down, and all the time, you're just hoping that your opponent isn't going to screw
you over with another three or whatever. Of course, add to that the fact that your opponent has
their own cards to burn through. So there's that element that you kind of want to not help your
opponent, but at the same time, it's always within your benefit to keep that card, that the playing,
you know, that deck, that sequence, you want to keep it turning over. The the added complexity,
again, comes in that there's not just one deck in the middle of the table. You can have four active
counters. So if you've got a one and a one and the two, then you can put the one down and one
on one deck, one down again, on another deck, and then the two on either of them, you know,
so you've got four active counters in the middle of the table. So you and your partner are managing
four or your opponent are managing four different active decks that are counting up towards 12
at which point they reset to one. You've got your burner deck, you've got the card in your hand,
and then there's yet four more decks that I forgot to tell you about, and that is that you've got
discard files. So if you've got five cards in your hand and you've played all the cards, you know,
so you take one out, you take a three and you take a six for another one. So now you've got three cards.
If you if you're happy at the point in your turn where you cannot play another card, you take a
yet another card from your hand and then put it on a reserve or a discard pile or a keeper pile,
let's call it in front of you, and you can have up to four keeper piles. So it's within your
benefit, again, to kind of keep important cards sort of almost in sequence in front of you.
And the way that me and my girlfriend play it anyways, that you're not allowed to kind of
rifle through your keeper deck or your keeper decks. You can't look and see what you have.
Like the only thing that anyone can see are the top numbers. I don't know if that's official rule
or not. That's just kind of how we felt it should be played. But yeah, and you can take from those
keeper decks anytime you need another number. So sometimes there can be turns where you just go
through like 10 cards at a time because you just, you know, you find a one in your hand and then
oh, look, you've got a two over here in your keeper pile. So you put that down and then oh,
look, you've got a three at the top of your burner deck. Put that down and then oh, a four in your
hand or take that back and then oh, look, there's five in your keeper. And so it just, you know, you just
you play as long as for as long as you can. And it's just this, when when that happens, it is like
it's a rush, you know, you just feel amazing. You feel like you're you feel like you are just the
coolest card player on earth, you know, it's just like you're just burning through cards and
your opponents just sitting there turning into a puddle of disappointment. And it's just a beautiful
beautiful experience. Of course, to add to all of that complexity, there's a wild card and the wild
card is called Skippbo. So that's I guess why they call it Skippbo. I don't know Skippbo. It's a
horrible name. I mean, Gold Rush 48 or whatever I came up with wasn't terribly good, but man, it's
better than Skippbo. And the wild card you just play, you know, as a wild card. So that kind of adds
just, you know, yet another element of complete randomness to to the to the sequence of the of the game.
It is a really, really fun game. It is obviously a a numbers game. It is, you know, it's it's very kind of
the mechanic is very straight. It is it is exactly what you would expect from a set of cards, you know,
like a set of cards. Oh, they are numbers. And and the more I play the themed card games, I guess,
the more sometimes I realize that ultimately if you cut through all the glitz and glamour and theme,
you're it's just their numbers, you know, the the theme sometimes helps you remember
something about that number. And it abstracts it away from being a number, but ultimately you can say
that it's a numbers game, you know, like even in something like
coup for instance, certain cards are higher in say power than others.
And whether you have a certain card or not is a Boolean. So, you know, it all boils down to that kind of like
like technically speaking, it could be played with a 52 card poker deck.
And and so could skip bow, I guess, but you'd have to have a lot of cards because I'm not sure the percentage of each card,
you know, in the deck, but the deck is huge. Like the default skip bow box that you get from the store has three, three decks in it.
So it's got to be at least 150 cards total. And like I say, I mean, the apparently what they intend you to do is
play with a 30 card burner deck or reserve deck or whatever they call it.
So yeah, they don't intend for it to be a short game. They don't intend for it to be a simple game.
It is it is a game where you are managing a lot of things. But trust me, it really, really works.
It's it's amazingly well done. And in terms of well, in terms of two player mechanics, it's perfect.
It's great for two players. In fact, I believe I've only played it as a two player game now that I'm now that I'm saying it.
