T.I.M.E Stories
About
A "Choose Your Own Adventure" game with a Time Loop mechanic. TIME Stories was created in 2015 by the "Space Cowboys".
Some innovative ideas, but not much of a game. I would put this under the category of interactive fiction more than a game. It looks like a game, and you get the illusion you are playing a game, but you are really just playing a Choose your own adventure book.
Good Reviews of this Game are difficult to find as everyone is so worried about revealing any spoilers that they find it impossible to properly critique the game. So yeah, some light spoilers ahead.
Thoughts
Tim:
2/5
I really wanted to like this game. The idea of a complete and unique story with every deck of cards and the game mechanic of jumping thorough time seemed a slam dunk. Alas, it's not.
I see two major problems with this game and two minor issues.
The first minor "issue" is that the game gives you the indication that you should finish the adventure in one play through. No. The major game mechanic is a time loop. You are not supposed to finish it in the first run, or even the second. That is a major point of the game. Don't fret about it.
The second minor issue is the randomness. Rolling the dice is just far to random. Dice rolling for random events only work if you have lots and lots of dice rolling so that the odds even out. This is easy enough to fix by first ignoring the time die and just saying that moving between locations takes a fixes 2 Time units. To fix the issue with dice, I would recommend using a set of cards instead in the same ratio's. For example, each die has 2-One Star, 1-Two Star, 1-Blank, and 2-Skulls. So a set of 6 cards will give you a perfect distribution of six rolls. Make about 4 sets or 24 cards, and you now have 24 random rolls that still keep you from getting 10 skulls in a row or other crazy results. And finally, just house rule the stupid resurrecting monster.
- Changing a location takes a fixed 2 Time Units
- Swap out the Dice for 24 Cards
- Resurrecting monsters can only resurrect once per run
The major issue, is the clues. I really think this game could have been improved with some kind of clue tracking system. Having to reset the entire deck and lose all of your clues is just a pain. There are plenty of tracking guides online that can help, but it just drags the game down. Personally I think they should have every card that is simply a clue, have clue written on it and you just keep all of them that you find. You can do this yourself, but this does bring up the final problem.
- Between runs keep all "info only" cards
And now for the spoilers. The final puzzle in the game will make or break your game experience. According to the game instructions you have to "just remember" every card you have encountered, and then just figure out the final puzzle. That is crap, frustrating, and almost impossible without taking notes. I think the following information can at least make the final puzzle possible to figure out without the game becoming a drag.
- One of the keys is a clue
- Painting #59 is a clue
And for that game instruction about not reading the cards out loud to the other players, just ignore that. It is useless and does not add anything to the game experience.
And finally, so as to not end on a negative note, the game save box system is absolutely genius. There is so much happening with this game that the incredible game box and save system does not get the credit it deserves. A way to save a game in progress by having the game box provide storage compartments is just incredible.
Laura:
2.5
This game had so much promise and some of the elements of gameplay were fun, like being able to pair up or go on your own to explore a portion of an area, your choice often made based upon what was written on the introduction card for the area.
It's fun to have an exploration game and while I expected some dead ends, I felt like there were too many dead ends and useless items for the small amount of time allotted. Yes, it's understood that you'll fall the first or even second time, but it would have been better if you would have had 50 time units at first, still failed, but had a better game plan instead of failing twice with 25.
The dice rolls seemed overly unfair, the rule of not being able to explicitly share information between team members (one can only paraphrase), and each run through meant you needed to give back all the items you found and remember where you were when you found them and figure out the importance for solving the game meant, for me, it was irritating and was overly complicated just to make the game unnecessarily hard instead of adding fun complexity to the game.
That being said, the art was cool though a bit creepy (I refused to play a particular character because her picture really creeped me out) and I appreciated how the map progressed. I liked the open exploration, but was annoyed at the amount of time spent on dead ends when the actual game play to get to the real end was sufficiently long and complex without the others.
Even though we won the game, the middle wasn't terribly fun, and we ended up ditching a few rules and setting up some house rules instead. I wanted to like the game, but the overwhelming feeling was, "Meh." I wouldn't play the game again, even though other campaigns seem interesting.
Losing in Andor at least let us figure a better plan for a replay, where this one, while we won, didn't show a plan where we could have done better or known something different.
I'd give this game a 2 out of 5. I mean, we did play it to the end, and we won.
11-10-2020