My year 9 students arrived at my door during lunchtime today and begged to borrow one of my games to play during the break. I happily pulled out Chrononauts and quickly taught them the rules.

We had two games during the 50 minutes or so available.

The first game was distinguished by a lack of actual patching that held; almost as soon as any linchpin was inverted, someone would restore it. SB and I were happily drawing extra cards - either through the short-lived patches or by selling artefacts. BO & ST were trying to accumulate artefacts more than us, reversing our patches, and having their artefacts stolen from them.

Eventually, a few patches started to stick and all of a sudden, ST declared that he'd won - the last two patches that SB had played in his quest for more cards (he reached 7 cards) had been the very ones he'd needed.

The second game saw a lot more special effects occuring - Discontinuity got played twice in a row, and saw everyone's cards movign two spaces anticlockwise around the table. People popped into the far future, the past, rewound the clock, stole artefacts from people who had already stolen them from them, and made certain that my parents had never met! It was wild and wacky and a lot of fun.

SB won this game by collecting the three artefacts he needed to complete his mission - stealing them from me, or retrieving them from the future.

I really enjoy Chrononauts; it may be a mainly luck-based game, but the theme is excellent.