Off with Their Heads!

Welcome to the court of the Red Queen. In Off with Their Heads! you are a loyal card soldier trying to keep the mercurial monarch pleased, because whoever falls out of favour loses their head.

The game combines pseudo-trick-taking with reveal-and-write. Each bout you secretly choose a card from your hand and all players reveal at the same time. The ranking is determined by the Queen's current suit on the Wonderland board, so what counts as high keeps shifting. Do you finish highest, in the middle or lowest? That decides where you record your card's value on your score sheet: the Meadow with its mushrooms, the Woods with the Jabberwock's rule, or the maze of the Keep where every number becomes valuable. Along the way you earn bonuses, invite famous Wonderlandians to your tea party and tweak your marks with the teacups.

After three rounds the cards set aside form a pool of six, from which you build your best five-card poker hand for bonus points. Whoever has earned the most favour with the Queen wins and keeps their head.