Tag Archives: Chrononauts

PuzzleNation Product Review: Star Trek Chrono-Trek

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[Image courtesy of Trekcore.]

[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that.]

Some of the most important moments in the Star Trek franchise center around altering the past through time travel. Choosing to save Edith Keeler in the original series, the Enterprise-C sacrificing itself to bring peace to the Klingons and the Federation in Star Trek: The Next Generation, or Sisko preventing a Tribble bomb from killing Kirk in Deep Space Nine… iconic scenes both humorous and galaxy-changing involved rending the fabric of time and space. (Heck, the new film franchise was based entirely on changing the timeline from what we knew previously!)

So when I heard that Looney Labs updated their time-jumping strategy card game Chrononauts to include elements from the Star Trek universe, it seemed like a perfect fit. How did they do? Find out today as we review the new Star Trek Chrono-Trek card game.

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[A sample of each of the 11 different types of cards in the game.]

Much like its inspiration Chrononauts, Chrono-Trek is all about the cards. You’ve got assignment cards, ID cards, timeline cards that make up the playing space, artifact cards, cards that change history (and others that change it back), as well as cards that can help or hinder your fellow time travelers.

At the beginning of the game, the timeline cards are laid out in a 4×9 grid that represents the historical timeline from the Star Trek shows and films. Each player then draws an ID card representing a Star Trek character. Each character has certain victory conditions — some combination of events that must be preserved or changed in the timeline and artifacts to be acquired during play — that must be met for you to win the game. The ID cards are ranked by difficulty, indicating how complex the victory conditions are.

As for the other cards available to the player, they allow you to manipulate time, find artifacts, or manipulate the cards in your opponents’ hands. (For Fluxx players, some of these Action cards will seem very similar, as will the artifact cards, which are played just like keepers in Fluxx.)

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[A small glimpse of the timeline.]

The history-changing aspect is the puzzliest part of the game, as you determine what moments to change (and which to protect from your opponents) in order for your timeline to come to pass. But you must be careful, because you also need to ensure that you don’t accidentally end the game by allowing the anomaly from the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation — the Anti-Time Devron Anomaly — from preventing life on Earth. (In nearly every scenario, that’s a game over for all players. Pretty daunting, to say the least!)

And although bending time to your will and winning is certainly fun, watching the effect ripple down through the cards after making a bold history-altering move is arguably the best part of the game.

It will take one or two playthroughs — with easier ID cards only — to get used to the game mechanics, but after that, it’s a quick and easy deep-dive into the more complex victory conditions and a much more immersive and challenging play experience. (The game can go a bit too rapidly if you’re only using two players, so I’d recommend playing with four or more players to get the most out of the game.)

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[A comparison of a one-pip (easy) ID card and a four-pip (complex) ID card. Kirk simply requires you to protect one moment, invert another, and collect an artifact. Meanwhile, Evil Spock requires you to find the Fracture card, manipulate two events just to place the Fracture, and still maintain another moment AND acquire an artifact. That’s a much taller order.]

The designers did an impressive job figuring out which moments from the 50 years of Star Trek history to include in the timeline, which characters to offer as ID cards, and so on. For a Star Trek enthusiast, there are great references and little callbacks galore to favorite moments from the series. Not only that, but the game ups the ante from the original Chrononauts formula, keeping all of the best aspects of that game while making this one feel unique.

I posed the question in the intro asking how Looney Labs did marrying Star Trek and Chrononauts. The answer? They boldly went where no Star Trek card game had gone before, and created one heck of a fun adventure.

[Star Trek Chrono-Trek is available from Looney Labs and other participating retailers.]

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PuzzleNation Product Review: Time Breaker

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[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that. Yada yada disclaimer.]

Criminals are bad enough as it is, but time criminals… they’re the worst. Not only can they screw up the present, but they can screw up the past AND the future as well. As a member of the Time Repair Agency, it’s your job to travel through time to apprehend these miscreants — these time breakers — and set things right.

But be careful. You’re not the only TRA agent on the hunt, and every criminal captured is a feather in that agent’s cap, so don’t be surprised if other TRA agents try to interfere with your efforts.

Whether you’re searching the dawn of time or the year 3000, the life of a TRA agent isn’t easy.

[The intrepid agents of the Time Repair Agency and the dastardly Time Breaker.]

That’s the concept behind Time Breaker, the newest card game from the inventive crew at Looney Labs, and honestly, I think it’s their best game yet.

Time Breaker not only improves upon some of the ideas behind Chrononauts, but incorporates strong elements from the Fluxx games in order to add more choice and more excitement to the game play.

