TIMELINE TWIST: STAR WARS
It’s a trap
Designer: Frédéric Henry, Corey Konieczka | Publisher: Zygomatic
Timeline Twist: Star Wars describes itself beautifully in the name – it’s Timeline, the game of putting historical events in order made competitive and tricky (because it turns out none of us really know the order things came in), the Twist Variant (which means it’s cooperative), and Star Wars themed (which means… you get the idea). The game covers the prequel trilogy to the sequels including the likes of Rogue One. I think it’s probably designed to be an easy buy – here’s a light-looking game that Star Wars fans will enjoy – but the force isn’t strong with this one, it’s just… around.
The premise is relatively simple. You have cards in your hand, and so do your fellow players. You’re going to lay down a card that you believe went before, or after the starting card. So if we start with “Yoda begins training Luke Skywalker”, we know that “Luke removes his father’s damaged helmet” comes after it. But, a lot happens between these two events, and while we could place that card down, we can only put one card between it – meaning we’ll never get through the 36 cards we’re expected to. Much better to lay down “Leia frees Hans Solo from carbonite”, and save the other for later.
There are some clever elements to it. While it’s annoying to count out 36 cards to play with, it means that you can’t always anticipate which are the best cards to lay down. In our very first play, we only had two prequel cards, which meant while we tried to hold out for more in the franchise, we’d gambled wrongly. Even if you don’t know Star Wars that well, the cards are numbered, so you’re only guessing insofar as removing it from your hand. Points are allocated based on being in the core timeline (two per card) or by being a card between cards (one point). Discarding cards is only allowed by laying down a card with the same icon, which you then turn over to reveal another icon for the next discard, forcing you to think about which cards you’re prepared to lose.
Here’s the problem: Star Wars fans know the answers, and nonStar Wars fans don’t get enough out of the experience. If there’s a Star Wars fan in the group of players, they become the orchestrator (as talking is encouraged), and will just tell you which cards to lay down. If you don’t have a Star Wars fan in your group, because it gives you the numbers, it could just be a “guess the number on the back of the card” exercise. I taught this game to friends who don’t love Star Wars (I excluded myself and just cringed at the comments behind a coffee), and they were quickly bored. To the friends I considered ridiculouslevel Star Wars fans, they enjoyed being right, but not the game itself. In fact, in two separate game groups with fans included, they insisted on laying out every Star Wars card in their own timeline order, just to see if they could, and rated their scores against each other. It felt a bit like Trivial Pursuit – it’s nice to show off with, but that’s not the point of it.
The game is improved by its competitive gameplay, it stops the orchestrator and the unknowing shrugs, but it loses all of the joy of previous iterations of the game. Timeline was great because you were surprised when you got things wrong – you didn’t know the invention of this was BEFORE the invention of that, and that fact is surprising – but in the Star Wars variant, there are no “Oh!” moments.
❚ PLAY IT? NO
As much as I want light games like this with a market-attractive franchise to be a gateway for new people into the hobby, we’re twelve parsecs away from that happening here.