Luckily for me, my eight year old son seems to love learning about history as much as I always have. He’s certainly fascinated with the Industrial Revolution and anything relating to steam. During his time in Year Three at school he’s been learning about the Tudor period and the Romans and I’ve really wanted to nurture this love of the past. I’ve found a great educational tool in the form of the game Timeline British History.
There are a whole range of Timeline games which are all compatible with each other, and Timeline British History is our first experience of the range from Asmodee. The game is aimed at players aged 8 years and over and can be played with 2-8 players. It comes in a handy metal storage tine, with 110 themed cards and instructions.
The idea of the game is be the first player to place all of their cards correctly on the timeline. There are different themes covered in the cards – inventions, events, sports and arts and each double-sided card features a picture and name of the relating event on one side and on the reverse, the image, name and date that the event happened.
To play Timeline British History, shuffle the cards and ensure that the date side is face down. Deal each player four cards, which are placed in front of them.
Timeline British History is a great game for all the family to enjoy, and for older players you could start the game with more cards to spice things up a bit. Once you’ve dealt the cards you leave the remaining cards in the middle of the table and you are ready to begin.
The first card in the central pile is place in the middle of the game area with the date side up so you can begin to build your timeline. The youngest player places one of their cards on either side of this starting card, where they believe it fits in time wise, once placed they turn the card over to see if they were right. If they are, the card is left in place and play moves on. If they are wrong then the card is removed from the timeline and returned to the box and the player has to pick up a new card from the pile. Play then moves on.
As play progresses you can add cards anywhere along the timeline where you think the event belongs, so you will need to bare that in mind when thinking of where to play Timeline British History. We’ve had so much fun playing this game and it’s caused no frustration at all when a certain player hasn’t placed his card correctly. He’s been learning and has shown such an interest in this game. It’s really sparked his imagination.
I can really see my Dad liking Timeline British History so I think we will have to make sure the game gets packed in my case when we meet them in Portugal in May. It really is the kind of game I see working across the generations and it’s definitely been a big hit here.
Have you played this game before? Or any of its variants? For £13.99 I think this is an excellent card game, and I love the educational value it provides. I’ve included my Amazon Affiliate link below in case you fancy trying it for yourselves.
disclosure: we were sent this item as part of the Asmodee Blogger Board Game club, in exchange for an honest review