The game board consists of 25 tiles arranged randomly in a 5×5 grid pattern. 24 of these tiles represent specific moments in time. The 25th is the Time Repair Agency, and it’s always the center tile. It’s your job to navigate the board, capture the Time Breaker, and return to the Time Repair Agency with your quarry.

You do so by playing various cards that dictate your movements. (Players experienced with Fluxx will recognize the idea of Action cards, as well as some of the actions you can perform.)

There are move cards that allow you to move from tile to tile, regardless of where those moments are in time. There are jump cards that allow you to move to a specific tile. And there are action cards that allow you to perform different tasks, including playing extra cards from your hand, or traveling backwards in time. There are also Stop Time cards, which cancel other players’ actions, and Breaker cards that alter the game board or affect how the criminal moves.

Since the game is a race to see who reaches the Time Breaker first, it’s clever to allow the players multiple ways to navigate the board. You can move your piece across tiles (like any normal board game), you can jump to certain times with the cards, and you can navigate time itself by moving either backward or forward in time.

You see, since each tile is a moment in time, there are two arrows on the tile — one going forward, one going back. Those arrows can help you jump around the board. For instance, if you’re on the tile 13,800,000,000 BCE (the start of the universe), following the green arrow forward takes you to 4,500,000,000 BCE (the formation of the sun), which due to the random nature of the game board’s layout, could be anywhere, not just the next tile over.

Or you could follow the red arrow backward in time, if you have the proper card for it. (Since we’re talking about the first card in our timeline, it turns out time is cyclical, and going backward takes you to the future, the year 3069 (the colonization of Alpha Centauri).

Time Breakers manages to pack a lot of strategy and choice into a small package, ensuring that the game has major replay value. That’s no surprise, of course, since replayability is a hallmark of the Looney Labs brand.

But by combining a playing space that’s different every time (similar to Fluxx: The Board Game or Forbidden Island), the randomness of the cards you draw, and the ability to manipulate the board by closing access to certain time tiles, you have a dynamic game that always feels fresh.

All those elements could make for an uneven playing experience, but the cards are perfectly balanced, meaning no matter what cards you draw, you’re going to have a fair shot of winning the game. Luck is always a factor, but strong strategy and an ability to adapt on the fly will take you far.

And Andrew Looney makes juggling all of these elements look easy.

Complimented by a jovial art style, rich in bright colors and whimsy — not to mention a prediction of world peace only a few centuries away! — Time Breaker continues the innovative, enjoyable tradition long established by games like Fluxx, Just Desserts, and Get the MacGuffin. This game is great fun.

Time Breaker is available from Looney Labs and participating retailers on February 28, but you can preorder it by clicking here!

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It’s Follow-Up Friday: LooneyCon edition!

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Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And for today’s blog post, we’re returning to one of my favorite subjects: puzzly events!

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We’re closing in on a very special anniversary for a company PuzzleNationers know well. From Loonacy, Just Desserts, and Fluxx to Chrononauts, Mad Libs: The Game, and Pink Hijinks, many of their games have passed beneath the PuzzleNation Blog microscope!

That’s right, we’re one week away from the 20th anniversary of Looney Labs!

More specifically, it’s the 20th birthday of Fluxx, the very first Looney Labs game!

And how are the folks at Looney Labs celebrating this joyous occasion? Why, with their very own convention: LooneyCon!

From their Facebook page:

LooneyCon is a weekend long convention focused entirely on Looney Labs and our fans! What will we do at LooneyCon, you ask? We’ve got tournaments, giant game pieces, tie dying and craft projects, unpublished prototypes, and foreign language versions to try… We’re going to bring Andy’s Ice Breaker video game full console machine! Rare items will be given out… Grab your tickets before we sell out!

From July 22 to July 24, all things Looney Labs will be celebrated! They’ve got gaming tables, an auction where you can spend Looney Bucks earned during the event, rare versions of their most popular games, and the intriguing “Andy vs. Everybody” event pitting creator and game designer Andrew Looney against all comers!

So, if you’re near Chevy Chase, Maryland — or within traveling distance — reach out to them on Facebook and join in the fun!

For the full calendar of LooneyCon events, click here!

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PuzzleNation Product Review: Firefly Fluxx

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[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that.]

Looney Labs is celebrating 20 years of puzzle-game goodness this year. From Pink Hijinks and Just Desserts to Retro Loonacy and Chrononauts, they have built a reputation for games that endlessly reinvent themselves every time you play, maximizing both fun and replayability.

And their newest edition to their flagship Fluxx series typifies the spirit of Looney Labs: it’s bright, chaotic, stylish, and entertaining as all get out.

