Most games about time travel deal with the historical-political potential made possible through time travel.
U. S. Patent Number 1 is a Cheapass Game and therefore takes a different slant -- it considers the commercial possibilities of time travel and makes a game of it! Imagine that you had just invented a machine that allowed travel through time, and being a sensible inventor, you decide to patent your device. Imagine further that when you got to the U.S. Patent Office, you discovered that somebody had got there before you and patented their device. How annoying. There is, of course, a solution -- you have, after all, a time machine at your disposal. You can get to the Patent Office first. But why not do it in style, and get there first, I do mean really first? Be there on the day that the Patent Office opens -- July 30th, 1790 –- and award your time machine the utterly enviable title of U.S. Patent Number 1.
U. S. Patent Number 1 is a time travel race game from Cheapass Games, designed for three to six players, but with enough cards to allow up to eight players. It comes with eight time machine cards, forty-eight Upgrade cards and nine game boards. The rules are printed on four sides of A5 and are clearly, engagingly written. Being a Cheapass Game, it also requires a minimum of three six-sided dice, and for each player: one counter, one pawn and roughly $20 in either money or chips. The provided components are printed on light card and illustrated with an endearing range of drawings taken from public domains. They all come in the sturdy envelope box that is now standard for Cheapass Games.
The board is laid out as a three by three square, with the U.S. Patent Office of 1790 at the centre. This also contains the junkyard and the workshop of the Time Travel Mechanic. Around this central area are the time periods of 2168, 2020, 1977, 1953, 1920, 1895, 1837 and 1814. Each of these has spaces for a market, a library, a research laboratory and exits to other time periods.
Each of the Time Machine Cards is individually detailed and keyed to a particular time period in which it starts the game. At the corners of each card are four letters (C -- Chassis, which increase movement; P -- Power for running other Upgrades; S -- Shields to protect against attacks; and W -- Weapons with which to attack other time machines), which correspond to the four types of upgrade available throughout time. Numbers at the bottom of the card countdown from six to zero (represented by ‘!’), which indicate the inventor’s place in the appointments queue at the 1790 Patent Office. The amount of starting money is also given on the card.
The Upgrade Cards give a title, the time period of its invention, its type, any particular game effect it may have and a rank. The latter is a catchall factor that represents the amount of power generated if a Power Upgrade, its value in combat (for weapons and shields), the amount of power it needs to operate and the cost in gold required to install or occasionally repair each Upgrade. Each time machine can only have one Upgrade card in each slot and must generate enough power to have any Upgrades actually running. If not, then an inventor must disable enough Upgrades so that enough power is being generated for those that he wants to run. Disabled Upgrades need to be repaired before they can work again. Some items allow self or assisted repair, but otherwise the Time Travel Mechanic must do this.
Play begins with players randomly selecting a Time Machine card and placing their pawn on the appropriate starting square. During each turn they go through three steps. The first is research, with a single Upgrade card being drawn from the deck placed in time period it was invented. This is either face down in the Laboratory or face up in the market. The inventor then moves through time in any direction by rolling a single six-sided die, or more depending upon the type of chassis installed. The time machine can move as many spaces as the roll allows. The third step is to take a single action and here the player has a lot of options…
Either of the first two steps can be repeated again or they cab take the day off, teach some of their obviously specialised knowledge and earn themselves a single dollar. These actions can be done anywhere, as can attacks by one time machine upon another. Attacks usually take place when two players share the same square, but some weapons Upgrades allow ranged attacks. The attacker rolls two dice and adds the result to his weapon factor, hoping to beat the defender’s similar roll and addition of his shield factor. If the attacker is successful, they can choose one of the defender’s Upgrades to disable. A better result can result in the destruction of a single Upgrade. Some weapons also allow Upgrades to be stolen and either installed by the attacker or discarded in the Junkyard.
At any market square, Upgrades present can be purchased and installed; in a laboratory an inventor can invent an Upgrade for free (or rather examine any Upgrade present and steal it for their use!); at a library research can be conducted to study the past, allowing an inventor to examine the contents of any laboratory prior to that library’s time period. On the single Junkyard square in 1790, a single Upgrade from those present can be installed, but still requires repairing and at the Time Travel Mechanic, all disabled Upgrades can be repaired for just a single dollar.
At the Patent Office, an inventor can register a patent and trade in one of his upgrades for its cost in gold. The upgrade is then returned to the market of the year of its invention. A number can also be taken, establishing the inventor’s place in the Patent Office appointments queue. This number will decrease on each subsequent turn until it reaches zero. At this point, the inventor must rush their machine to 1790 by the end of their turn, with all four types of upgrade installed and working. If they do this, then they have won the game. Of course, if an inventor has all four Upgrades installed, but cannot get there in time, they can sit on the Patent Office and keep re-rolling for a new number until they receive a more favourable one.
The key to this game lies in the Upgrades. Finding the right combination and getting them to the Patent Office on time is not made easy by the limited amount of funds available to each player. As each player assembles their machine, everyone will be keeping an eye on each other’s to stop them assembling the components and thus winning the game. Play is fast and the range of Upgrade cards allow for some depth, as inventors mix and match the range available. The game can be increased to allow seven or eight players, but this does slow the game down rather well. As with most games of this type, it works best with five or six players.
Described as the coolest board game of its time, U. S. Patent Number 1 is certainly a fun racing game. As with other Cheapass Games, the enjoyment comes not just in the play, but also in the pleasure derived from the descriptions upon the components that are entirely in keeping with the time travel theme of U. S. Patent Number 1.
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