Our review

Disturbance in the space-time continuum

T.I.M.E. Stories

Wanted: Time travel agents

You are looking for an exciting assignment that offers unlimited career options as well as the opportunity to visit various realities and timelines? You want to preserve the order within the space-time continuum and the prosperity of our present times? Then the Time Agency needs YOU!

In a far-away future in which time travel is part of daily life, the T.I.M.E. Agency (Tachyon Insertion in Major Events), a joint institution of all governments on Earth, sees to it that unintentional or illegal time travels do not have an effect on the main time axis of the world, that is, do no wreak havoc on the history of the world. Up to four courageous T.I.M.E. agents are sent out on missions with the task to prevent a time rift in the past or in an alternate universe. With the help of Tachyon Insertion Technology the minds of the agents are transferred into individual host bodies, which gives  the player / agent control over all abilities, characteristics and equipment of the host. Should the host die or time run out, the mind of the agent can be transferred back without a problem and a new run can begin.

A short note: As the purpose of T.I.M.E. Stories is to solve a puzzle, I have taken very special care to keep this review „spoiler-free“, that is, to avoid to reveal contents of the the game which the players only find out in the course of playing the scenario.

The core game of T.IM.E. Stories comes with the first mission „Asylum“ which sends us back into the year 1921 and, to be exact, into the Beauregard Neurological Clinic. Curious events happen there, patients have disappeared and it is the task of the agent to solve the puzzle behind those occurrences and to prevent a time rift.

We begin our adventure in the sitting room. This room is made up (as are all other rooms in the game) from a series of cards that are placed next to each other and provide a panorama of the room. The first card of the room always gives a short description of what we see. Now players decide cooperatively who will explore which part of the room, represented by deciding who places his marker next to which card; it is possible that several players choose the same card.

Players take the card they have decided on, turn it over and read them by themselves. Then players hold a conference and tell each other what they have just read/learned/experienced. Players can then decide to spend a Temporal Unit (TU) and explore additional cards of this room or to switch to another room, which costs 1-3 TU (you roll a die for this).

The room cards can feature various kinds of information – that may be pure text which can be use less or a valuable and necessary clue for the solution to the puzzle, can bring more or lessee peaceful encounters with persons, new rooms that you can explore, but also trials – this could be stealing a key with dexterity, convince a person with eloquence to give information to all players, and so on.

To pass a trial the player as agent works with the ability values of his host, rolls the corresponding number of dice and is given a reward when the dice results show a sufficient number of success symbol, or a penalty when the requirements are not met. When a trial is not coped with successfully or an opponent has not been defeated instantly, players can or must spend an additional TU to start another attempt. Players can also come to each other’s assistance.

Rewards usually take the guise of object cards which will be necessary in the later course of the game, so, for instance, a cupboard might remain inaccessible for players if they did not acquire the corresponding key earlier in the game. But who knows if the cupboard holds something useful or will turn out to be a pure waste of time after all?

In addition to the usual characteristics of Dexterity (green), Eloquence (yellow) and Strength (red) as well as Defense (shield) and Life (heart) hosts on this special missions also sport a psychosis, as they are all inmates of a lunatic asylum.

So, for instance, Soldier Ferdinand Meunier has a war trauma which hinders him to attack an opponent who has only one or two life points left. Little Madeleine du Tilleul, on the other hand, suffers from panic attacks. If she is alone on a square, she rolls one die less.

Each action and each change of location cost time, of which agents have only a very limited amount at their disposal before their mind is teleported back (the amount of time varies in relation to the number of players and on the number of times you already failed the mission; for a first attempt with four players you have 25 Temporal Units TU). Therefore, each step must be well considered, each failed dice roll is aggravating and each clue that turns out to be a dead end after all will make players sweat.

The mission is won, when the instruction text on a card asks players to read the card „mission accomplished“. The mission is failed when you need to read the card “Mission failed” or the time marker has arrived at Zero or when all agents are dead.

Agents are then teleported back, and a very small number of accomplishments can be kept, usually locations that you have already explored or can explore, the rest is reset to the starting conditions, agents receive five additional TU and a new attempt can begin. Hopefully, someone has remembered which encounters are best avoided and behind which cards the really important items are hidden, so that the new attempt will end with the instruction “Read the card MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”.

I have needed three attempts with my group of players to accomplish it, which means that the game can be played in one evening; should you not manage to accomplish this, you need to use your brain by all means to remember all the information until the next games evening.

Here another advice is necessary: I do not recommend to play the game with two players, because in this case each player controls two hosts, which in my opinion, intensely changes the flair of the game and does not enable you to identify with a character. The game is clearly intended for four players and is most pleasing and most fun with this number of players.

The relation of what you pay for the game to what you get from the game might be a deterrent for many people with this game. The design of the box and cards and the quality of all components are top, but if you know the scenario and have solved the puzzle once, the the replay value rapidly drops to zero. Maybe you could, with a new set of three more players, be a silent player and have a few amusing hours, or try, if you are a very ambitious group, try to beat your own best time. Both options are not very probably in my case, so I think that I will not play T.I.M.E. Stories ASYLUM ever again.

Good to know that Manuel Rozoy, the designer of the game, has provided for this contingency. The expansions „Der Marcy-Fall“, „Die Drachenprophezeiung“ and „Hinter der Maske“ are already available and additional ones are already announced. Each of them deals with another topic (Fantasy/adventure/horror and so on) and all scenarios have also been designed in a different style. All expansion need the core game to play, but do not build on each other and can therefore be played in any order of your choice.

The amount of chance introduced by the dice is not dominating and fits the concept well. Texts on the cards manage again and again to draw you into the story. I especially love that the room cards are not simply read out but are retold in players’ own words. This “forced storytelling” is, in my opinion, a very felicitous element in the game. It asks players to memorize the content of their card and to retell it in their own way and helps you to immerse yourself deeper into your character. The story itself – including the SciFi elements – is plausible enough for me and well thought-out. So – a clear recommendation to buy for all fans of a cooperative game who love to solve puzzle and to tell stories. For me one of the best games from 2015.

Carina Katinger

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 90+

Designer: Manuel Rozoy

Artist: Ben Carre, Vincent Dutrait, David Lecossu, Pascal Quidault

Price: ca. 45 / 25 Euro

Publisher: Space Cowboys 2015

Web: www.asmodee.de

Genre: Cooperation, role play, narration

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en fr

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Atmospheric role-playing +  board game

Well thought-out story

Needs much communication and some memory

Compares to:

Mice and Mystics, Crime dinner games

Other editions:

Space Cowboys / Asmodee (en, fr)

My rating: 7

Carina Katinger:

I love the story-telling and the immersing in characters combined with information and cooperative puzzle solving.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 2

Knowledge (yellow): 2

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 3

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0