Guillotine (1998 game)

Guillotine is a card game designed by Paul Peterson and created by Wizards of the Coast, released on Bastille Day in 1998. It is set during the French Revolution, and each player tries to collect the heads of Nobles as they are led to the guillotine, accumulating points. Despite the grim subject, the artwork by Quinton Hoover and Mike Raabe is comical and the tone is light. The game uses two decks, Nobles and Actions, plus a small cardboard structure standing for the guillotine that shows the direction of the line of condemned Nobles. Play is divided into three rounds called days. On a turn a player may play an Action card, collects the Noble at the front of the line, and draws an Action card. Nobles fall into five colour-coded categories (Church, Military, Royal, Negative and Civic), and the grey Negative nobles are worth negative points. The game is for two to five players, takes about thirty minutes and has been published by several companies including Amigo Spiele, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.