COLLEGE PARK, Md. July 6 -- A time travel card game? Yes! Chrononauts, the new game from Fluxx and Aquarius creator Andrew Looney, puts you in control of the past -- and the future!
Become one of 11 human Chrononauts or Squa Tront, the super-evolved cockroach from the distant future, who must prevent the explosion of the Hindenburg and sabotage the Manhattan Project in order to return to the post-WWIII Alternate Reality into which he was born. Or fetch a live dinosaur, the real Mona Lisa (there are three!), and an unpublished Shakespearean play, to win by accomplishing one of the 10 Secret Missions in the game. Or win just by repairing enough Paradoxes!
Sound intriguing? You have two ways to become a Chrononaut before everyone else:
1. Visit the Looney Labs booth (number 101) at Origins, the official consumer convention of the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) in Columbus, Ohio July 13-16. You can play Chrononauts (and all the other great Looney Labs games) and pick up your own copy of the limited-run beta edition. You can also meet with game designer Andrew Looney, who will be available for interviews and game playing.
2. Visit www.looneylabs.com/media.html for a special media-only free offer. Members of the press can request a free review copy of the beta edition, then visit 5 webpages (out of 3000+ at the site) that have been chosen to give you a nice glimpse into the crazy, wunderful world of Looney Labs.
The Beta edition of Chrononauts will be limited to 500 copies, since it's being released for playtesting and promotional purposes only. The actual product will be released on Halloween, just in time for Christmas.
"Chrononauts is fresh and unique with a great design," according to Mark Easterday, director of purchasing for Alliance Games, the nation's largest game distributor. "Chrononauts definitely stands out with both excellent design and original concept. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen anything like time travel in a non-collectable card game. It could easily catch on like Fluxx, which everyone loves."
Chrononauts is a fast, exciting, multi-layered time travel card game for 1-6 players. Players become Time Travelers, who seek to return to their original alternate realities by changing history (preventing assassinations, averting disasters, and so on), while simultaneously seeking to gather up the right combination of amazing Artifacts, plucked from the future or rescued from the past. The huge deck of 135 cards features a unique 32-card TimeLine that's used to track Ripples and Paradoxes as they are formed, by the actions, patches and reversed actions of the Chrononauts.
Founded in 1996, Looney Labs is a small game company. Operating out of Kristin and Andy Looney's eccentric suburban home, dubbed Wunderland, the company publishes innovative, attractive, fun family parlor games including Fluxx, Aquarius, Q-Turn, and the Icehouse set. As an internet-based company, Looney Labs uses secure e-commerce software to market and distribute their products, and they host an enormous website, updated each week with company news and original literary content, at Wunderland.com. Looney Labs also owns and operates ContagiousDreams.com, an online game store specializing in cool games published by other small game-inventing entrepreneurs.
Editors: Free copies of Chrononauts are available for members of the media by visiting www.looneylabs.com/media.html or by contacting Kristin Looney at 301-441-1019 or kristin@wunderland.com.
