Xmas is almost here, so it’s time to play Skeal

The nights are heavy, the sun is frail. The mountain moans its hunger. The rivers are frozen scars and the trees are become hard flashes of black lightning. Bells haunt the wind and peculiar bearded men appear in the fireplaces, to be chased away with pies and brandy. The roses, strangely, are in bloom.

Put on your slippers. Stoke the embers. Pull up a chair. It is time to remember. It is time to renew. It is time to succumb to a growing addiction. It is time… to play Skeal.

If you’ve played Skeal with us before, there is no need for further words – here’s a link to the browser version. If you’ve yet to play Skeal, further words will only spoil things. Go on, it’s free.

Playing Skeal has been an RPS wintermas tradition since Alice O declared it so in 2017. After Alice O returned to the sea in 2024 – rumour has it she may indeed now live in a greying tower – Graham took up the torch. Now Graham is gone, and I continue the tradition in their stead. Am I making you sad? Excellent – this is the appropriate mood in which to play Skeal. But it’s the good kind of sadness, the sadness of release, the sadness of… truly terrible puns.

Skeal is sort of a lesson in how you can transform a slight cringe into a teary-eyed guffaw by dragging out the punchline and committing to it whole-heartedly. It shouldn’t make me bawl but it does. I am going to get my sister’s partner to play it this holiday. He’s approximately the same age as me and I’m pretty sure this will make him weep too.

Then I will show it to my nephew, who will look at me like I’ve just offered to feed him a bowl of toothpaste. The key thing is that emotions will be had. I hope Skeal makes you have emotions too.

Once more with feeling: Skeal is the work of Nick Cummings, who also makes games about laundry separation, hermit crabs and racoonomics. St Nick, we should call him. Merry Decemberween all.