Review of TIME Stories Revolution: A Midsummer Night

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber'd here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream...'

- Puck, closing lines of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Blurb from the publisher: 'Experience adventures through time and multiple realities.

6951 AT: Discover a strange world filled with marvelous creatures, illusions, and cunningly distorted locations. In this unique adventure and this alternate reality, nothing must be understood unless given kindly and respectfully.'

What you get: Your EUR 29,90 or equivalent will buy you TIME Stories Revolution: A Midsummer Night, the second mission for the second, 'blue' cycle of the acclaimed TIME Stories game line.

For those not in the know, the original TIME Stories (then known as T.I.M.E Stories) is a hybrid boardgame/RPG/PC adventure made for tabletop gaming that took the gaming world by storm since it was released in 2015. It might not be currently as high as it once was, yet being on the top-150 on BGG is no small fries.

In addition to the 20-page rulebook that can also be found at the publisher's website free of charge, the game contains the following: 26 Azrak Crystals, 107 Story cards, 60 Common cards, 60 Personal cards, and 34 cardboard tokens.

For those who have played the white cycle and wish to see the gist of what has changed: the rules are quite different in the current blue cycle. The scenarios can be played in any order. There is no base box as a prerequisite. You can buy any mission, and play it as is. Last but not least, agents can evolve and accumulate experience in-between missions.

Spoiler warning: each scenario of TIME Stories, just like any RPG adventure, is likely to be played once only. As much as I am not going to describe, let alone detail A Midsummer Night's plot, parts of it might be revealed while discussing the game's strong and less strong points. This will not make the scenario unplayable mind you, nor any less enjoyable. In case this is not immediately obvious, the scenario draws heavily from the Shakespearean play of the same name.

Gameplay: TIME Stories Revolution is a cooperative deck exploration game with elements of RPG and CRPG point-and-click adventures. The players are time agents, and through their receptacles they try to successfully conclude missions taking place in different locations and eras. Each receptacle has three attributes; in this adventure they are Cunning, Smooth Talk, and Strength/Combat, with values ranging from 1 to 3. Each receptacle also has a pool of Azrak (either 6 or 7 here), which represents the power of the link between them and the controlling agent. Receptacles get a two paragraph backstory but no special abilities on their main card, something that was the case in The Hadal Project. Receptacles have separate decks when it comes to their Personal cards. These include their starting gear, their Snap Recall card, as well as their Interaction cards. The latter are used when the game prompts the player to do so, in order to provide a more personalized experience depending on who tackles a particular card inside a panorama.

The game begins with a briefing about the situation and what the players are trying to collectively achieve. A Midsummer Night is whimsical in that it feels as if you have entered a dreamscape, a world that shouldn't have otherwise existed and where nothing is what it seems to be. The receptacles are rather tellingly a leprechaun, a dryad, a phaun and a sylph. The objective is to figure out what is going on, and why can't you remember anything in the first place?

The game is mostly set up like the initial white cycle, with the players collectively exploring a scene made up from different images. Yet, in contrast to that game, the game is now broken into rounds, which themselves are broken into three phases.

First, the players choose a Time Captain who will change round after round. In the Time Captain phase, he chooses a location on the map, usually after deliberation with the group. This is the location that the receptacles will explore, after spending Azrak to get there. When they are in a location, the Captain reads the first card of the panorama.

In the Discovery phase, the players first do a Recon of the panorama. Each picks a different card and reads its hidden contents. He cannot read it aloud, but can paraphrase what's going on for the benefit of the others. Once everybody is approximately aware of what is going on, players take actions. They can Initiate a test where they are, Explore, or Stand by.

To initiate a test, a receptacle spends Azrak to use the value of the attribute relevant to the test. He can spend additional Azrak to get a boost, while other agents who are standing by can also support him by spending Azrak. Once all bonuses are counted, the player randomly draws one of six Destiny cards. Two are positive (+2, +3), one equals zero, while three are negative (-1, -1, -2); the +3 card also reshuffles the whole deck. This is the receptacle's final value. Depending on whether it is lower than, equal to, or higher than the test's difficulty level, the receptacle fails, succeeds critically, or merely succeeds. You read that right: critical success comes when the final tally equals the exact difficulty of the test, not when it surpasses it. Depending on what happened players will then be instructed to take item cards, replenish their Azrak, claim tokens etc. Receptacles can also engage in personal or group conflicts. The first must be resolved by the player who is there before doing anything else. Group conflicts force everybody to participate irrespective of where they are in the scene. In the latter case, players play in the order that best suits them.

If a player wishes to Explore, he pays Azrak, returns his panorama card, takes a new panorama card, and follows its instructions. If you play the game with less than four receptacles, at least one free Explore action is handed out.

Standing By means that the player returns his card to the panorama. He is now free to spend Azrak to support an agent passing a test, or give one or more of his items and tokens to other agents.

When the players decide that they had enough with a location, they may first perform a Standard Update, thus resetting the link between their agents and their receptacles. Used Azrak is reclaimed and is equally divided to all receptacles in any way the players wish. Receptacles should never run out of Azrak. If they do, either the Agency helps them with already spent Azrak, or the agent is ejected from the present location. He will rejoin his comrades in the next Between Locations phase. Even though he cannot take any actions as a receptacle, the player is free to communicate with his fellow players. All of this however comes at a cost. In both Standard Updates and Requested Emergency Updates from the Agency, Azrak becomes sparser.

