The
men, sitting in a rough circle, clinked glasses together and with a collective
sigh of contentment, sipped the dark ruby wine from their glasses. “An excellent wine for a five hundred year old
bottle” said Phil after a moment, his speech slightly slurred. “Absolute temporality speaking, of course” he
added quickly before one of the others could correct him.
The
other men around the table, all top scientists from a variety of cultures around
the world, nodded in agreement. Ra, from
a tiny chain of islands in southern
With
more clinking of glasses and cries of agreement they drank deeply. Johan, the Scandinavian, scowled a bit and
said “Temporal and Time are redundant, you know.” Labee, a dark
skinned man from
Finally,
with a lull in the conversation, François, a short, thin Frenchman sighed. “They are all fine wines, and we should enjoy
them while we can. In fourty hours, the government will witness the successful
use of the Time Splicer, build a copy, and while we
will still be able to experiment with ours, it will be with constant
supervision. I doubt they will be
forgiving of our little forays into the past.”
Francios emphasized the name of the device,
carefully avoided using the acronym that everyone other than Labee had grown tired of.
It
didn’t work. “Yes,” said Labee, “but at least there will be two of them, and the
world will be a better place with a nice pair of…”
“Right”
interrupted Mike. He, like Ra,
recognized the danger signs, and knew these things tended to end badly. “Let’s not go there.” He paused for a moment. “It is too bad, though. The govvies are
going to make things a lot less interesting.
They won’t trust the stretchy underwear theory.” Mike was referring to their discovery, quite
by accident, that they could cause major affects in the timeline without any
relevant changes to the people a generation or two removed. While inspecting Alexander Bell’s lab during
a frozen instance of time, they had moved a glass bottle of acid which, once
they restored normal timeflow, had been knocked over
by Alexander himself. This had resulted
in the discovery of the telephone by the American scientist years before it
would have been perfected by Norman Snodgrass.
In their own time, the group had immediately noticed that their phones,
rather than the familiar “honker” symbol, bore the likeness of bell. This had lead to the theory that, like
stretchy underwear, you could change the shape and size of the timeline but
still have the same “fabric” covering it.
No one knew exactly how they had come up with this analogy, as it made
little sense, but it had been after a different bout of heavy drinking and had
stuck.
“You
know,” threw in James, “it is too bad. I
still think we should have nudged that guy… what was his name???? Ya, Guttenberg. With a little help, he could have made
Christianity the dominant religion on the planet instead of Zen Buddhism. I get so tired of those stupid arguments
about whether there really is a spoon…”
Labee
said “Kind of like the Jabberwock.” This lead to a short, uncomfortable silence,
as no one else had any idea what he meant.
There was a long running argument between the others as to whether Labee was so far ahead of them that his logic was
impossible for them to follow, or whether he was so random that he was, for all
practical purposes, incomprehensible.
“I’m
still thinking keeping that guy Magellan from sinking would have had a bigger
effect” said Ra.
James
smiled thinly. “I really don’t think
so. There would be, of course, only one
way to know for sure.”
Mike
grinned back. “Are we taking bets?” This was met with an even more uncomfortable
silence. This was another type of thing
for the group that tended to end badly.
The last time, it had been over a practical joke, making the feathered
headdress of Chief Wampum, Grand Leader of the United Tribes of America, jump
off his balding cranium in the middle of his televised State Of The Union
address with the then newly created Quantum Displacement Device. An unfortunate math error resulted in
displacing it down instead of up, reappearing right around neck level. The resulting gruesome death forced them to dismantle
the device and spend several months proving that such a device was, in fact,
impossible. “Better yet,” he continued,
“we could make a little game of it. See
who can advance the technology timeline the fastest.” His eyes narrowed. “Of course, there would have to be
rules…” Mike was always very interested
in rules.
“Sounds
like fun” said Ra in his affable way. Of
course, he’d said the same thing with Chief Wampum.
Labee
muttered darkly “but, while the probability is very low, there is always the
chance of a resonance cascade failure!”
The other men started at him with raised eyebrows and frowns, uncertain
how to respond. “You know… half life…
cascade resonance… it’s a joke… oh, just forget it” he finished
weakly, scowling.
Phil
smiled easily while rubbing his hands together, a combination that the others
had privately labeled his “you’re all meat for the grinder” expression. “What are we talking about?”
Mike
pulled out paper and pen. “I think we
can come up with something interesting.”
TIMELINE
Timeline is a bidding and
tile laying game.
An international group of scientists have perfected a time machine and
are going to turn it over to the government in 40 hours. At a celebration where they’ve all been drinking
heavily, they realize they have the potential to change history and end up
agreeing to a competition to see who can change the timeline and accelerate
technology development the most. Technology
advancements are represented by tiles that have specific rules for placement. Players attempt to bid on them, modify them
to allow placement on the board, and place them using action points called “time
splices.”
Installing the game
Download the
self-extracting ZIP file Timeline.exe. It will unzip by default to C:\Timeline.
Ensure you have Java 1.4.1 or better installed on your system (either JDK or
JRE). You can get and install it from JRE 1.4 (if you have no
preference, just download the windows version of the JRE from the JRE column
under Download J2SE v 1.4.2_01).
The “Timeline” is
represented by linking together technology advancements (represented by
tiles). Tiles have characteristics; they
have connections (which may be “capped” or “uncapped”) to the south, east, west
and north, a level, a group, and a set of associated “output” groups. A “group” is a set of similar
technologies. Tiles can be linked
together if they meet the following criteria:
- They both have uncapped connections on the
sides on which they are joined, or they are both capped where they join
- An output group of the “innermost” tile is the
same as the group of the outermost tile. “Innermost” means closest to the
centerline / farthest to the left (West)
- The tile level increases to the right by no
more than 2 and decreases to the left by no more than 2 (and is the same
to the north and south)
- There is at least one connection to another
tile on the board
Some tiles are special
because they represent the “first of something,” like the first cave
drawing. These tiles are called “wonders”
and give you an extra time slice each turn.
