TIME Stories
Holy shit. Awesome cooperative. And I hate, hate co-ops.
3.5 hours to our solution, with a lot of despondency around the 2.5 hour mark. We’re second class agents! Disappointing but geez, a very fulfilling experience.
I wish I could talk more about the game but literally anything else I may say will be a spoiler.
Everyone keeps talking about this game. Is it a legacy kind of thing with chapters you unlock?
I am so disappointed, that I can play this game only once!
Rocio Goodey not legacy per se. You don’t make persistent and irreversible changes to the game. It is more like a choose your own adventure or puzzle game. The reason you can only play it once is not because components are destroyed, but because once you know the puzzle.. that’s it. It will not change the next time you play so what’s the point?
It should be noted however that new stories are coming out quarterly. There are already two more out there with a third coming soon. So the base box is also like a console that you re-use for these other stories. So I think it is a little unfair to say you can only play TIME Stories once, when in reality you can only play “each story” once, then you wait for a few months and go buy the next story. 😉
It’s a time travel game. The “characters” you play are merely vessels into which the minds of the true characters, T.I.M.E. agents, are inserted to prevent a catastrophe or accomplish some other task crucial to the continuation of the timeline as we know it.
Every action you take or movement from one area to another costs (a) unit(s) of time, and when you run out, the game resets itself. But beating the game as efficiently as possible, with the least amount of wasted time units, is the goal of the game.
It’s fantastic precisely once, with zero replayability whatsoever, but I can tell you it’s an incredibly fascinating experience to watch a new set of players take a crack at it.
Paul Beakley the one that comes in the box, or The Marcy Case? Personally, I preferred the latter.
So is this a living game that you have to keep buying stuff for? I haven’t actually read any of the posts about it, just seen it mentioned a lot. Now I understand the dilemma: buy into the system for an amazing singular experience, or pay for another game that has you can always replay?
How easy it is to make new scenarios?
Look at Mr. Fancy Pants over here clicking in under four hours 😉
So far, the only co-op that I’ve completely enjoyed is Pandemic (with the Into the Brink exp). It’s a great one where even when everyone loses — you just try again without arguing. =)
We’ve only played part of the intro scenario, but my friend who owns the game already bought the Marcy expansion.
I’ve heard people say there is replayability if you give the game enough distance between plays, but I don’t have the direct experience to comment.
Paolo Greco there are rules for making new scenarios on the publisher’s site.
What do you get in the expansion? Just the new location and scenario cards?
Jesse Spangenberger you get a new deck. Essentially meaning a full new story/puzzle to play.
Ulf Bengtsson just the desk? seems high priced at $30.
Oh! And don’t be daunted by the potential length of the game. There are spots for you to set all of your bits and stuff to “save” your progress, just like a vidja game!
Right. So, if you go through an online discount place (CSI) new missions are more like $20.
I cannot imagine making my own scenarios. Mostly because the art is as important as the text.
Really don’t think you can play the mission again with new players, unfortunately. Not even with some time. I mean I don’t want to speak for folks with poor memories but the actual shape of the puzzle is easy to see once you’ve passed through it enough. (It took us four passes.)
Joseph Le May this was Asylum 1921. We’ll definitely play Marcy! But I don’t own it yet.
Rocio Goodey there are some persistent legacy things that happen, though!
We had three new players play it “with” someone who’d played it before acting as a “dummy” player (he just moved the piece around and rolled the dice, but the other three of us made all his decisions for him). It worked out fine and he was plenty stimulated by just seeing what we did differently.
I would love to watch another group work it out.
My favorite moments were when a different player would happen upon a clue and see it in a completely different way, thereby unlocking something important. Like, I can’t imagine playing with fewer than all four brains dedicated to it.
Because there are, as far as I know, no legacy type “rip up cards” or whatnot in the expansions, you could play them and then sell them off to someone else to recoup some of the cost.
Keith Stetson unless there are other non-destroyed legacy components in those adventures. #spoilersmaybe
Keith Stetson I think that there is enough value in watching others play through a scenario you have already played through to more than justify the $20 price tag.
I think that T.I.M.E Stories opens up a chance for RPG designers to design similar adventures in a box for board gamers, and casual players.
It’s a phenomenal engine, and the rules were harder than hell to get right because it’s the kind of game you need to play in order to understand.
The next two expansions – A Prophecy of Dragons and Under The Mask – take it in non-horror directions. The base game scenario isn’t specifically horror, but it has some tendencies in that direction. _The Marcy Case_ is horror.
People asking about the replayability: Think of the game as an analog version of a LucasArts point-and-click adventure game like Full Throttle or Day of the Tentacle. Once you’ve played the game through, you know what you need to do in order to win. And, unlike Maniac Mansion, there aren’t six hundred million paths to victory.
Keith Stetson correctly pointed out that recent posts were kind of spoilers. So don’t post any more like that!
Unless you want to talk about how the REDACTED turned out to be the REDACTED.
God I want to start a spoiler community for this game.
SPOILER THREAD: https://plus.google.com/113990765511580864989/posts/93qKKvTFeT4
Did it in three passes. With 2 people. #humblebrag
But, seriously, I love this game so hard. I can’t wait to get the Dragon Prophecy (or whatever) deck, but MY FLGS doesn’t even have a street date for it yet. :/
Jeremiah Frye IIRC, the street date is TODAY.