P is for Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time

 By FunForge

I picked this one up at a past Phoenix Fire swap meet. It was brand new at a great price, so I had to do it. It reminded me of Clue. It's not like Clue (except for the similar board), but that nostalgia is what drew my attention in the first place.

Players: 2-4

Time: 30-45 minutes

Ages: 8+

Theme: Time Travel Heist

Mechanics: Co-Op, Action Points

Professor Evil has a time machine, which he uses for evil, duh. He steals priceless artifacts from the past and future and stows them around his fancy mansion. The players need to sneak in and rescue the treasures before he locks them away in his vault. Each artifact has a variable time frame in which it can be rescued and each is protected from the players by locked doors and various traps (saws, lasers, etc). Players have different specialties for helping them move around the castle without getting caught and booted out by the roaming Professor Evil. Some characters are adept at deactivating traps while others are adept at movement or time manipulation.

This was really very simple to learn and quick to play. We played FOUR games before we were able to beat it. Its difficulty is really due to RNG rather than lack of strategy or understanding. I blame my husband for most of our defeats because he rolled a three (the highest amount of possible villain movement, 1/6 chance) almost every turn, causing Professor Evil to undo all our work and boot us out of the castle frequently.

The expansion, Professor Evil and the Architects of Magic, adds new characters to play, new treasures to rescue (which give positive effects when rescued and negative effects when lost), and a new mechanic for the Professor's movement (giving him the ability to occasionally have extra movement if not managed well). The new characters in the expansion are interesting and when we played a 5th game with them, we beat it on the first try (OP characters? Luck? Skill? Who knows?)

 

We give it a 7/10. It's good and quick and it will be a good one for the kiddos when they're old enough.