How To Play Trekking Through History

Trekking Through History is a time travel game where you are exploring history over three days. Each day makes up one of your rounds. In each day you spend twelve time or more to gather cards and experiences and add them to your timeline. That is most of the game, whomever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. And we’ll talk about the different ways to get points next.

Getting Points

You get points in two main ways, though there is a third that I’ll touch on briefly first. Those ways are ending your day at exactly twelve time, filling in your daily travel itinerary, and creating runs of time travelled from oldest to newest.

So we already completely covered the first. That is just ending your day with exactly twelve. Let’s talk about the itinerary next. Each day you get an itinerary that has four different columns. Each column corresponds to a different type of event that you can find in the timeline. So as you select your next event to add to your timeline, you need to get events that will give you the right tokens. You fill in tokens on your sheet from top to bottom. Some of the spots give you points for covering them. Others give you points if you complete a row. And there is one more resource we’ll talk about soon.

The other way is by creating a run for your timeline. When you grab a new card you always need it to be more recent than your previous one you grabbed. If it is, you add it to your run of cards. If it isn’t you start a new run of cards. But you keep the old run of cards as well. At the end of the game you score each of your runs of cards. If it’s a single card you lose three points, two you get zero and then it keeps going up from there.

Turn Order

The final thing I want to talk about is turn order. I talked about the twelve time that you can spend. You actually can spend over that, but you always stop at twelve on the time track. And as I mentioned, if you like it up correctly and stop right on twelve you get a bonus three points.

Each card you take, beyond having the different tokens, is going to make you spend an amount of time. There is a resource you can get, time crystals that let you reduce the time. So what does this have to do with turn order?

Well, whomever is furthest back on the clock, the time tracker, gets to go next. And if you spend time and land on a spot with someone else, you go on top of them. So then the player on top of that stack is going to go next. The time crystals allow you to reduce your time so that you are able to go multiple turns in a row.

Then, at the end of the game, whomever has the most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a pretty light game and there is a decent amount of luck to it. Especially in lower player count games the cards for the timeline don’t change that much. So it is possible that in the beginning you get a card that is way back in time, in the BCE (Before Common Era) range and then you need to jump up a long ways and create a gap. So as players you are somewhat dealing with the luck of the cards.

What Works

Firstly the simplicity of this game is great. And not only the simplicity, but one of the things I talk about with a lot of games, the speed of the game play as well. A few turns might take a bit more time. And this is because you want to get the right tokens to optimize your itinerary for the day. But for the most part, most of them are fast, and the game as a whole, three rounds, is really fast as well.

But with that simplicity of what you are doing, I really like that they add in the itinerary. If it is just a game of collecting times and putting them into your timeline in order, that is not super interesting. But the addition of the itinerary gives you that one thing to think about that keeps the game from feeling too simple. How do I get the tokens I need to hit that next big scoring objective is pretty commonly a thought in my head. So I am able to plan out my turns a little bit that way.

And the time crystals are fun as well. They are a resource that is worth a point at the end of the game. But it is almost always better to use them in the game. Why, because it helps you set-up your timeline and it helps you get more cards for that run. It’s another simple thing, but manipulating the turn order is a lot of fun with them. And it can lead to some big swings in your advantage if you do it right.

Who is Trekking Through History For?

This is going to be a game that will be light for a lot of people I’m sure. I find it light as well and I’ll talk about that more. But this is a great game for families in a ton of ways. Firstly, the game play is easy enough to play with kids. I think that even pretty young kids could start to figure it out. And easily by the time your kid is eight, this is a game that you could play.

But the other big reason that this is such a great family game is that it teaches history. Each card, on the back, is going to tell you about the historical event that the card is depicting or the person on the card. It is an amazing opportunity to play a fun game and learn.

Final Thoughts on Trekking Through History

I find Trekking Through History to be a very enjoyable game. It is easy to teach, learn, and play. And sometimes that is an important thing for a game night. Add in the history that you learn form it, and that is a great added element to what you are doing in the game. Plus the game offers just enough to be a solid game as well. There is just enough strategy in filling out the itinerary to keep me engaged and just enough manipulation of the time track with the time crystals.

I suspect a number of people would find this game too simple. And I get that, it is simple but it is a game with a very specific focus for why it was made. It is a chance to play a game and learn about history and engage as a kid and as a family. My kid is not quite old enough to play it yet. But I’m excited for the time when I can use this to help him keep learning and have a fun time doing so. There is more to this than the game Timeline, which can do the same thing, but not a ton more.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 6

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What is Kickstarter?
Starting out with the basics here, but Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website. What’s a crowdfunding website, it’s a site where someone asks for money to help fund a project, that could be something like Go Fund Me with helping someone with medical expenses or whatever need they might have, but on Kickstarter, you’re almost always Kickstarting a project that is going to create some sort of end product. It might be a play, it might be a comic, a chair, a video game, or, as I’m going to be talking about board game or an RPG. Normally, when you help fund something, the company or creator gives you something in return for helping them.