Firefly Fluxx makes the most of the much-beloved fan favorite one-season wonder, utilizing the characters, tropes, and best lines from the show to place their particular spin on the shifting rules, goals, and actions of earlier editions of Fluxx. (And you won’t even need to brush up on your Chinese expletives!)

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Now, anyone who has played Fluxx in the past is familiar with action cards, goal cards, keeper cards, new rule cards, and surprise cards. For those unfamiliar with the game, the basic idea is to collect keeper cards in the hopes of completing a goal and winning the game. But since every player can change rules (like how many cards you draw during your turn, how many you drop, etc.) as well as what the current goal is that will allow you to win the game, you have to be on your toes.

Firefly Fluxx capitalizes on the outlaw spirit of the show to encourage players to swap out goals, play diabolical creeper cards, and spring devastating surprises on their opponents, all while sharing in the collective fandom with references like “Shiny!,” “I’ll be in my bunk,” and my personal favorite, “Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!”

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[The crew of the Serenity reunites to elude the Reavers,
gather some loot, and escape unscathed, Fluxx-style.]

The art is delightful in a cartoony way, visually bringing home their larger-than-life adventures. Even the backgrounds of each card get a washed-out, Old West-style color palette to compliment the game and its fictional universe.

Although they’re not reinventing the wheel here with this newest edition of Fluxx, they are providing another terrific example of what they do best: marrying fun pop culture properties with great puzzly gameplay. It’s a winning combination.

You can pick up Firefly Fluxx here, and to check out all of our reviews of Looney Labs games and products, click here!

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PuzzleNation Product Review: Just Desserts

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Whether it’s the speedy pattern-matching of Loonacy, the time-traveling strategy of Chrononauts, or the festive rule-shifting chaos of Holiday Fluxx, the folks at Looney Labs are constantly crafting new games that are visually engaging and offer high replay value. They sent us a copy of their newest card game, and we’re happy to give it the full PuzzleNation Blog treatment.

So, without further ado, let’s explore Just Desserts!

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Just Desserts employs a similar game mechanic to Looney Labs’ flagship game, Fluxx: collect Keeper cards and be the first to match a pair of Keeper cards to the current Goal card.

In Just Desserts, you’re collecting Dessert cards and trying to match them to various sweet-toothed guests. You see, each Dessert card represents different ingredients that your guests enjoy or dislike. You want to play desserts that a given guest will enjoy, hoping to match each of their preferred ingredients without including an ingredient they hate.

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So, for instance, The Little Boy likes chocolate, cookies, and marshmallow, so you need Dessert cards representing each of those flavors. But he also has a favorite dessert: S’mores. If you had the S’mores Dessert card, you can cover all of his favorite ingredients with a single card, adding him to the happy guests you’ve collected, and earning yourself a bonus Dessert card.

The guests belong to six different-colored suits, and to win, you must collect three guests of the same suit or five of different suits.

And the relatively few Guest cards available — when compared to the massive number of Dessert cards you can collect — makes each guest a prized commodity.

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The simple game mechanic and wide variety of Dessert cards makes this not only a terrific introductory game for new players or younger players, but also gives the game great replay value, as you try new combinations of sweets to satisfy your picky guests and gather a winning array of cards.

From a puzzle point of view, scanning the various ingredients represented by the Dessert cards in your hand — not to mention figuring out the most economical way to employ them — and secure Guest cards effectively definitely makes for a fun, and constantly evolving, puzzle experience.

The one problem with this game? It makes me hungry.

Nonetheless, Just Desserts is a treat you can indulge in over and over without gaining a pound.

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

PuzzleNation 2014 Holiday Puzzly Gift Guide: By Category

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Welcome to the PuzzleNation Blog 2014 Holiday Gift Guide!

We’re overjoyed to have so many tremendously fun and puzzly products to share with you this year. We just might be your one-stop shop for all things puzzly!

This guide is broken down into categories for ease of searching. We have puzzle apps, puzzle books, downloadable puzzles and puzzles by mail, jigsaw puzzles, puzzle games, board games, card games, and party games. We’re sure you’ll find the perfect gift for any puzzler on your list!

Puzzle Apps

Naturally, you’ll forgive us for starting off with a link for some familiar puzzle apps!

Click these links for all the details on the Penny Dell Crossword App for iOS devices, Classic Word Search for Android and Kindle Fire, our Sudoku App and more!

Puzzle Books

Pencil-and-paper puzzles are alive and well, and we’re happy to share some of our favorites with you.

   

Our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles have put together some outstanding holiday collections with puzzles galore to be solved!

