Game: Timeline: British History
Year: 2016
Timeline: British History is a standalone expansion, for 2-8 players, in the Timeline series of games from Asmodee. It is part of a whole series of games based on history in different countries, such as Poland, Korea, Russia and America. Since we're a UK based blog, the British History version is the only one we stand a chance with and even then our knowledge of history might not get us very far in this game.
In Timeline: British History, each player is dealt a hand of 4 art cards, each depicting a historical event, which is written on the card. In the centre of the table is a common timeline, starting with just one card, flipped over, so that the date of the event is showing. On your turn you choose one of your cards and try to place it in the correct slot of the timeline chronologically. You flip the card to see if you're right, if your wrong, you take a new card from the supply and since the object of the game is to be the first to correctly place all their cards, taking extra cards puts you at a disadvantage.
Mostly the game is a test of your knowledge, meaning that the person with more knowledge wins every time. However, I've found you can play slightly tactically too, holding back the cards where you're sure of the date until the later rounds and taking guesses earlier on when the gaps between the cards in the timeline are larger.
I've tried the game in both a party setting and at home with two players and it has proved to be strangely addictive for both groups, with us always playing at least 3 games in a row. In the party setting it got quite competitive, with people even googling the dates to fact check when they felt that there was an injustice (we did notice a few of the very old dates were pretty debatable eg. Stonehenge). With two players, we decided to start using more than the suggested 4 starting cards because too often the start player won and the gaps between events in the timeline were often very large, making it too easy to place your card.
Over time you definitely get to know the cards in the box, which would probably be the objective if you were using this as an educational tool, but as a game it definitely gives the advantage to the players who own the game a play a lot rather than new payers you're introducing it too as a group. We will probably get another 5 or so plays out of the game before the cards keep repeating themselves and we start to get too good to enjoy the game.Since it is perhaps best suited to a warm up tool in history lessons, I thought that having some more information about the event on the reverse of each card would've been a nice touch.
Timeline: British History is a quick filler, that takes just 5minutes and is quit addictive for the first few plays. The Yellow Meeple gives Timeline: British History a 5.5/10, especially for school aged children or people practicing for the history round in the local pub quiz.
Publisher: Asmodee
Designer: Frédéric Henry
Year: 2016
Timeline: British History is a standalone expansion, for 2-8 players, in the Timeline series of games from Asmodee. It is part of a whole series of games based on history in different countries, such as Poland, Korea, Russia and America. Since we're a UK based blog, the British History version is the only one we stand a chance with and even then our knowledge of history might not get us very far in this game.
In Timeline: British History, each player is dealt a hand of 4 art cards, each depicting a historical event, which is written on the card. In the centre of the table is a common timeline, starting with just one card, flipped over, so that the date of the event is showing. On your turn you choose one of your cards and try to place it in the correct slot of the timeline chronologically. You flip the card to see if you're right, if your wrong, you take a new card from the supply and since the object of the game is to be the first to correctly place all their cards, taking extra cards puts you at a disadvantage.
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| The set-up for a two-player game. |
I've tried the game in both a party setting and at home with two players and it has proved to be strangely addictive for both groups, with us always playing at least 3 games in a row. In the party setting it got quite competitive, with people even googling the dates to fact check when they felt that there was an injustice (we did notice a few of the very old dates were pretty debatable eg. Stonehenge). With two players, we decided to start using more than the suggested 4 starting cards because too often the start player won and the gaps between events in the timeline were often very large, making it too easy to place your card.
Over time you definitely get to know the cards in the box, which would probably be the objective if you were using this as an educational tool, but as a game it definitely gives the advantage to the players who own the game a play a lot rather than new payers you're introducing it too as a group. We will probably get another 5 or so plays out of the game before the cards keep repeating themselves and we start to get too good to enjoy the game.Since it is perhaps best suited to a warm up tool in history lessons, I thought that having some more information about the event on the reverse of each card would've been a nice touch.
Timeline: British History is a quick filler, that takes just 5minutes and is quit addictive for the first few plays. The Yellow Meeple gives Timeline: British History a 5.5/10, especially for school aged children or people practicing for the history round in the local pub quiz.
Timeline: British History
was a review copy provided by Esdevium Games Ltd. It is available for an RRP of
£12.99 at your friendly local game store.
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