That Time You Killed Me: Spoiler Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Abstract, Two Player, King of The Hill, Scenario
Player Age: 10+ Player Count: 2 PlayersTime to Play: 15 - 30 Minutes
Game Designer: Peter C. Hayward
Player Age: 10+
Game Designer: Peter C. Hayward
Rundown:
Time travelling can be quite the complicated concept, and it has well-known difficulties in foreseeing the effects of even minuscule changes. It is even worse when your rival is trying to kill you in more than one timeline.
That Time You Killed Me is played over three boards; the past, present, and future. Your goal is to eliminate your opponent's presence on two of these boards. On a turn, the active player will choose one of their carbon copies (yes there are copies of you, time travel is confusing) in the board of their focus. They will select two actions then shift the focus to a new board for their following turn. The actions you can do with your copy are; move one space, push your opponent by moving into them, push your opponent into a wall or another copy of themself to eliminate them, or travel through time. If you travel forward or backward through time you will move this copy one board over in that direction, maintaining the same location on the board space. This action cannot be done if the location on the board being moved onto is occupied. Moving backwards is special as you will leave a copy of yourself from your reserves onto the space you are currently on prior to travelling. If there are no copies in your reserve then you are unable to perform this action. This can be confusing to wrap your head around at first but once you begin crushing and pushing your opponents by manipulating time effectively it will make much more sense.
Alteration:
Time is rife with tricky conundrums so of course the base mechanism of the game isn't enough to include all possibilities. There are three scenarios that players will explore; Growth, Influence, and Memory. If you want to be surprised as you play I recommend not reading the below sections, just know new objects and time manipulation run rampant in this abstract game, creating an abundance of game alteration.
Growth:
Growth adds greenery to the game. Players in the past can plant and un-plant seeds. These seeds are fine to walk across however they populate a shrub in the following timeline, which is as sturdy as a wall, squishing copies who are pushed into them.in the future timeline, this seed will be a tree.
Trees aren't as sturdy when they are pushed, instead they will topple over, covering two spots on the board and crushing anything underneath it. It will then become a blockade which copies can be pushed into.
Influence:
Influence adds statues that can be pulled and pushed as objects to push enemies into walls.
The interesting elements to these statues are; that any time you move a statue it will mimic the move in the future boards (populate on future boards), and each player has their statue that can be built at an opportune time to trap and eliminate the opponent.
Memory:
Elephants are powerful weapons. If a copy is pushed into an elephant or an elephant walks on them they will be trampled. Each era contains two elephants ready to be controlled by the copies but only one elephant per board can be under a player's control. To train an elephant they will replace any hat on this elephant with their hat, removing their hat off the other elephant if need be. When gaining control of an elephant it will populate to all the future boards.
Production:
Every piece in this game comes at a high quality that creates a great table presence. One of the great production elements is the self-aware comedy flair. This is seen throughout the rulebook and scenario cards that create a sense of fun and adventure fitting to a theme such as time travel.
Integration: (Spoilers)
This game does not stop after the players have played the three scenarios. Firstly, there is a way to combine two scenarios into a game to create a truly crazy board state. What I find most engaging and filled with replayability is a series of unlockable pouches hidden behind achievements. These achievements could be pushing a tree on an opponent, or winning with two or more copies in your supply. These achievements give the players different powers for each game that will either create a unique ability during play or a unique win condition.
Determination:
- Staggered approach to teaching the game to players as abstract games can be challenging to wrap your head around, especially one about time travel.
- Vast range of replayability with different scenarios and combinations.
- Unique gameplay.
- Great production.
Abstract games have always had an interesting place in my collection. For one to stay in my collection, they have to be truly challenging and unique. I have found the selection of abstract games in recent years has been improving with the likes of new classics like Shobu and Onitama. That Time You Killed Me has found its place in my collection with its unique three-board mind state. On the base level, there is enough of a challenge as you plan an attack on the present board aiming to eliminate the enemy copy in the future. If that sounds confusing, it is, because properly pulling off a good elimination is tough and confusing. This only gets more challenging as you add in more elements. I have not wrapped my head around this game properly yet and that's a good thing as I am eager to learn alongside my opponents as we traverse time in our pursuit to eliminate each other.
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