All right, so I don't know how it is with more people actually two player. It's brilliant. It's a brilliant game.
Hands down brilliant.
Replayable, it is completely replayable. And this is this is not so much a card game as it is an addiction for me and my girlfriend.
It's just completely it's just super fun. And and there is a surprising amount of psychology there because you do kind of.
You do kind of have to not maybe anticipate what you're what your opponent's going to do because I mean all your opponent is going to do exactly what you think your opponent's going to do, which is play every card that they possibly can to get it out of their hand.
As long as they aren't setting you up for success. So if you're if you're playing a sequence of cards and you see that your opponent's top burner card is an eight.
And there's a deck at four and you've got a five six and a seven in your hand.
But you don't want to just hand that to the opponent. So you just play the five.
And then do you play the six. All right, we're going to play the six and just really, really hope that our opponent doesn't have a seven for their eight and then we'll end the turn and then the opponent plays and what did they have, you know, who knows? Did they have a seven?
Did they have a skip bow wild card that they could just throw in there as a seven? Who knows?
So it's it's really, really tricky in that sense.
And you do start to get kind of a sense for how your opponent plays the game, which is weird because like I say, it's it's it's fairly straight.
Like there's not a whole lot of strategy per se other than yeah, like when do you play and when do you abstain? But you do get kind of a play style.
And from that, you can kind of adjust how you play.
And either way, I mean, it is largely up to the draw. It really is. Like at the end of the day, it is largely up to the how what cards you got dealt.
How the discard or how the draw pile is treating you.
What you got in your burner deck, you know, it's it's it is up to that.
But there is the the aspect of of you having to manage your own keeper cards, you having to deal with what you're going to do for your opponent or what you're going to do to try to to screw them over.
And yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. It's surprisingly, surprisingly addictive and just infinitely replayable. We we play it all the time.
And yeah, I highly recommend it. I again, I can't say anything for the game's storytelling or their thematic style. They just didn't even try.
I mean, not at all, not not not even a bit.
Which again, I feel is weird because I feel like it would have been at least easy to to to skin it with something to, you know, to to to make it something.
Some give me something and they gave me nothing. It was just like primary colors. It looks like something a child would play, but it's really, really fun.
So don't let the lack of style scare you away. And that's kind of why I say that it broke tabletop gaming for me because I really I'd come to tabletop gaming because I
Because I had less interest in things like poker and blackjack and Texas Holden and you know, sort of classic canastas, you know, classic games bridge classic games like that, which I completely admit are very fun. And I know that they're fun.
But they just don't they don't inspire, you know, they don't they don't really take me anywhere.
Whereas tabletop gaming, like, and I say tabletop gaming, you know, very deliberately. It's like, yes, that that thing called tabletop gaming, the one with all the fancy boxes and the and the obligatory
future figurines, figurines or resin figurines and the D6s and the D21s, you know, that tabletop gaming.
Um, they go out of their way to to make it, you know, you're not playing a card game. You're exploring a fantasy world. And it's like, no, I'm playing a card game.
But man, the fantasy art really is cool. So I'm going to go with it. Um, and and skipgo doesn't do that. It's like very it's very honest with you. It's like, look, you're playing a card game. You're going to need to know numbers. You're going to need to manage things.
You're probably going to want to break out a spreadsheet and just kind of take notes on the percentages that you've you've of cards you've seen.
This is a game of, you know, this is a game for us for accountants for not not for not for artists. Um, and that's okay. You know, I mean, like, honestly, it's just as fun.
And, and the mechanics are there. And it's just a really, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a very honest card game. And I like that. It's, it's actually, it works. It works really, really well. Is it better than something like, I don't know bridge or can ask us or
Texas hold them or anything. I don't, I don't know. You know, I'm not sure. I, first of all, I don't know how those play against two players.
Um, and second of all, I, I don't know. Um, I should probably look into some of those. But, but skip, though, for what it is, for whatever it is, is a heap of a lot of fun.
It's probably not that expensive. I don't know. Like I say, I got it gifted. So I don't really know. But if, if you see it and you have an opportunity to try it out, seriously, try it out. It is, it is much more fun than its box design would have you believe.
The name is horrible, but darn it. It's a fun game. Try it out.
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