Pyramid Review
Early American Chrononauts
Published by Looney Labs
Designed by Andrew Looney
Art by Alison "Looney" Frane
Produced by Kristin Looney
Contributions by Bill Andel, Jeff Looney, Meg Naab, Joe Fourhman, Chris Kice, & Carol Townsend
136 full-color cards, rules sheet; $20
What do you do if you're a time traveler and altering the last 140 years isn't getting you the results you want? You go back another, oh, hundred years or so, and see where -- or when -- that gets you. You've become Early American Chrononauts.
The original Chrononauts from Looney Labs took players back as far as the assassination of President Lincoln; Early American Chrononauts starts with 1770's Townshend Duties and ends with 1916's adoption of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Functionally, the games are all but identical. The timeline is laid out in four rows of eight cards each, and you attempt to alter history by using inverters to flip lynchpins (key points in history), which have a ripple effect on other years. Patching these rippled paradoxes with your own version of events lets your character go back to his custom-built future. You can also win by snatching thematically related artifacts from the timestream, or by fixing historical paradoxes sufficient that you can retire.
There are a few differences, mostly fiddly technical bits you won't really notice without a side-by-side comparison, or cards whose effects or text are somewhat altered (instead of a card that lets you switch your mission card for a new one . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 10, 2004
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