Repeat Yourself With These Time Paradox Games
We’re living our best lives with these time paradox games. And then we’re waking up and living them all over again.
I love a good time paradox story, and the repeating-day-until-you-get-it-right trope is one of my favorites. The potential for comedic restarts? The ability to get really into the tiny details and you return to something again and again? From serious, high-stakes adventures to goody comedies and everything in between, there’s always a place for a good time paradox at my game table.
T.I.M.E. Stories Board Game
In Time Stories you are a T.I.M.E. agent, and with your team you must move forward and backward in time to prevent cataclysmic events. Seconds and strategy count, and if you fail, you’ll be thrown back to the beginning of the mission to try try again. This game combines mystery and sci-fi into a “decksploration” game with tons of unique scenarios to work through with your team.
The Groundhog Gambit
Another time-loop based card game, this one more directly inspired by the movie Groundhog Day, but with less of a sci-fi or impending doom feel and more of a goofy one. Holiday Hijinks is a series of holiday themed puzzle games, and this one has a very district ‘doing it again’ sort of game play. It’s also a little more difficult and involved than some other games, so this may not be the one to introduce newer game-players too if you don’t want to scare them off from the hobby.
Thursday
I haven’t seen a ton of RPGs incorporate the time repeating trope into their games. In fact, when I do see this plot device turn up, it’s usually GMs working it into whatever system they happen to be running already. Like The Adventure Zone and the Eleventh Hour arc.
But Thursday is a system where the “next reset” is fully baked into the game. Players try to discover their characters’ hidden backstories and unmet desires while escaping the “fatal time loop” with in a No Dice No Masters style system.
The Loop
The Loop is another card cooperative board game that has you joining forces with your fellow temporal agents… But it has less of a series vibe and more of a “A platypus? Perry the Platypus?!” vibe. Temporal agents are trying to stop the evil Dr. Faux throughout space and time by gathering artifacts and sabotaging his machine. Four different game modes and lots of different gameplay options leave you with a ton of replay opportunity.
Chrononauts
This is a card game of fast-paced time travel action with constantly changing dynamics and multiple paths to victory. Chrononauts is full of time ripples and paradoxes for players to overcome along with alternative realities and constantly changing history as you go back and forth in time.
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