Timeline Game

Timeline/ Chronology

Timeline by Asmodee Uk and Chronology by Buffalo games are a History teacher’s dream card games. Both games are simple in design and use historical events and dates as the baseline for the game. The difference between the two is that the Timeline game uses imagery in their cards which allows for additional context clues to aid in the players’ success. There are many versions of Timeline. Each of these versions is themed. In the original version of Timeline, players use a set of around 100 double-sided cards. 

On each of the double-sided cards is the name of an event and a corresponding picture. On the other side of the card is the exact same picture and name, but with the addition of a year that each event occurred. 

Timeline begins by drawing a card from the deck being and placing it in the middle of the playing area. Once that card is placed each player takes a turn and tries to place a card from their hand into the correct position of cards forming the play area. A correct position is when the card is placed in the right chronological order in history. This central play area grows during the game, but it is merely a line of cards ordered according to the year of occurrence of the event depicted on it.

If the card is played correctly, the player then has one less card in front of them If the card is played incorrectly, it must be replaced in the players hand with a new card. The player who correctly plays all of their cards wins!

From Team Building From the Toy Aisle Game:

Name of Activity:  Timeline-Em-Up

Objective: To work together to correctly order each player in historical order.

Original Game: Timeline

Required Materials: Timeline by Asmodee Editions LLC - Multiple theme options

Or Chronology by Buffalo Games

Purpose/ Focus: Icebreaker, Communication

Grouping: 4 - 200 +

Set Up

• Open up the tin or cards and make sure that they are stacked where the cards show just the descriptor side and not the side with the date and the set up is done!

Facilitation Process:

• Tell participants that you are going to ask each participant to take a Timeline card from the middle of the room.

• Ensure that participants know that there are two sides of the card, one with a descriptor and one with the descriptor and date (numbers). 

• For example, a card may state: “The invention of the baguette” on the descriptor side and on the descriptor and date side it will include the date of 1830 with the descriptor “1830 - The invention of the baguette.”

• Tell participants that you have placed all the cards face up with the descriptor only side showing.

• Ask participants to come to the middle of the room to collect one of the face up descriptor cards. 

• Tell them to not turn over the card so they can see the date. 

• It is also important that their hand shields the date from other players.

• Now that participants have collected their cards, ask them to group into different sized clumps.

• Start with a clump of 6- 10 participants. 

• In their clump groups tell participants that their goal is to be the fastest team to order themselves in historical order from the oldest historical date card to the most current. 

• Sample Cards in a group of six participants may be:

• End of the 100 Years’ War

• The Advent of Hip-Hop

• The Great Fire of London

• The Invention of Shampoo

• The Invention of The Postage Stamp

• Hannibal Crossed the Alps

• If the participants received these cards, their goal would be to order themselves in a line as quickly as possible to come up with this order:

• Hannibal Crossed the Alps (-218)

• End of the 100 Years’ War (1453)

• The Great Fire of London (1666)

• The Invention of Shampoo (1759)

• The Invention of The Postage Stamp (1840)

• The Advent of Hip-Hop (1974)

• When the team is at a consensus that they are ordered and correct, they can give some audible or physical indication that they are finished. 

• At this point, you can have them turn their cards over to see if they are correct, or have them turn the cards with the date side facing you to verify their order.

• Once this process is complete and the first team is identified, ask players to trade their cards within their group and have them form a new sized group with different participants (7 - 10). 

• With the newly formed groups have participants order their new set of cards like the earlier round and verify the winners.

• Continue this process (trade, reform groups, and line up) a few more rounds.