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ChrononautsChrononauts is a card game. It is played with a specially designed set of 136 cards, consisting of 32 "Timeline" cards that form the game board, 24 cards ("IDs" and "Missions") describing goals for the players, and 70 cards ("Artifacts," "Actions," "Inverters," "Patches," and "Timewarps") that make up the deck from which players draw. The game was designed by Andrew Looney in 2000 and is published by Looney Labs. In 2001 Chrononauts won the Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game of 2000. The game 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 32 timeline cards represent significant events in (real) history, and on the reverse side is either an alternative event or a "paradox." The players' actions can cause certain cards to be turned over, changing history, and certain changes will cause other cards to be turned. For example, turning the 1865 "Lincoln Assassinated" card to "Lincoln Wounded" causes the 1868 "Andrew Johnson Impeached" card to turn, leaving a paradox in place for that year. This paradox can then be repaired by playing a Patch on top of the paradox that describes Lincoln's impeachment in 1868 (the game designers' historical reasoning behind this sequence of events may be found here). The game can be won in one of three ways. First, the timeline can be altered so that certain events happen as described on a player's ID card. This represents the idea that each player comes from a different alternate timeline and our "real" history is, for them, an alternate history. Second, each player has a Mission card detailing three Artifacts that can be retrieved through time travel. If a player collects all three of these artifacts, that player wins. Third, a player whose hand contains 10 or more cards at the end of their turn wins. In addition to all this, all players will lose the game if there are ever 13 or more unpatched paradoxes on the timeline. In 2001, the company released Lost Identities, a set of new IDs and one new Mission for Chrononauts. In 2004, Loonely Labs released Early American Chrononauts (EAC), a prequel to Chrononauts. Using the same game mechanics, EAC focuses on events from the 1770s to the early 1900s. It also introduces "Gadgets," a new card type that can affect the play of the game by allowing an extra turn or blocking other players from stealing Artifacts. The Chononauts and EAC timelines can be interconected to create a third game, berChrononauts. Looney Labs had discussed the possibility of offering an another expansion pack of IDs that makes use of missions and events from both games to support berChrononauts games. Looney Labs has also released several promotional cards that can be added Chrononauts and EAC games. External links
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