Now, keep in mind that both of the games I'll feature (one today, one next week) were both released in 2001, which doesn't qualify them as old school games. However, nostalgia is kind of a crude form of time travel, merely confined to your mind. So this still fits with my style.
The first game we'll look at is Chrononauts, created by Looney Labs, who are best known for the chaotic card game Fluxx. The premise of Chrononauts is that each player is a time traveler from a different alternate Earth. Each player uses cards to collect historical artifacts, get new time travel technology, affect other players, or alter events in the timestream (which is this grid of reversible cards with each card signifying an important moment in history -- almost as if the fabric of time and space were a big quilt). When someone alters these "Linchpin" moments in history, it affects other events in the timestream, called Ripplepoints. Say, for instance, your time traveler goes back to 1936 to assassinate Hitler before his opening speech at the Berlin Olympic Games. Of course, this prevents most of the events of World War II (though it does not prevent the entire conflict -- according to the game, Japan still wages war and the attack on Pearl Harbor still occurs). Each event in the timestream that is affected due to the alteration of a Linchpin becomes a time paradox, as the timestream has ripped from the drastic change and is unable to rectify itself.
The Timestream (purple and red cards are Linchpins, blue are Ripplepoints,
and the ones with "black holes" are paradoxed Ripplepoints)
Of course, too many paradoxes at once is a bad thing, as it causes the integrity of the time-space continuum to fail and all of reality collapses upon itself. This causes everyone to lose the game, unless you're a certain time traveler (from one of the expansions) who needs reality to collapse in order to win. To prevent this, players use time patch cards, which depict alternate events in history, that superimpose themselves on the paradox and repair the tears in the continuum. Let's use our previous example: since Hitler was assassinated in 1936, Germany won't invade Poland in 1939, which structurally damages reality in that point in time. A player can place a patch on 1939 where, instead of invading Poland, Germany remains a proactive part of Europe and they participate in the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where they introduce German Black Forest Cake to the people and it becomes a big hit. This blitzkrieg of the culinary world nullifies the paradox of Germany's blitzkrieg of the European world, thus righting the balance of events. Of course, others can use cards to revert events back to the way they were, preventing Hitler's assassination and discarding the patch, since the paradox is undone.
There are three ways to win Chrononauts: The first way is to change events in the timestream and patch alternate events to where the timestream conforms to the time traveler's reality and they can go home. Each character card has three events, one that is part of our timestream, and two that are altered events that are made possible by patching time paradoxes, that determine their home reality. You can also try to fulfill the requirements of your mission card. Each player is given a mission card at the start of the game. The mission is to collect three items (some cards allow you to collect three of four items), either by playing them or by playing a card to steal them from someone else who has them. The third way to win is by getting ten cards in your hand at the end of your turn (all of the ways to win must be done at the end of your turn, so someone can still screw things up for you before your turn comes up).
Despite the complex premise of the game, it's actually very easy to pick up and learn. The time travel concept is fun, and you don't have to move around any board. As long as you have the right card, you can change any Linchpin in time. There are some cards that you can play to change any Linchpin, regardless of where they are and whether they are our own history or an alternate one, but there are others that only allow you to change certain events, such as any disaster (Hindenberg, Titanic, etc.) as well as some cards that only allow you to take any altered Linchpin and revert it back to normal (keep in mind, you can only use these cards to change Linchpins in the timestream; you cannot directly affect Ripplepoints, you have to change the Linchpins they're attached to). Don't let the easy learning curve fool you, though. This game does require some tactical thinking, as you have to change events from a certain time to create a paradox in events down the way and fix them with the appropriate patch in order to "go home."
As a card game about time travel, this game was inspired by science fiction shows and stories that explored the concepts of time travel and features quite a few references to them. If you want to find out more about his inspirations and the hows and whys of the alternate histories he created for the game, then check out his article, Mysteries of the Timeline, on the Looney Labs website.
Even though it may not be the cheapest card game out there (the core game cost $20), it's still a game that is worth the money. There's even an Early American Chrononauts, which is kind of a sequel (or is it a prequel, since it takes place in an earlier point in the timestream?) that can be combined with Chrononauts to create one big game. You can also find expansions that add new time travellers or expand the timeline to 2008. There's also a Back to the Future version of the card game (see, there's a reference to a classic movie trilogy from the '80s).
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While the basic gameplay is similar to Chrononauts, Back to the Future does add some extra rules to the game. Once your character has changed events in the timestream to where they can return to their reality, you also have to go back in time to when Doc Brown conceived of the Flux Capacitor and stop him from doing so, thus making it so the time machine was never invented (which is a bit of a paradox, itself).
If you like fun card games, or are an avid fan of time travel fiction, then I recommend picking this up. It's easy, fun, and a good way to waste an hour. Next Wednesday, I'll take a look at time travel on the cheap.
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