Professor Evil owns a time machine, and he's been ripping off all the best historical items from times both past and future. Your team has been charged with confiscating these items and returning them to their proper locations in time, so you now need to infiltrate the mansion and abscond with four items before Prof. Evil can secrete four of them in locations inaccessible to you. Thankfully the old soul is a bit daft and won't evaporate you should he catch you lurking through the mansion, but simply scoot you out the front door where he'll forget about you immediately.
On a turn, you first draw and reveal two cards from your tiny deck, then keep one of the cards based on what you think will help you this turn. You then take three actions, such as open a door in the room you're in, move from a room (or outside) to another room (assuming the door is open), disable a trap, or grab a treasure; using a card isn't an action unless it says otherwise. You can repeat actions as desired or needed, but you can't enter a room with Prof. Evil and you can't exit the house on your own (in order to run across the grounds to another window) once you enter. You're now committed to grabbing those treasures!
After you finish your turn, Prof. Evil now moves, but again he's not all there, so he doesn't necessarily move in a logical manner. To move him, you roll three dice: One die advances the secondary Prof. Evil figure on the clock on the board either five or ten minutes; the other two determine where Prof. Evil moves and how far. What's more, as he walks through rooms, he closes the doors through which he travels and reactivates any inactive traps he encounters. If you roll a blue and a 1, for example, he moves through the blue doorway into the next adjacent room; a red and a 3 will move him through three rooms, walking through the red doorway each time. A color and a particular signal will teleport him immediately to the treasure bearing the same colored marker.
Let's look at these treasures in more detail: Each treasure shows a time value and one or more traps on it. Three treasures are placed on the board, then a blue, red and green token are placed on the treasures, with a matching blue, red and green token placed on the game board clock on the time matching what's on the treasure. The Magna Carta might say 45 minutes, for example, and after placing a blue token on the Magna Carta, you place a blue token on the clock 45 minutes away from where the Prof. Evil figure is located. If Prof. Evil moves onto this token on the clock, then that treasure is lost — and if you lose four treasures, then you've lost the game. Remove it from play and replace it with a new treasure, marking the proper time on the clock.
Note that you can't just grab a treasure, however. Professor Evil can't be in the same room (of course), but you also must ensure that all the traps shown on the treasure are currently deactivated. The game board starts with eight traps on it — half active, half not — and you'll play tug-of-war with Professor Evil over keeping them in this status. Collect a treasure, and a new one will be added to the game board; collect four treasures before Prof. Evil does, and you all win Professor Evil and The Citadel of Time.
- Engaging and thorough analysis of the game.
- High production value.
- Neat time mechanic.
- Cooperative nature with variable player powers.
- Challenging and not too easy.
- Professor's movement can be frustrating.
- Can be very difficult.
- Setup and takedown can be arduous.
- Breaking into a historian's house to steal loot while avoiding traps.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Point Allowance — Players have three actions per turn, plus a special power.
- cooperative play — Players work together to achieve a common goal.
- Dice Rolling — Used to determine the professor's movement and actions.
- Modular Board — The game board represents Professor Evil's mansion with different rooms.
- Set Collection — Players need to collect four pieces of loot.
- Time Track — An analog clock mechanic is central to the game's pacing and threat.
- Variable player powers — Each player has a unique ability.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- You know, here you are, you're professional actor. Almost. I'm trying to be professional.
- I don't know why you're still mean to Rodney all the time, Marty.
- My highlight of his life is to play Dungeons & Dragons and he said that he gets like eight of his friends together and I'm quoting I do like a spread of food he has a dungeon room downstairs in our basement is spectacular I decorated a forum I bring him food and he sits there for like six or eight hours playing D&D Wow Wow
- It's it's broken down every scenario is broken down into souls or you know solar days on Mars and right around in each of the scenarios I played I've now played three scenarios the the right around soul three or four you go oh that's what I'm supposed to be doing here it goes here we go and you get the engine going just a little too late
- This game is built on one thing on your turn you don't I basically do one thing you're gonna make skill checks you're gonna select an action and make some sort of skill check and that is handled through this action deck that you have but the action deck also contains the cards that you actually taken to your hand that you can use over the course of the game but the action deck is also your life it's all rolled into one
- The artwork on the cards whenever you're laying out this map with these cards the artwork makes sense from card to card it create it creates kind of this mosaic of the seventh continent and it's just stunning on the table it looks it looks amazing
- It's just super simple super manageable a great way to get people in there's just seven distinct different factions a great way to get into like something that would have a bigger selection
- The value of connecting with friends through board games.
- Having a nice little you know top or a thing would it would have been nice cuz I'd probably a couple times I'll probably knock some dice off the table and everything
- the production is top-notch. definitely phenomenal
- these things are pushed to fit... they will actually stay together.
- the board itself is super manageable and it comes with two game boards and they're both like rectangles and they're they're double-sided
- the strategy is is how you build your objective deck and how you build your power deck
- if you have more critical successes than the other person even though you have more successes overall the attack fails
- this is perfect [for board gamers or people just getting in]. absolutely perfect for them
- I suck at teaching rules
- people just had the best time in the world playing
- I forgot that [rule about area control]
- I don't really get the whole area control thing... I didn't see it was really that important