Skull & Roses is a bidding & bluffing game by Herve Marly, published by lui-meme and distributed in the US by Asmodee.

Playing Time: 30 minutes
Players: 3-6

Summary of the Components
Skull & Roses comes in a small square box with 6 player mats and 24 coasters.
Quality: The coasters and mats are all printed on medium-weight linen-textured cardboard. 5 out of 5.
Beauty: The coasters all depict biker gang tattoos on the front and either roses or a skull on the back. The player mats show roses on one side and skulls on the other. The artwork for these is all very attractive and feels appropriate for the biker-gang theming. Even the colors of the coasters, each a mottled pastel, comes across very well and improves the look of the game. 5 out of 5.
Theming: In theory Skull & Roses is a game played to see who leads biker gangs. That theming seems a bit silly, but is carried through very well in the game's artwork, making it really work. 4 out of 5.
Overall, Skull & Roses is a sturdy and graphically stunning game, and thus earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style.


Summary of the Gameplay
The object of Skull & Roses is to win two bids.

Setup: Each player is given a set of four coasters with their biker gang emblem. On the backsides, three show roses and one shows a skull.

Placing Coasters: At the start of a round of play, each player puts a coaster face down on his player mat. Then, starting with the first player, each player puts an additional coaster face down … until someone starts a bid.

Making a Bid: Instead of placing a coaster, you can make a bid. You say how many coasters you can turn up without revealing a skull. Other players can then raise, with bidding continuing until there's only one biker standing.

The Revelation: After a player has won a bid, he must start flipping up coasters. Here's the catch: he must start by flipping up his own coasters. After that, he can choose any other coasters that have been placed face down, one-at-a-time. This can make the bidding very tricky. You might bid even if you've placed a skull (and thus would automatically lose if you made the highest bid), to try and force other players up in bid and to try to convince your opponents that your coasters are safe. You just have to be very careful in doing so, lest you actually win the bid.

Win or Lose: If you win your bid, you earn a point, which is cleverly marked by flipping your player mat. Two points wins. If you lose your bid, you lose a coaster--and it's a random one if you lost by revealing a skull on another player's mat.


Relationships to Other Games
Skull & Roses is a member of a family of largely pure bluff games. It reminds me the most of the classic Liar's Dice, except here you have a little more control over the objects you'll actually be bidding on.

The Game Design
Skull & Roses is a game of almost pure bluff. There's a bit of tactics, when you decide what you're placing on your mat, and in what order. However, most of the game focuses on deciding how to bid and reading what the other people really mean with their bids.
And, it works great! The bidding is exciting and the decision of what to flip is terrifying. Beyond that, the game goes quickly, in part because the two-point victory system makes you feel like the game is on the edge almost from its beginning.
Skull & Roses isn't a particularly deep game, but it does what it does--bidding and bluffing--very well. I've given it a "5" out of "5" for Substance.

Conclusion
Skull & Roses is a very light, but very exciting game of bidding and bluffing that offers up filler-length play of a very different sort.

Complete review and comments available here: S. Applecline review of Skull & Roses