anachrony
It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.
By powering up the mysterious Time Rifts that opened in the wake of the cataclysm, each Path is able to reach back to specific moments in their past. Doing so can greatly speed up their progress, but too much meddling may endanger the time-space continuum. But progress is more important than ever before: if the mysterious message arriving through the Time Rift is to be believed, an even more terrible cataclysm is looming on the horizon: an asteroid bearing the mysterious substance called Neutronium is heading towards Earth. Even stranger, the scientists show that the energy signature of the asteroid matches the explosion centuries ago...
Anachrony features a unique two-tiered worker placement system. To travel to the Capital or venture out to the devastated areas for resources, players need not only various specialists (Engineers, Scientists, Administrators, and Geniuses) but also Exosuits to protect and enhance them — and both are in short supply.
LB_NUMBER_OF_PLAYERS: 1 - 4
Game duration: 71 mn
Complexity: 4 / 5
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Rules summary
Buildings: yellow: power plant, gray: factory, blue: life support, red: lab.
Relevance of the Setup Choices to Gameplay (Symmetry and Asymmetry)
Player color is equivalent to Path (or faction). Each player chooses a leader (from 2 that are unique to each path) that gives them an asymmetric power. Each player is given a set of asymmetric goals called their "evacuation condition" (randomly chosen from 2 that are unique to each path). All player boards are set to symmetric side A or all player boards are set to asymmetric side B. If side B is chosen, each path will have asymmetric starting resources and some asymmetric gameplay rules.
Double-check your evacuation condition
Your path board will list your evacuation condition. After the asteroid impact, you may use a worker in an exosuit to complete your evacuation action once. If you do, then you receive the points listed on your path board in exchange for the tasks described there. Small symbols can be difficult to read, so double-check the written evacuation condition. Geniuses can not be used as other workers to fulfill an evacuation condition.
Small reminders to avoid scanning the rulebook
Warping in a worker requires that a water be spent; warped-in water can be used. To remove a warp tile showing a worker, shift focus to the correct era and then move an alert worker from your player board to the general supply.
Alert workers who are not placed remain alert for the next round.
Geniuses gain the bonus connected to the worker they are emulating. E.g. Geniuses mining stay motivated like engineers, geniuses constructing are efficient with titanium like engineers.
Power-plant actions are always referenced to the current era, not to the location of the focus token. Therefore the following is legal. Use a power plant to shift focus to N eras before the present, remove 1 warp tile, and move up the time-travel track. Then on a later turn in the same era, use a second power plant to shift focus to N eras before the present, remove a second warp tile, and move up the time-travel track again. The focus marker does not shift, but it still counts as time travel because power plants actions are always referenced to the current era, not to the location of the focus token.
End Game Scoring
Reminders about how scoring works at the end of the game.
- Untangle the Continuum - each player must fulfill every outstanding Warp tile; this does not count as time travel. Each warp tile unfulfilled scores -2 VP.
- Score Endgame Condition cards - 3VP for each condition they meet; in case of tie, all tied players get 3VP.
- points from Anomalies, Superprojects, Time Travel, Morale, VP tokens.
- Breakthroughs - Each breakthrough is worth 1VP; sets of three breakthroughs of different shapes is worth an additional 2VP/set.
Tiebreaker: Most water, then most total resources.
BGA Interface
When you build a superproject, click the single space on your player board that will become the leftmost of the two spaces taken up by the superproject.
