Chrononauts
| The Card Game of Time Travel! | |
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Chrononauts is a tabletop card game that investigates cause and effect in historical events.
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| Designer(s) | Andrew Looney |
| Publisher(s) | Looney Labs |
| Publication date | 2000 |
| Years active | 2000-present |
| Genre(s) | sci fi |
| Language(s) | en |
| Players | 1–6 |
| Age range | 11 and up |
| Setup time | 5 minutes |
| Playing time | 20–45 minutes |
| Random chance | Moderate |
| Skill(s) required | Strategy, collecting |
| Media type | cards |
| Website | Official website |
Chrononauts is a family of card games that simulates popular fictional ideas about how time travellers might alter history, drawing on sources like Back to the Future and the short stories collection Travels Through Time. The game was designed by Andrew Looney and is published by Looney Labs. The original game and a variant each won the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game.
The game was designed by Andrew Looney of Looney Labs in 2000. In 2001, Chrononauts won the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game of 2000 and Parents' Choice Silver Honors 2001 Games.
The game's first expansion, Lost Identities was released in 2001. In 2004, Looney Labs released Early American Chrononauts (EAC), a prequel version of Chrononauts, introduced "Gadgets," a new card type.
The game's second edition was published in 2009. The Gore Years expansion set was issued that year also. Released on September 11, 2010, Back to the Future: The Card Game variant re-implemented the system to match the movies. This variant won 2011 Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game. In 2013, EAC was reprinted.
Chrononauts is played with a specially designed set of 136 or 140 cards. There are 32 "Timeline" cards that form the game board (with four "tiers" of eight cards). "IDs" and "Missions" cards describing goals for the players, and 80 cards ("Artifacts," "Actions," "Inverters," "Patches," and "Timewarps") that make up the deck from which players draw. Gadgets were added with the Early American Chrononauts variant and grant special actions.
The 32 timeline cards represent significant events in (real) history of two types: Linchpins and Ripple Points. Players use Inverters to directly change the Linchpin events, changing to the alternative event on the reverse side of the timeline card. Changing a Linchpin also turns over one or more Ripple Point cards, exposing paradoxes. Player can use a Patch to resolve the paradox.
The game can be won in one of three ways:
The game comes with two other game rules, Solonauts (a solitaire version) and Artifaxx (a Fluxx-like variant). The Chrononauts and EAC timelines can be interconnected to create a third game, ÜberChrononauts, which requires players to satisfy all THREE winning conditions (though NOT simultaneously) to win the game. The original Über rules were found in the EAC set on a card, with updated rules on Wunderland.com.
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Wikipedia