The questions people ask most
These came up over and over during the Kickstarter. If yours is not here, write to us and we will answer it.
Playing it
What is Crisis within Time?
A fast-paced action card and dice game for two to ten players. Everyone plays one of the Elseborn, a character with a 30-card deck and 50 hitpoints, and fights with cards and dice until one player or team is left standing. There are ten Elseborn, each drawn by a different human illustrator. The game is designed by İ. Ertunga Durak and K. Hasan Tunçağ, published by Cry4Games in Amsterdam, and was funded on Kickstarter in June 2026.
Do I need to speak English to play?
No. The game is built to be language-independent. Once someone at the table has read the rules, everything you need during play is numbers and icons on the cards. The printed rulebook in this run is in English, and digital rulebooks in more languages are on the way. Hitpoint trackers carry character names, so those go out digitally in whichever languages people ask for.
How many players, and how long does a game take?
Two to ten, depending on how many decks you have. A game runs fifteen to sixty minutes depending on the mode, and you can learn it in about five minutes. Ages 14 and up.
What are the modes?
Three. Duel is two players with one fight per round. Arena is a free-for-all where everyone starts a fight. Alliance is team play, and each player can call for help once per game. Those three are the whole game as it ships.
Who you can play
What is a Core Deck, and who are the Core Characters?
The Core Characters are the starting roster: Amazonian, Atlantican, Nomad and Oltman. A Core Deck is one of their decks: thirty cards, three hero ability cards face down, and fifty hitpoints to lose.
What happened to the characters unlocked during the campaign?
Backers unlocked six more Elseborn: Aristion, Corsaan, Tganiaz, Kobushi, Zamrani and Tahamenish. Aristion, Corsaan and Tganiaz are finished, and the other three are with their illustrators now. They are not part of the four-character core. They come as extra decks of your choice in the bigger packs.
Which packs let me choose characters?
The Six Pack adds two decks of your choice to the four core decks. The Terrana Pack and the Collector's Pack add six, so you can take every Elseborn unlocked in the campaign. You make your picks in the survey Kickstarter sends before shipping.
What comes in what
What is the difference between the Double, Quad and Collector's Box?
A Double Box holds two character decks and a Quad Box holds four. Both are magnetic boxes with a tuckbox for each deck. The Collector's Box is the big one: it holds a Quad Box, the game mat, the dice tray and up to ten decks.
Which add-ons can I get?
Four: a 50 x 35 cm game mat (€11), a 16 x 16 cm dice tray (€17), an extra set of five dice (€5) and Elseborn dice (€11 each). You add them to your pledge on the Kickstarter page.
What about Wild Mode, Conquest and the Monsters and Villains decks?
Those sat further up the stretch goal list than the campaign got. The Wild Mode deck started at €40,000 and the campaign did not reach it, so none of them are in this print run. We still want to make them. If that happens you will hear it here first.
When and where
Can I still buy the game?
Yes. The Kickstarter campaign closed on 18 June 2026 with 190 backers and a Project We Love badge. Late pledges are open on the same Kickstarter page for a limited time, until we lock the production run, and with them the project is now past 140 percent with more than 230 backers. Backer packs ship in February 2027. If you would rather wait for the retail release in mid 2027, leave your email and we will tell you when it is ready.
My question is not here.
Write to comms@cry4games.com. It goes straight to the people making the game.