The players immediately lose the game if they all lose control of their receptacles in the same location. They must restart their mission from the beginning. If that doesn't happen, the players are very likely to resolve the mission. Success however is qualified, and depends on the number of Standard Updates they requested during the mission. The more these are, the less experience they will claim in the end. Experience comes in the form of additional Azrak, to help them in their future adventures.

The strong points: I stated this in the review of The Hadal Project, and I will state it again: the mechanics of the Blue cycle is a serious improvement over the White one.

Game-wise, handling Azrak is the group's first and foremost consideration. The present adventure is mostly about exploration, so you will need to keep things tight if you want a high score. The Destiny cards and the unique resolution mechanism deliver once again. The positive numbers are now much higher, meaning that achieving the perfect critical is not that easy. On the other hand, most tests in this mission don't distinguish between a standard and a critical success; don't go for fancy stuff, just try to succeed. The personal cards (which did not exist in the white cycle) made quite a difference once again. You are in a clearing, and you encounter a unicorn. Which is the most likely receptacle to engage with him and gain the most out of the experience? If you are literary minded, or if you can make a good educated guess, you will be rewarded. On the other hand, watch out for your Azrak. If you keep looking for the best solutions, you will start running dangerously low.

The Mystery cards are an innovation that did not exist in The Hadal Project. Panoramas refer you to Mysteries, which further your interactions with the game world. You can pick up items, give items for new ones, pick up resources, or even reveal new Mysteries. Magick also did not exist in this cycle's previous adventure. It is another resource to manage. If you have it when the game asks for it, your exploration of the world will be both more efficient and more revealing.

The blue cycle does not care whether you experienced the white cycle before, be it partially or in its entirety. There are certain recurring arcs, they do not however require any prior knowledge. Marketing-wise I like this approach a lot more. Buy whichever mission you feel like and start playing without investing in a base game whose plot you might have not been interested in.

When it comes to production values and art, A Midsummer Night is as generous as the previous installments in the series. The receptacles are balanced when it comes to gender. The drawings are partially cartoonish, while trying to instill a feeling of awe and childish wonder. The plot is initially hidden, and is oriented more towards immersion and thematic exploration (with some partial metagaming for laughs) than puzzles or hardcore resource management. Treating it like a fairy tale is more likely to wield dividends, at least in the beginning. There are some cool visual tricks like arranging the cards in non-linear ways which enhance the story's feeling. In addition to experiencing Shakespeare's world, expect to meet Don Quixote, the Fisher King, Shakespeare himself and more. If you are knowledgeable of Shakespeare's play you are more likely to appreciate the mission's nods and Easter eggs. My group was not, and I am fairly certain we missed a chunk of what makes the adventure entertaining outside of the gamist aspect. What we didn't miss was the mention of Unlock!, another Space Cowboys title. Nice nod, at least if you are also an Unlock fan.

This cycle is well supported. The line's third adventure, The Cavendish Mansion, is expected in 2021. I am looking forward to it even though I know nothing about its plot and scope.

The weak points: The rulebook is improved in comparison to that of the original game. Be however attentive, since some parts could have been clearer. The rulebook provides a direct link to its updated version online, but only if you have a QR reader. Be attentive if you already finished the first cycle. Changing from time units to Azrak is easy. Many mechanisms around that however work differently now, something that might lead to confusion. As an example, you don't need to go to a particular card in order to help your fellow player, you only need to stand by. This means paying less Azrak. Also, in the white cycle more than one receptacles could visit a certain card when it first got revealed. This is no longer the case here. Familiarize yourselves with the rules, in order to focus on the story and the experience.

The nature of the game has not changed. This is still a puzzle with limited replayability once you have solved it. Quaintly enough, if you have the memory of a goldfish like I do, you will be able to enjoy the experience at regular intervals, i.e. once every year or couple of years. Don't expect breathtaking action, nor any clear-cut logic in relation to what happens when you reveal a card. Many of the cards are about the scenery, about providing options so that players get a breather and Stand By in order to help their comrades.

Pointless restrictions, again. Why should I play solo only with two receptacles, and not three or four? Why, if we are two or three players, are we not allowed to operate with four receptacles anyway? It would have required additional bookkeeping, yet we are all big guys here.

The mission is quaint, to say the least. The ending is rather straightforward and appears to rely in one particular course of action. This is not a bad thing, it feels however like a damper if one has experienced more complex adventures. If there is any metaplot in this, it is well-hidden. You are playing this mission for the joy of immersion mostly. That having been said, don't forget that if you use Experience, your agents gain can experience and abilities from one adventure to the next.

Every single item inside this box is cool except from the tokens. The cardboard is too thin, while the design comes out as bland. Admittedly, the tokens are mission-specific and are not expected to see that much further use. On the other hand however, they are clearly the odd one out.

I have given up sleeving the line's cards. Seeing how sparsely they are used, it is simply not worth it. Why is that a negative? If you want to sleeve them no matter what, their sizes are rather exotic, rendering the sleeving exercise prohibitively expensive.

Conclusion: A Midsummer Night is a fun, theatrical scenario for the improved Blue cycle of the line. It is dreamy and weird, yet the world it helps create is an enjoyable one.

For more info on TIME Stories Revolution: A Midsummer Night visit Space Cowboys at https://www.spacecowboys.fr.

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