Whether it’s their Sudoku Spectacular, the Only Yesterday Word Seek looking back across the decades, the Crossword Extravaganza collecting some of the best puzzles around, or their Home for the Holidays Signature Puzzle gift bundles — with an all Word Seek collection (pictured above), an all Crossword, an all Fill-In, and many more options — Penny/Dell has you covered.

And right now, they’re offering 15% off their Selected Puzzles and Dell Collector’s Series books with the offer code “SNOW15”!

And for more specialized puzzle books, some high-level constructors have books of their own for your perusal! With New York Times and Los Angeles Times crosswords to their credit, you’re sure to find some puzzlers within these pages!

–Ian Livengood’s Sit & Solve® Sports Crosswords

–Rich Norris’s A-to-Z Crosswords

–Doug Peterson’s Easy ABC Crosswords

–Jeff Chen’s puzzles for Bridge enthusiasts

–Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Sit & Solve® Marching Bands

–Patrick Blindauer’s Quick-As-A-Wink Crosswords and Wide-Screen Crosswords

Tic Tac Tome by Willy Yonkers

And if you’re looking for a one-on-one solving experience, pit your mind against the Tic Tac Tome and see if you can beat the book at Tic Tac Toe. ($11)

[Click here to read our full book review!]

Downloadable Puzzles and Puzzles by Mail

Many top constructors and organizations market their puzzles directly to solvers, so between by-mail offers and downloadable puzzle bundles, you’ve got plenty of quality choices!

—The Uptown Puzzle Club (puzzle bundles by mail)

—The Crosswords Club (puzzle bundles by mail)

—Patrick Blindauer PuzzleFests (puzzle bundles by email)

—David Steinberg’s Chromatics (color-themed puzzles)

—The American Values Crossword (subscription and daily puzzles)

–Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest

Jigsaw Puzzles

These are beautiful puzzles with a sense of history, designed to be assembled or unraveled by patient hands and hungry minds!

Baffledazzle

Baffledazzle offers absolutely gorgeous jigsaw puzzles-with-a-twist, allowing the solver to learn about different cultures and uncover deeper mysteries as you place each piece. Whether you’re rediscovering ancient board games with Cirkusu, exploring the animal kingdom with Ozuzu, or running in circles with Code Breakers, you’ll find that these high-quality puzzles are more than meets the eye. (Prices range from $25 to $125)

Tavern Puzzles

These hand-forged beauties are ready to challenge your dexterity and cleverness, as you accept the Tavern Puzzles challenge. Whether you’re trying to free your heart from the tangled pieces of Heart’s Desire or remove the ring from the Iron Maiden, you’re sure to put your skills to the test. ($22)

Puzzle Games

These one- and two-player puzzle games are perfect to train your brain and keep you guessing!

Gravity Maze, Robot Turtles, and Laser Maze (ThinkFun)

ThinkFun meshes learning and gameplay with three logic games ready to challenge kids and adults alike. Whether it’s the marble-dropping path-building of Gravity Maze ($24.99), the basics of programming brought to you by turtles and towers in Robot Turtles ($29.99), or the study of optics and mirrors with an actual laser in Laser Maze ($26.95), young minds and older minds will soon be in fighting trim for puzzling!

[Check out our full product reviews of Gravity Maze by clicking here, Robot Turtles by clicking here, and Laser Maze by clicking here!]

Rudenko’s Disk and Collide-O-Cube (Brainwright)

Brainwright has a few color-based puzzles to brighten your holidays! Whether it’s the pattern-matching Collide-O-Cube ($19.99), which adds a touch of randomness by incorporating magnets into their blocks, or the more challenging post-sliding and strategy-demanding Rudenko’s Disk ($9.99), these are great gateway puzzles to bring young solvers to the table.

[Check out the full reviews of Rudenko’s Disk and Collide-o-Cube by clicking here!]

Pink Hijinks (Looney Labs)

Part of Looney Labs’ multi-colored Pyramids series, Pink Hijinks is a quick-to-play strategy game for two players! Roll the dice, make your move, and try to race your opponent to the finish in this easily transported game of tactics! ($12)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Word Winder (David L. Hoyt)

Word Winder (also available in app, puzzle book, and GIANT versions!) is a game of finding chains of hidden words in an ever-changeable grid! Put your strategy and spelling skills to the test! ($19.95)

Board Games

Some of the puzzliest games on the market today are being made by top-flight board game companies, and we’ve got some marvelous games that will appeal to puzzlers of all ages!

