When the Queen of Hearts invites you to Wonderland, you’d better know your cards. Off with Their Heads!, designed by JB Howell and Michael Mihealsick with illustration by Manny Trembley, is a trick-and-write card game for 2-4 players published by Druid City Games. The game shares the same theme and trippy aesthetic as Druid City’s, Wonderlands War. It’s cozy and light. And clever. But, like the Queen herself, it can be a little fickle.  Will it keep its seat at your table?

Gameplay Overview

You are a guest at the Queen of Hearts’ court in Wonderland. That’s a precarious place to be. All the colorful characters from Lewis Carroll’s tale are there, too. The White Rabbit is watching the clock, the Mad Hatter is already three cups deep, and the Cheshire Cat is grinning at a joke only he understands. Meanwhile, you’re trying to keep up with a continually shifting landscape and not lose your head.

Trippy deck art oozes fanciful wonderland theme

The game is billed as a “reveal and write.” Over three rounds, 2-4 players compete across 7 bouts per round, revealing cards simultaneously, comparing ranks against the Queen of Hearts’ current position on the rondel. Her changing location on a rondel dictates the trump suit and whether you win a bout, lose, or fall somewhere in the middle. Your rank determines where you place your card’s value on your score sheet. Winning or high cards go in the mushroom woods. Middle cards take a spot on the meadow’s twisty path. Low cards descend to the maze-like keep.

Each location feeds different end-game scoring. Choosing wisely in the moment and strategizing future gambits is the heart of the game. Complete special combos on the score sheet to earn bonus points. Special features like cakes and teacups add the ability to switch card suit color or duplicate your card’s location anywhere on the score sheet. At the end of each round, you set aside two cards. Use them later to build a Poker hand to boost your points total even more. The player with the most points at the game’s end wins the Queen’s favor. But, alas, only temporarily.

Player sheet: Will it be the woods, the meadow or the keep?

Game Experience

As someone who grew up playing lots of cards, especially trick-takers, there’s something immediately cozy and familiar about Off with Their Heads! It plays like a good card game with the added complexity of attempting to play each hand with your end goal in mind. Wonderland’s Dormouse might nap through a round, but you can’t afford to.

The game is not deep strategy, but it rewards commitment. After multiple plays exploring various scoring paths (the woods, the meadow, the keep), you start to understand which scenarios suit your hand. That exploration is genuinely enjoyable early on. Whether it sustains across many plays is a fairer question for the Caterpillar than for me.

Components bring together player aides, cards and sheets while the Queen circles the board.

You have 21 cards across three rounds. That scarcity is both the game’s constraint and its charm. At the start, you’re building a strategy based on your opening hand and gambling that the next two rounds will cooperate. There’s some opportunity to read what other players are chasing after a few bouts but pivoting to foil someone else’s plans or dramatically switching your own feels more aspirational than practical, given the limited opportunities. It’s not really in the cards. And yet that very tightness is what makes early decisions feel weighty.

The cakes offer an additional wrinkle: use them to mark up to seven extra spots on your score sheet. In practice, if you’ve committed to a strategy (and you should), you’ll find fewer chances to exploit those combos. The Poker hand mechanic at the end of each round, while thematically fun to imagine the Knave of Hearts bluffing his way through a hand, feels a bit added on to the core experience.

The scoring sheet is well designed and genuinely informative once you’ve taken the time to sit with it. Teaching the game is relatively painless as the scoring page largely speaks for itself after a quick rundown from someone who’s played. No need to send anyone down a rulebook rabbit hole. There’s something to be said for that.

Manny Trembley’s artwork is delightfully whimsical, colorful, and just a bit trippy. The Queen is imperious, The White Rabbit looks perpetually harried, The Mad Hatter is properly eccentric. The landscape is exotic and quirky.

A note on player count: I played this most at two players during a vacation (it was just the two of us, and looking back, we should have found some willing players at a local pub). At two, the house plays two cards per trick to fill out the table. The randomness of those draws was frequently frustrating. I think I’d have a more favorable view of the game overall had I started with more plays at a higher count. Four players are where Off with Their Heads! finds its best self—player styles, tendencies, and strategies emerge, and the court feels properly populated. Three players still carry some of that house-card randomness.

Final Thoughts

Off with Their Heads! is best for players who like the familiar comfort of card games dressed in something a little more interesting. Its trick-and-write structure is accessible, its teaching curve is gentle, and its Wonderland trappings charming. It won’t challenge the deepest strategic thinkers at your table, but that’s ok sometimes. Played with a full court of four? It earns its invitation. Just don’t cross the Queen.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars — Off with Their Heads! offers a cozy, familiar trick-and-write experience that plays best with a full table. Early plays are engaging as you explore scoring strategies; whether it holds its seat over the long haul may depend on your group’s appetite for the format.

Hits:
• Accessible, easy to teach
• Satisfying trick-and-write structure
• Best-in-class at four players

Misses:
• Two-player experience undermined by house-card randomness
• Poker hand mechanic feels tacked on
• May lose luster after the scoring scenarios are well explored