With an ape butler and a time travel theme you'd be forgiven for thinking that Mark Powell's Apequest: The Search for Geoffrey was inspired by The Umbrella Academy comic and Netflix series, but actually the game traces its roots to the steampunk musical output of Professor Elemental. Whatever, Apequest is a whacky cooperative game for 1-6 players where each player represents an incarnation of Professor Elemental from an alternative timeline or parallel universe, battling a timeline of historic and fantasy challenges.
Players each have their own dual-layer boards accommodating health, battery and malfunction 'cogs' and a sliding 'conveyor belt' of weapons. Your board represents your time-travelling trousers. The weapons each show the damage dished out and the cost of use in battery power. If the weapon is shown to be broken, you have to draw a malfunction card and spin the malfunction cog: if it comes up green, you're in luck and the weapon works, if it comes up red then the weapon does no damage but you still have to deduct its battery cost. When used, weapons are sent to the back of the conveyor belt queue, much like the activations in Conan and Batman: Gotham City Chronicles (Monolith Board Games).
Most of the team who've played Apequest found it silly but that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it. It's a fun tongue-in-cheek filler-length game that you can probably win or lose in 20-30 minutes. It's generally well produced by Trademark52: we liked the artwork on the timeline cards and Professor Elemental boards; the item cards have the merit of very clear headline text that you'll have no trouble reading even from across the table but there are sadly no illustrations on those cards. The game comes with a micro-sized comic and a similarly small rulebook, but Apequest is a game you can have up and running without worrying about a heavy upfront rules overload.
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