At SPIEL last October I was able to present the 2-player game Time Division many times at the HeidelBÄR Games stand. Since time travel always works for me as a theme, the game soon moved into my home. You can find out in this review how the game stacks up against the masses of other purely 2-player games.
Two timelines have merged. Now there are suddenly two time agencies. The two players each embody one of these agencies and try to gain the upper hand in three different eras. The game offers two game modes: either you play an era as a quick duel or you compete against each other in all three eras (campaign) to find out which temporal agency will outlast time.
Two people draft for three
The basic rules of the game are quickly explained. The implementation is initially very slow due to the exclusive use of icons instead of card texts.
Regardless of whether you play one or all three eras in a row, there is a drafting phase at the beginning of each individual era. The players choose from three cards, one that they want to keep for themselves, one that goes to the other player, and one for the neutral pile. This is repeated three times until all 18 cards have been dealt. In the campaign mode there are also two time tourists who are distributed randomly. In this case, the players have seven cards in their hand, one of which they place face down in their area.
This type of card distribution means you know half of your opponent's cards and also half of the cards in the neutral stack. This knowledge is very useful when you want to plan your own strategy. However, this only really comes into play once you have really internalized all the card effects and synergies. But there is a long way to go until then.
Trick game with a twist
After the drafting phase comes the real heart of the game: the competition. In this variation of a trick-taking game, the various card effects are now added to the familiar process. Whoever wins a trick (plays the higher influence value) only secures the decision as to which card is activated and which comes into the area of influence. You win an era when the cards in your area of influence show a total of more influence points than the cards belonging to the other player.
For both, it is always crucial who played the card. Even if I decide to activate the card played by my fellow player, the other person takes the action. In this case, after the card effect has been resolved, I can move the card into my area of influence if it is still on the decision space. Basically, the effects of cards with a higher influence value are weaker than the effects of cards with a lower influence value.
The concept is best understood with a small example. Links played the archer. Then the Horus priest came from the right. On the right you now have to decide which card should be activated. Since the card effect of the eight explicitly refers to an opponent's five, it seems obvious to secure the five for your own area of influence and place the activated eight on the discard pile (in the past). But if we assume that this would be the first trick, it makes more sense to activate the archer. This effect has no effect because no card in the area of influence is yet on the right. On the right you can keep your own eight.
When all six tricks have been played, both players count how many influence points they have collected. In campaign mode you get two points for winning an era and one point for each time tourist you have in your area of influence. You record the points with the point marker on the corresponding bar on the game board. Whoever is ahead after three eras wins the campaign.
Information about Time Division
| Number of people: 2 people Age: from 12 years Playing time: 20 to 60 minutes Difficulty: expert game Long-term motivation: moderate Classification: trick-taking, drafting Game idea: Alexander Schreiber Illustrations: Sonderflex Publisher: HeidelBÄR Games Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2023 Language: German Cost: 30 Euro |
Conclusion
The basic idea of Time division actually promises exciting duels. What do I play and what did my opponent get from me at the beginning in order to react? Is there something valuable in the neutral stack? Do I focus on cards with low influence values and hope that I can still play them?
Unfortunately, the path until the game can come close to fulfilling its potential is extremely tough. Until then, the games are primarily determined by luck and you are left with a few question marks after the individual eras. Later you can play with knowledge of the entire deck, but that assumes that both know the game more or less equally well. Knowing half of the other player's cards can also be a tactical weapon, but here too there is enough chance to get in the way.
The first age is overall the clearest in terms of effects. It takes a little more time to fully understand the other two. Throughout all ages there is the possibility of using an effect to steal a valuable card from the other player and thus turn the result of the previous tricks on its head. The additional orange and purple effects add a bit more dynamism to the game, but even with them the game never really gets going. The fun of the game simply falls by the wayside.
Strong table presence
The material is quite opulent for such a simple trick-taking game. The game board and the trays for the cards are nice to look at and helpful in supporting the on the one hand logical and on the other hand overloaded iconography, but in the end all the material just adds to the price. The price of €2 is simply too high for a pure 30-person trick-taking game. The game simply doesn't offer enough for that. Games like Targi, Cairn or claim simply offer a lot more at a lower price. The cards, the most important components of a card game, are of below-average quality. They are quite thin and the paint wears off very quickly.
The individual eras are usually played in 10 minutes. The campaign also lasts more than 30 minutes instead of 60. This means that the individual games stay well under the specified duration and play out quickly. Overall, campaign mode is the better choice in this game. The won/lost rating simply feels nicer than the almost always very clear values at the end of a single era.
Time division Unfortunately, it doesn't manage to bring an exciting game to the table based on the basic idea, which is exciting in itself. The time investment the game requires to be fun is simply too high. What you get is simply not enough. It's actually only worth it if you deal with the game several times a week with the same person and simply play a lot of games in order to gradually replace the question marks with a bit of strategy.
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