It’s almost Christmas, which means it’s time to play Skeal

Creation is an act of kindness. One person sloughs off a piece of themselves, shapes it, wraps it, and sends it out into the world in the hope that it might mean something to someone else. Other people do this for us all the time and mostly we don’t even notice. The work is unseen and unremarked upon even as, through repetition, we come to depend upon it. Until, one day, that light that they shine can’t be seen. Maybe you left home, or maybe they did, but now it’s your turn to perform such acts of kindness. To carry the tradition forward for others – and for yourself.

Friends, it’s time to play Skeal.

Playing Skeal at Christmas is an annual RPS tradition, created by Alice O and written about by her in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Alice departed RPS back in April, so I am continuing it in her stead.

Skeal is a short, free joke created by Nick Cummings which you can play in your browser. It’ll take you five minutes. Go do it now.

Ah, that’s fun, isn’t it. A bit of silly wordplay blown up and out in a way that causes the delight to stack and multiply. Every year I forget the details of it, and every year I smile the first time I miss a gate and the “Pain” counter appears in the top left.

We play Skeal every year and invite you to do the same as a little marker in the closing season. I play every year, but in many ways the tradition begins for me long before I actually head over to Itch to find the game. It begins early in December when I first recall the tradition and start to sing around my kitchen. The mere thought of Skeal has become a prompt for reflection on where I’ve been and where I am. Briefly put? RPS, you remain my power, my pleasure, my pain.

The nature of traditions is that we get to choose which we continue and which we don’t. Alice O also played Dracula Cha Cha and Christmas Pain in Christmas Town each December – fine traditions! – but I have let them go, for this year at least.

Of course, we likewise get to create new traditions of our own, should we want to. Who knows what Nic, Edwin, James and Ed might cook up in the months and years to come? That is for them to decide. For me, for now, I Skeal.