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Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time
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Description
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.
Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time is a co-operative game where the players are attempting to steal valuable historical artifacts, but they’re actually the good guys as you’re taking them from the titular Professor Evil.
It’s light, fast and can cause screams of great annoyance (in the best possible way). It’s by Funforge, the team behind titles such as Tokaido and Warehouse 51, and can seat up to five players – although there are no problems with two player.
How To Play Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time
The game is played over a large board which illustrates one level of the Citadel of Time, with the middle being the giant clock you will move counters around. The level is divided into a series of rooms (like an even more dangerous Cluedo), and you start the game by randomly placing a ‘switch’ token in each room.
These switches operate the defence mechanisms of the citadel, including cameras, lasers and giant buzzsaws (although it’s worth noting that no one can die). Then the professor is placed in his room, and three treasure cards are randomly selected and placed in the rooms of the citadel.
Each player then becomes members of a crack team who need to enter the citadel and steal back these great treasures from history before the Professor locks them deep in a vault forever. You spend your actions moving through the citadel, opening doors and turning off switches. Each treasure has a required number of switches to be turned off (e.g. the datapad and both lasers), so you sneak through the citadel, into rooms that let you turn off the switches, then go to the room with the treasure and take it. When you’ve taken four treasures you’ve won. Actions cards are drawn, and allow special actions.
So what are you up against? The Professor moves randomly, as dictated by a roll of the dice, and he closes doors and turns on switches behind him as he goes. If he enters a room with a player, then the player flees and restarts outside. That would be tricky enough, but this is the citadel of time. Every treasure drawn has a marker placed on the clock in the middle, and every player has to roll a series of dice which decide what the hands of this clock do: normally move forward.
Players have cards with skills that can move the clock back, but the real enemy in this game is rescuing the treasures before the clock’s hands reach the markers, and that’s when the Professor vanishes the item. If you lose four, you lose the game.
Luck and Chaos
What this means is Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time is a fast paced and light game, all about rushing around the citadel, discussing with your fellow players what switches and treasures to aim for, and begging whichever gods of luck you follow to give you the right dice for the Professor and the clock.
Luck plays an enormous role in this game, and that’s going to annoy some people (usually me), but I see the good in this: there is nothing wrong with not being able to predict what the Professor does, because he is a lord of evil after all, and the clock mechanism, as fiendish and annoying as those dice can become, is what drives this forward and keeps the tension up. You will almost inevitably lose treasures, but can you get enough to win?
Build quality is good, but this comes from someone who’s happy with cardboard standees for the figures rather than miniatures, and it’s a visual treat, although it can take a few plays to instantly know what room is where. The game comes with a ready provided randomisation system via a deck of cards, and everything has been well thought through. It’s just that the luck is going to be very group dependent.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Frenetic and quick.
- Co-operative.
- Ever changing targets.
Might not like
- The luck of the clock.