Castellan (Steve Jackson Games)

Build a castle and then occupy it in Castellan, a game of strategy and opportunity. With great modeled pieces that really add to the aesthetic, Castellan has style and substance. ($34.95)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Tsuro: The Game of the Path (Calliope Games)

A path-laying game with tons of style and historical spirit, Tsuro casts up to eight players as flying dragons, and tasks you with laying out your path with special tiles. Your goal is to avoid meeting another dragon or flying off the board. It’s a simple mechanic with plenty of replay value, and perfect for quick games with large groups. ($29.99)

Walk-By Scrabble Board, Lexicographer’s Extended Scrabble, and Drawing Room Scrabble (Hammacher Schlemmer)

Hammacher Schlemmer has several Scrabble variants available, including the Lexicographer’s Extended Scrabble for those with mega-syllabic ambitions ($39.95) and Drawing Room Scrabble for those with swankier taste ($199.95) — not to mention the mindboggling World’s Largest Scrabble Game for $12,000! — but few are as clever or as convenient as the Walk-By Scrabble Board! Designed as a family game for people on the go, it’s a perfect way to bring back Board Game Night for busy families! ($29.95)

[Check out our full product review of the Walk-By Scrabble Board here!]

Bananagrams Wild Tiles (Bananagrams)

The board game that requires no board, Bananagrams Wild Tiles is the latest variation on the beloved tile game, and with the introduction of new Wild Tiles that can stand in for any letter, Bananagrams is only getting faster to play and more accessible to solvers of all ages! ($14.99)

[Check out our full review of Bananagrams Wild Tiles by clicking here!]

Qwirkle (MindWare)

A wonderful mix of Uno and Mexican Train Dominoes, Qwirkle is all about placing your tiles to maximize points and minimize helping your opponents. With six bright colors and six different shapes to match up, Qwirkle is endless fun that’s so easy to jump right into! ($34.99)

Fluxx: The Board Game (Looney Labs)

Take a board game, and make the cards, goals, and board changeable, and you’ve got Fluxx: The Board Game. It’s the ultimate think-on-your-feet experience, and like nothing you’ve played before. ($30)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Card Games

These card games add a bit of friendly competition to some splendid strategizing for puzzlers of all sorts!

Pairs (Hip Pocket Games)

A simple card game with a lot of strategy behind it, Pairs is about NOT scoring points and avoiding pairing your cards at all costs. With numerous variant games available (depending on which deck you buy), Pairs is a perfect group card game you can pick up quickly. ($9.95)

The Stars Are Right (Steve Jackson Games)

Build an army of followers and change the stars themselves in The Stars Are Right, a thoroughly enjoyable card game where the goal is summoning an elder god and destroying the world. As you do. ($27.95)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Holiday Fluxx, Loonacy, and Chrononauts (Looney Labs)

The folks at Looney Labs are all about games where the rules can change in an instant. They’ve broadened their library of Fluxx card decks with a marvelous Holiday version ($15.99), as well as a fast-play Memory game they call Loonacy ($14.99)! Plus, you can always try to alter time itself in Chrononauts! ($20)

[Check out our full product reviews of Holiday Fluxx here, Loonacy here, and Chrononauts here!]

Get Lucky (Cheapass Games)

Everyone wants to kill Dr. Lucky, but as his name suggests, that’s no easy task. Get Lucky challenges you and your friends to a strategy game to see who will be the first to beat the odds and take down Dr. Lucky! (And there’s a secret puzzle lurking within this game that no one has solved yet!) Will you be the first to solve the puzzle OR kill Dr. Lucky? ($16.95)

Timeline (Asmodee Games)

Timeline pits your knowledge of history against a growing timeline of important events, inventions, and historical moments. You don’t have to know exact dates; you just need to know if something happened before OR after something else. Was the toothbrush invented before or after the syringe? Which came first, language or agriculture? Timeline is a fast, fun way of learning (or relearning history)! ($14.99)

Party Games

Some puzzles are best enjoyed in groups, so here are a few fun options for party puzzling!

Schmovie (Galactic Sneeze)

Are you the funniest, punniest one in your group of friends? Find out by playing Schmovie, the party game that pushes you to scribble down the best name for an imaginary movie created on the spot! ($29.95)

[Check out our full product review of Schmovie here!]

ROFL! (Cryptozoic)

Challenge your friends to decode famous movie lines, catchphrases, and song lyrics in Cryptozoic’s game ROFL!!, created by Dork Tower‘s John Kovalic! Put your texting and abbreviation skills to the test in this laugh-out-loud party treat! ($35)

[Check out our full product review here!]

Thank you to all of the constructors, designers, and companies taking part in our holiday gift guide!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! And remember to check out our Facebook Giveaway for the chance to win a free puzzle app download!