I'm making a concerted effort to actually play the games I purchased at Gen Con this year. In the spirit of my noble goal, we played Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time during lunch today.
For those that don't know, PEatCoT is a co-op game for 2-4 players in which you are attempting to save valuable treasures that Professor Evil has captured and hidden in his, well, Citadel of Time. Each player takes a character, all of which have unique abilities, along with a six-card deck they'll draw from every turn. The setup of the traps and treasures is randomized every game, so this adds some level of replayability, and the difficulty can be tweaked by variance during setup, such as including/removing more difficult to capture treasures. We played what the manual recommended for the first game and it was pretty easy, so experienced board game players can probably just forego the easy mode.
On each turn, a player draws two card from their deck. During their action phase, they can use one of the two cards they drew. At the end of turn, both are discarded, so generally you want to use one anyway. During your turn you have three actions and can:
- Unlock a door.
- Turn OFF a switch for a trap for the room you are in.
- Move through an unlocked door to an adjacent room.
- Save a treasure.
In order to save a treasure, ALL traps in the Citadel of the type shown on it must be switched OFF. This is where the puzzle-y aspect of the game comes in, where you try to coordinate who can turn off what so others can save treasure. The goal being to save four treasures. If the Professor manages to lock four away, you lose. And how does he do this, you ask? Well, with a pretty cool set of dice that control his AI. At the end of each players turn, they roll three dice. One determines if he moves or if a treasure token moves counterclockwise on the clock dial (more on this in a minute). One determines how far forward the clock dial moves. The last determines which direction he will move or which treasure token moves.
COLORBLIND WARNING: Unfortunately, this game uses color for some of its mechanics without using corresponding symbology. It's disappointing and honestly the only blemish on the game for me after a playthrough. I'm not colorblind, but do play with people that are. They even use red and green. Like, seriously, guys. END COLORBLIND WARNING.
When the Professor moves, he does a few things. He locks unlocked doors he moves through. He switches on traps in every room he moves through if they're turned off. If he ends in a room where a player is, they are bounced outside of the Citadel and have to spend an action to move back in on their turn.
I've mentioned treasure tokens. There are always only three treasures available to save in the Citadel at a time. When one is saved or captured, a new one replaces it. When you place a treasure, you put a token on it, then put the corresponding token on the clock dial in the position indicated by the treasure. If the clock dial ever passes a token, or is a token is moved counterclockwise passed the dial, it is captured by the Professor.
Those are the basics. I mentioned each character has unique abilities. I was playing a character that could manipulate the clock dial with my cards. Someone else was able to move people around the board. Another could manipulate dice.
Very enjoyable game overall after one playthrough. It's really easy to grok, but becomes puzzle-y very quickly. Like, we were set up to win, and my Professor roll completely pushed us back a few turns. Can't wait to try it again.