How Does a Project Work?
I’m going to be tackling this from the consumer side, I’ve never run my own kickstarter, and I doubt I ever would or will. But, the creator makes their project, so they create a video (ideally), and write up information on the game, showing images of prototypes or of what they are planning on the components looking like. They explain how the game works, what sort of game it is, and why you should help them fund it. They also talk about what shipping costs might be and what they could see as risks for their campaign so the people who fund them know what they are getting into.

The final big thing they create though is the reward levels and funding level. These are how much they are asking people and how much money they need for it to actually happen. For example, if they think they can make the game that the whole cost of production is $20 but they need to 2,000 people to back them to get that production cost, they can make their funding goal $40,000. And there would be a reward level of $20 where people can back them and get a copy of the game as a reward. But what is more likely to happen is that production costs $20, so they offer a reward level of $30 for the game, because they need to pay themselves and kickstarter takes some of it, and they set their funding goal at $30,000. The reason for that is that while they want to hit 2,000 people, they can go over their funding goal, and if they do, more people are apt to back it, because they know the project is happening, and that’ll help them get to 2,000 people.

Then, with the Kickstarter up and running at kickstarter.com, they wait through their campaign, however many days it is, and that’s where we step in as the consumer. I look at the page, decide if it’s a game that I find interesting, and then if I do, I can back it. Now, maybe I just like the idea, but I don’t want the game myself or I know the creator of the game or like their company, whatever it might be. I can back it for however much I want without a reward, or I can select the option to back for $30, in our example, and get the game. So I back it, but I don’t get the game right away, this isn’t a store, they don’t have the games yet (most of the time, future Kickstarter lesson), they are getting the funding to then make the games. So they’ll send out updates to everyone who has backed them thanking them for backing and letting us know what their plans are and most often, letting us know about stretch goals. Stretch goals are extra things added to the game if it reaches a certain funding level. So in our cast, they really need the level to hit $40,000, but let’s say it’s doing well, and the game hits $50,000 or $60,000, they might add in some extra cards, a cool first player maker, an extra scenario, an extra character class (for an RPG), whatever it might be at certain points in the campaign based on how much they’ve made, because now they can afford to do that. This helps encourage people to back it because some of these things might be exclusive to Kickstarter (future lesson).

So, they’ve funded their campaign, now they get the money, but not all the money, Kickstarter is going to take some as well, because Kickstarter is a business and they need to make money as well. So even though they Kickstarter made, let’s say $80,000, the creator maybe sees around $72, 000 to $76,000. Now that it’s funded, they’ll send you the game, right? Not quite yet, they need to still get it made, so they get the money from Kickstarter, now they need to schedule with factories to get the game made, and most of the time, they also will be sending out a backer survey, this might be done through Kickstarter, but most often through another company, because $30 pledge for the game didn’t cover shipping. So you’ll have to pay a bit more to cover shipping, but the good thing is that this should basically just be the shipping cost because Kickstarter isn’t taking money from them for it. Though, the other site might be. Now you’ve paid shipping, let’s say $10, and for the game $30, it’ll get shipped soon. Almost, first, it gets into a production queue for some factory somewhere that is probably making a lot more and different board games throughout the year as well. So it might be 6-12 months before production begins, if not more. So production has happened, now it gets shipped, literally shipped on a boat, around the world, this can take a few weeks and up to a couple of months if there are delays at customs. From the ships it goes to a fulfillment company or to the creator to fulfill. They’ll be the ones sending you the actual game. So probably around a year after you Kickstarted it, you’ll get the game.

And that’s the general life cycle of a Kickstarer, it can take longer than a year, and it can be shorter than a year. But the cool part is that you can help small companies (or buy more of a sure thing from a big company) get their games out to the market.

I’m going to be talking about various things, such as what happens when a Kickstarter fails, what happens if it doesn’t deliver, what makes a good Kickstarter, what to watch out for, what stretch goals are, and how to avoid Kickstarter FOMO (if it’s even possible).

What are some of your best experiences with Kickstarter? Have you had any that have failed or not ever come? Are there any other topics I should cover around Kickstarter? Let me know in the comments below.

(All the images are of games that were brought to life on Kickstarter)

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