TimeLine
TimeLine is an abstract strategy game about messing with the time stream for fun and profit. It was first published by James Ernest and Cheapass Games in 2003.
Players move around the timeline, picking up resources, then selling them for a profit at the end of time. Each time you take something, you shift the timelines, and you just might spoil the profit you were trying to make!
The version below has updated cards, and a rulebook from our 2013 version. We expect to update those rules, and post a new version at DriveThruCards, early in 2025.
TimeLine is a simple card-based abstract strategy game for 2-5 players. Like most of the games in the Hip Pocket Games line, it gets a lot of mileage out of a small number of components. TimeLine was first published by Cheapass Games in 2003 under their Hip Pocket Games imprint
Although the board is made somewhat randomly, there’s quite a lot of strategy and planning once the cards are up. It’s extremely crisp and quite challenging, just like a game about time travel ought to be.
Along with the cards and rules, you’ll also need a pawn for every player, about 20 small tokens in yellow, red, green and black/brown, and a way to keep score.
The rules below are from the 2013 version, and the cards below are slightly updated from that version. Brown is the new black, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.
Printing Files:
TimeLine Rules (2013 Cheapass Games edition)
TimeLine Cards (3 Pages, 10/28/24)
Buy TimeLine at DriveThruCards
About the Cards: The TimeLine Cards file above is only three pages. You will need to print two copies of each page, and then throw away one Start card. If you like, you can print some extra Finish cards, but six is usually more than you need.
About the Rules: Some specifics in these rules (such as the number of cards in the deck) are not exactly correct, but they’re close. As noted above, we changed the brown tokens (oilpetrol) to black because black tokens are easier to find. You can use either, of course.
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