My wife and I had some free time so I twisted her arm to play a game.
"Battlelore?" I ask.
"Ah, no."
"Dragon Dice?"
"Hell no."
"Queen's necklace?"
"We always play that."
"Okay, Honey what do you want to play?" I submit.
"We haven't played this one. Let's try it." She replies.
"Excellent idea!"

So, we pull out Chrononauts for the first time since I got it for last Christmas. 6 months ain't bad, right?

We read throught the rules. I had played a game of solonauts before. It's a solitare version of this game that removes the artifaxx (very fluxx like) cards and makes the game a challenge to set the timeline the way you want before you run out of cards.

We deal an ID and a mission card to each of us and we think about what they mean for a while and I understand what I have to do. My wife doesn't like complicated games, so I try to tell her a few more things about the game using examples, like say you need to have 1917 "US enters the War" switched to an alternate universe where "Woodrow Wilson keeps the US out of the War." You need to flip the linchpin 1915 "Sinking of the Lusitania" to 1915' (read 1915 prime) "Lusitania arrives safely" this causes a ripple effect on the 1917 card making a paradox and possibly more down the timeline. Then you'll need to patch the paradox created by the non-sinking of the Lusitana with the appropriate alternate 1917' "Woodrow Wilson keeps US out of War."



The 2nd way to win is collecting the three artifaxx in front of you.

Finally, the 3rd way to win is getting 10 cards in your hand at the end of your turn by doing a lot of timeline repair of paradoxes... paradoxi... paradoxies (huh, I've never encountered more than one paradox before playing this game).

Anyway, we played through a practice game and my wife flubbed a little bit when she said she could make it home when the patches weren't installed. So, we played another. This time she really got the hang of it and she did some sneaky things like playing a "Get there first" card that allows her to steal an artifact I was supposed to recover in time past. She "Get's there first" and takes the artifact by time traveling a few miniutes before. Then she played a Time Vortex card when I was getting close to the 10 card auto victory and I dropped down to 6 cards and she went up to 6.

In the end, she had a victory while I lost the card I needed in the Time Vortex. She was delighted and said this is a game she'd like to play again.

My first impression is that the theme and gameplay really work well. I'm sure this is one is going to come to the table a lot. I can't believe it sat in my closet for 6 months!