Timeline Twist

Today, we are going to look at “Timeline Twist” played by Jack(.8.) and Toby(5).

I have never actually reviewed the original timeline on “Little Board Gamers”, so here is a one-paragraph review of the original.

“Timeline” is a competitive game where you essentially start with a hand of four cards, turn over an event, and then have to place it in the timeline adjacent to or between all the other cards. If you get it in the right place, you then get to discard it by placing it in the timeline. But if you get it wrong, you still discard it but then have to pick up another card. The first person to discard their entire hand wins. This is a simple but fun game with some light education thrown in, playing well and ideal as the kind of game you would take when travelling. The rules are straightforward, and it comes in a nice tin. It’s only for a specific type of person, but if this appeals to you, I would recommend it.

“Timeline Twist”, on the other hand, is a cooperative version of “Timeline” that attempts to turn a decent competitive game into a fun coop. Unfortunately, Timeline Twist is an absolute mess that you probably should avoid.

The general rules of the game are similar to the competitive game, with a few bizarre alterations thrown in. Firstly, you are not just trying to put the cards in the correct space; instead, you have to pick cards from your hand that are as close as possible to other events. If you end up with two cards in the timeline that are next to each other in dates, you can only put one other card between them in a weird side lane. This means that if you choose two cards that are fairly far apart early on, you’ve basically ruined the whole game and this takes all of the fun out of it.

You keep playing until the draw pile runs out, and then how well you have done depends on how many cards you get minus cards that were kept or discarded.

You can discard cards from your hand to build a safer timeline by matching the icons on your cards with the icons on the discard pile. This is badly explained in the rule book which is the tip of the iceberg on how bad it’s written.

“Timeline Twist” is a fairly simple game, but it is baffling how convoluted and unnecessarily confusing the rules are. The rules regularly use phrases such as “card in front of you” without any obvious reference to what cards they are talking about… every card is in front of you.

The fact that you can only get one card in the timeline between two already placed cards kind of ruins the whole fun aspect of the game, as it’s irrelevant if you can work out or guess when the times are. You end up playing this really awkward number-laying game, which even then doesn’t really work.

Considering the game is just a pack of cards, the box is unnecessarily large, which is also irritating. The card stock is fairly shiny, meaning they don’t stack in a pile well either.

You can actually play “Timeline Twist” on BGA if the mood takes you (link below)

I would recommend the original “Timeline”, and. to be honest. “Timeline Twist” can actually just be used as a version of the original game. But the cooperative variation of the game is terrible and is 100% not worth your time.

Here is a better way of playing Timeline coop… Take the whole deck and shuffle it. One by one turn a card over and see if you can fit it into the timeline correctly. If you don’t, discard the card. Count up how long your timeline is in the end and if you have “loads” you probably did a good job