In T.I.M.E Stories, up to four players take on the role of agents for the enigmatic Consortium, a group that watches over the past, present, and future to protect key events from alteration. The agents are sent forwards and backwards in time through the use of transport pods called caissons. These pods neurally link the agents' thoughts into a kind of hive mind, and keep them safe from any actual harm.
They arrive at their destination in a host body of someone from that era, which the agents will use to go about their mission. This process of time jumping takes an extraordinary amount of power and resources (as our supervisor, Bob, obsessively points out) but don't feel bad if you have to take a second run at the objective if you run out of time!
TL;DR
So T.I.M.E Stories is a bit of an odd game because you can only really enjoy each mission once. After you've solved the mystery and know how the clues fit together, there won't be a reason to play the game again unless you're showcasing it for some friends. The cost of the game is less than what you and your three friends would pay for a movie and snacks, and will (most likely) last you a few hours longer, too. If you can get past the idea of a one-time board game, you will have a blast.
The six character options give you a bit of variety in taking on the challenges of the mission. Finding clues, piecing them together, and unraveling the mystery is exhilarating. Gaining new items and keys to open a previously inaccessible area is as much of a thrill as getting a new clue or finding a startling revelation. T.I.M.E Stories can be a long game, so if it's difficult to keep everybody focused for multiple hours, I could see this being a pass. The game does pack up nicely in a way that saves your progress through the mystery, so you won't have to finish it in a single sitting. I think T.I.M.E Stories is a game for just about everyone, despite its one-time experience. Get it, play it, loan it to a friend.
Pros
Well-written story and mystery
Playable characters are different and have their own uses
Art is incredible
Board has an innovative design
Learn which of your friends are the smart ones
Exploration, conversation, and combat are all interesting
The in-game timer adds weight to your decisions
The box is designed to save your progress if you have to stop mid-game
Puzzles are the correct difficulty
"Reveal the cards, do what they say" play style is very simple
Cons
Very little replay value
One game can take multiple hours
Rule book does a poor job explaining how to set up/play the game
The expansions are very hit-or-miss so far
Being unlucky or going the wrong way will set you back
Objectives & Gameplay
As a bunch of rookie agents, your supervisor has given you the simple task of traveling to Paris in 1921 and stopping a 'temporal rift' from opening. You will embody a local person from that era, a receptacle as we call them, so your presence doesn't distort history. Your performance will be graded by how many 'runs,' or do-overs your group needs, and how many temporal units are remaining at the conclusion of the mission.
T.I.M.E Stories is a co-operative mystery game. Explore areas, uncover clues, gather information from the locals and take notes when you learn something. (Your character might have a great memory, but you probably don't.) Temporal Units (TU) represent how much energy is left to keep the agents at their current moment in time, run out of TU and it's back to the beginning for everyone. Don't worry, even the best agents take a couple runs to get the hang of things. It takes TU to move from one area on the map to the next, and it takes TU to more carefully investigate an area you are in, such as looking for hidden switches, having conversations with people, or fighting enemies. As your supply of TU dwindles, you'll have to weigh the cost of your actions.
The receptacles in this mission have three stats: talking, fighting, and strength/dexterity. Some characters are better at talking their way through a situation, and others are more of a punch first and as questions later. Don't despair if your receptacle has a particularly low value in one of the three categories, you'll have your fellow agents and maybe even a handy item to help you out.
Design
T.I.M.E Stories has beautiful art work and an innovative game design. My group and I absolutely love it. The art on the cards is specific to the mission you are running. In the core game, they convey the dark, mysterious mood through a life-like, film noir-esque art with a focus on details. In the Marcy Case expansion, the artwork is more like that of a comic book. As far as I can tell from the game manual, we have Benjamin Carré and David Lecossu to thank for the wonderfully immersive art of T.I.M.E Stories.
For the actual design of the board, box, and pieces, we'll need to get a bit more wordy. T.I.M.E Stories was created with the intent of being a multi-expansion adventure, so they had to make a board, pieces, and rules that can easily carry over from one mission to another even with drastically different themes. Not every part of the board will be used in every mission.
The board's upper left has a place a four-piece map that is built upon as you reveal more and more hidden areas in the game. At a glance, every player can see the layout of the mission area and determine where the group should investigate next.
Of all the elements of the game, the most impressive is the way areas are revealed. At the bottom side of the board are spots marked A through E, and when the group gets to a near area, they lay out the cards for that area face down on the spots. The art on the backs of the cards all match up to create a panorama of the scene your character sees as they enter. It's incredibly immersive, looks great, and works well with the game. The players can split up from there, with each going to the part of the scene that is the most interesting to them, and investigating it by looking at the face of the card. After a few moments of reading, everybody gets to explain what they found or what happened to them in their own words (reading directly from the card is not allowed by the rules.) This process is repeated throughout the game, and makes the entire experience feel more organic.
Additionally, a surprising feature we discovered while playing was that the box insert is designed to let your store the game in a save state between sessions. This was really insightful of the T.I.M.E Stories creators, Space Cowboys, because a mission can take anywhere from two to six hours to finish. The box insert has a slot for each player to store their character cards and all of their items, as well as a TU counter, map area, and key item holder. You won't have to worry about trying to write down every little detail about the game state, or taking several grainy snapshots on your cell phone to keep your place. The TU counter does not have every increment on it. It has 1-10, 20, 30, 40, and 50. If you're like my group and tried to pause with 18 TU left, put one token on the 10 and one token on the 8.
Conclusion
Absolutely a must for any board game enthusiast. Once you've played through it once, introduce it to others. If you really just can't get over the idea of a one-time use game, check a local game store and see if they have open gaming and T.I.M.E Stories at the shop. They are still rolling out expansions, and this game will definitely be one that everybody is talking about. Thanks for reading, and check back for the rest of my T.I.M.E Stories reviews in the near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for reading, tell me what you think.