Benseraglio2
Sun, 21 Mar 2004 17:37:29 -0800
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I dropped into Fat Jack's on Sansom Street to kill some time before the demo on Saturday. An intriguing shop, with new comics, old comics, Magic cards and lots lots more. I picked up the game Timeline, a mini card game from Cheapass Games for four bucks. Actually, it's from Hip Pocket games, a "tiny little division of Cheapass Games" (www.cheapass.com)
The set includes cards and instructions; you have to provide 30 colored stones in four colors, available from Cheapass. We used mini-Othello stones, mankala stones, and colored beads, also tiny little turtles for the pawns.
Basically it's a commodities trading game, but you play in four dimensions (possibly more). You have start cards, finish ("market") cards, then you lay down a row of cards in between, between two and five, depending on the number of players.
The object of the game is to move up and down the vertical axes (local travel) or horizontally left to right or right to left (time travel), adding cards and picking up stones as you go, then selling them at the market when the time is ripe. First one to get to 21 points is the winner, although the number of points needed to win the game is negotiable. Looks to be a pretty good strategy game once you get the hang of it, though it will mess with your mind probably if you play it too hard.
Fat Jack's also features trading card packs for a quarter -- they must have about a hundred varieties. I found, among other things, a pack of Desert Storm cards -- I got Stealth F117A, Tow Missile, F/A-18 Fighter, USS Longbeach, and General Yeosock, plus half a dozen others. Not bad for twenty-five cents.
Ross Bender |