Otherwise they are normal tiles.
The game is played in 40
turns. If the game is not complete after
40 turns, a resonance cascade failure occurs, destroying the Earth, and everyone
loses.
At the start of each turn,
each player gets 10 “time splices” (action points). They can be used for the following:
- Bumping their priority (the order in which
players re-stack or place tiles)
- Bidding on technology advancement (a tile) to
place in their stack
- Move a tile from their stack to his timeline
- Move a tile from his timeline back to their
stack (restacking)
- Cap or Uncap a tile on the timeline
- Improving a tile on his stack:
- Capping or uncapping a side
- Adding a group
The costs for these
actions vary and are displayed on the game board as you attempt them. Many of them depend on tile characteristics;
for instance, restacking a tile you placed costs 4, while restacking a tile
someone else placed costs 8.
The Game Board
The game board is split
into four panels, the Status Panel, the Bidding Stack, the Timeline, and the
Player Stack.
The Status Panel shows overall game status, including the players,
their current number of time splices, and their current score. You may select a player by clicking on the
associated row in the player status list.
The Status Panel also shows detailed information on any selected tile in
any stack and/or on the Timeline. There
is also a Player Order report that you can use to see what the other players
did last turn, as well as the “RELOAD” and “SUBMIT” buttons for restarting your
turn or sending in your orders respectively.
The Bidding Stack shows tiles that are currently up for grabs. You may select and bid on a tile (selected
tiles are bordered in red) by clicking on it, filling in your bid in the Bid
Text Box, and pushing the Bid Button.
The highest bid wins, but only pays one more than the next highest bid (Ebay rules).
The Player Stack shows tiles that have been won by the selected player
(selected by clicking on a player in the player status list; by default this is
you when you start the game). Tiles in
the Player Stack can be selected by clicking on them (a selected tile is highlighted
in red). You may modify tiles in your
Player Stack by right clicking. Possible
options are displayed in a drop down menu.
The Timeline shows the
current layout of the placed timeline tiles.
It is described in more detail later.
THE BOARD
Tiles
Tiles are the cornerstone
of the game. They indicated their level,
what sides are capped or uncapped, their group, and their associated output
groups, all central to where they can be placed on the Timeline. The also have a tile number that is used in
game reports, such as who bid on what tile.
You may select tiles by clicking on them. Left clicking selects the tile and displays
detailed information on it in the Tile Detail Text Box on the status
panel. Right clicking shows possible
game orders for the tile.
If you have a tile
selected in the Bidding Stack, possible placement locations are shown on the
Timeline with a red border. If you have
a tile selected in your Player Stack, possible placement locations are
displayed as well, as well as the cost for placing the time. If you click on the Timeline, the selected
Tile will be placed there, unless it violates a placement rule or rules (in
which case the reasons will be displayed)
The Timeline
The timeline is where
tiles are placed for scoring victory points.
Tiles are bordered by the color of the player that placed them. The Timeline will also show you possible
locations for placing selected tiles (bordered in red). If you select a tile in the Bidding Stack or
in a Player Stack, locations where they can be placed are indicated by an empty
red border and a cost on the Timeline.
The cost is for the owner of the Tile to play it. Since the Bidding stack are unowned tiles, the cost for placing them (other than to the
starting tile) is always 5. For your and
other players tiles, the cost will be 2 if the tile
connects to another placed tile owned by the same player. Tiles on the Timeline can also be modified
(capped or uncapped) and restacked (taken off the Timeline and placed in your
Player Stack).
If you select a Tile in
your Player Stack, and click on a valid placement location on the Timeline, the
tile will be placed there. Placement
rules are indicated in the diagram below, along with rules for determining the
longest path.
PLACEMENT AND LONGEST PATH
Player order
You may not play a tile
that is connected to a tile stacked or restack by other players higher than you
in the priority queue (as shown, highest priority to lowest, in the Player List
on the Status Panel). Priority order rotates
every turn. Since you will not know whether
someone else has placed or restacked a tile on a location you are interested in
until the turn runs, check the turn results in order to determine if someone
“beat you to the punch.” You may bump
your priority by spending time splices.
Two splices tie the next highest player (in which case selection is
random between the two players).
Bidding on tiles in the bidding stack
Tiles in the bidding stack
can be bid on at any time, in any order, although you will not be able to bid
more time splices than you have.
However, you can “overbid” in an attempt to win one of a set of tiles,
since losing one bid will leave you with splices to win another bid. The order in which tile bids are resolved is
random, however, and if you have bid more than you own you are automatically
disqualified from the bidding.
You win bids by bidding
the most, but you only have to pay 1 more than the second highest bidder (Ebay rules).
Ending the game
The game ends when the
Temporal Isolinear Time Splicer
is re-invented. This is a level 18
tile. If this doesn’t occur by turn 40,
a resonant cascade failure results in a rupture in the space-time continuum,
destroying the Earth in the process.
This means everyone loses.
Victory Points
Final victory points are
awarded as follows:
You receive one victory
point for every placed tile at the end of each turn. If you have restacked and then placed a tile
from another player, you will receive the victory points from the restacked
tile.
You receive victory points
equal to the tile’s level when you place it.
Note that if a tile is restacked and replayed, these victory points are
not awarded (that is, it is only on first placement of the tile).
At the end of the game,
all tiles on the longest path are reevaluated and the value of their level is
added to the placing player’s score. The
longest path is represented by a red line on the game board. The path will always travel vertically first,
then horizontally.