Guillotine Card Game First Impressions

In Guillotine it’s “Off with his head!”

No wait, not his head, the guy 2 places behind him…

The French Revolution is famous in part for the use of the guillotine to put nobles to death, and this is the macabre subject of this light card game. As executioners pandering to the masses, the players are trying to behead the least popular nobles.

This is a very simple and fun game that is very accessible.

There is a 3D Guillotine… Here it is in all its cardboard glory.

Lined up at the Guillotine are 12 people waiting to get their heads chopped off. You draw these at random from a shuffled deck and have different point values.

Each player plays cards from their hand to manipulate the queue. The point is that after you play a card, whoever is closest to the Guillotine is beheaded. This card is added to your score pile.

These ‘Nobles’ have various points assigned to them. Marie Antoinette is worth 5 points but ‘The Crowd Hero’ is worth -3 for example.

So obviously, you want to make sure you can move someone with a high point value to the front on your turn. If possible, make sure the next person is a negative point value for your opponents.

Guillotine Summary

So the goal is to score as many points as possible over 3 rounds that each have 12 new Nobles.

Some cards you play give bonuses for collecting a certain colour of Noble. You can also remove cards from other peoples scoring piles.

Most of the cards move people up and/or down the queue in a number of places.

It’s fun and light, good game.

Update 28/05/2018

The simplest ones are often the best and this is the best of these games I’ve played so far. I’ve played a couple of ‘manipulate the queue’ type games and nothing beats it.

I’ve played games where you’re queuing for the toilet and racing games too. I’m yet to find one that I want to buy and put on the shelf.

Jesta ThaRogue