Tagged "The revolutionary card game where you win by getting a head," Paul Peterson's Guillotine makes up for the groan-worthy pun on its cover with fast, simple, and easy to learn rules; bright, surprisingly humorous art (lacking much of any morbidity); and wigs. Yeah, that's right, it’s France in the late 1700's. Big ol' powered wigs.

You open up Guillotine and you're faced with a little fold-up, cardboard headsman and—Shock! Surprise!—his guillotine. (While I've seen pictures of a higher quality, color guillotine, most sets seem to come with a simple little two-color dealie.) For more than just setting the ambiance, the guillotine is a marker to show which way the line's going to move once you lay out a day's (12 victims) worth of doomed nobles. Laying out a line of twelve dead men and women, there's a variety of characters, many of who look all too happy to be heading to their doom—and equally many with great curly white wigs. Different color boarders divide the condemned into groups, like blue religious figures, green city folk, purple royalty, red military officers, and gray innocents. Each has a point value showing the amount the executioner (aka, the player) who collects the figure will score, with historical high muckity-mucks like King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette reigning with the highest values, 5 points each.

Play progresses with each executioner collecting the noble closest to the guillotine and putting that card in a stack in front of him. Easy enough. But there's a few tricky elements. First of all, not all of the noble cards are good. All of the gray innocents negatively affect the executioner who slays them, hitting their murderer with penalties to his total score in addition to other negative effects. Also, aside from some nobles simply having lower point values than others, there are victims with card text that affects play, like the Fast Noble who lets you pick up him and the noble behind him, or the sinister Robespierre who ends the day once he's collected. Players also get to influence the line, their scores, and other players' scores with a wide variety of action cards—each with a big piece of quirky art interpreting the card's effect (mostly involving bungling nobles and doughy guardsmen).

The game goes on as such, with each player collecting/beheading a noble and advancing the line, until all twelve nobles are slain or some other events ends the day. Then each player tallies up the value of the nobles in his pile and a new day of twelve nobles is laid out. After three days, the executioner with the most worthwhile stack of heads (aka, highest score) wins!

So yeah, easy. That's essentially all the rules summed up in two paragraphs (trust me, we're not going to explain all the rules for each game every week, this was just a quickie). The game is built for 2 to 5 players, and is one of the few games I've ever played that works just as well with the minimum number as with the maximum. It's also kid-friendly without feeling watered down or overly simple, despite the tame treatment of the historically grim theme. The art also does a great job of giving each noble a personality, making you eager to collect some of the snootier-looking S.O.B.s, while piling on the guilt when your blade comes down on the neck of the blue-eyed, blonde-haired Martyr. There's also some unexpected figures sure to become coveted targets and get a few laughs, like the prissy Coiffeur and his over-the-top doo; the Lieutenant with his boy-next-door, confused-innocent look; and the Piss Boy with his big yellow pot full of... well, lets just imagine it's a glass pot.

Fast, simple, and honestly fun, Guillotine's a great game to play with a few drinks, some friends, and a movie going in the background, or even just when you and your S.O. want to kill a bit of time before bed. While there have been rumors of the game going out of print for years, it's still around and readily available, being a testament to the glory days of Wizards of the Coast's inspired youth. Bright colors, big hair, and mob-sanctioned murder! What's not to love?