T.I.M.E Stories

Today's review is of the 2015 release, T.I.M.E Stories.  For 2-4 players, it takes 90 minutes.

Overview
You are a member of T.I.M.E agency, tasked to right wrongs . . . by traveling into the past and embodying others.  In the base game, the scenario is set in a 1920's mental asylum. You play the role of one of the patients as you seek to complete the mission.  You'll explore rooms (displayed on the board as panoramas made of linked cards) and wander the hospital to finish your quest.  But be careful: all actions have a time cost, and when your time is up, you fail the 'run', having to restart the mission from scratch.

game in progress; image from here

In the above image, you get an idea what the game is like.  The room cards (bottom) form a complete picture, and each player places their character token above one area of the room, enabling them to explore the contents on the back side of that particular card.  You can talk to other players about what you've seen, but not show them the card (unless they choose to spend time and move to that same part of the room).  Once you're satisfied that a room has nothing more to give, you can spend time by moving on the map (upper left) to a different room, place the corresponding cards for that one, and place your token again.  The map itself (also composed of cards) may change as the game progresses and you learn more information.  Each room might have a scenario that forces you decide- spend time to investigate more (and complete a task to earn information or objects), or move on?  Decide wisely; time waits for no one.

Review
I played one run with friends, and we failed.  It's a solid game, though- I really like how they use cards to create panoramas with clues behind each one, and the concept of spending time is cool (and lends suspense).  Some curious things presented in the rooms we visited didn't pan out, which wasted time and caused the failure.  (It's annoying but fun when there are red herrings.)  Overall, though, the game replayability is low.  It might take 5 runs to get through a mission, each time learning which clues to ignore, but once you're done, that's it.  They produced a healthy number of missions, but they all suffer the same problem.  And, as far as I could gather, the clues are insufficient to guide the team, so it's a lot of guessing (which is why they give you multiple runs, I assume) where I'd rather try to solve puzzles to progress (like in the Exit games).  It's good overall, but could be better.

Rating: B