Aikamatka: Suomi Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
  • Cards
  • Game board
• Basic Game for 2-5 Players
  • Object of the Game
  • Setup
  • Course of Play
    • Phase 1: Choosing cards
    • Phase 2: Playing the cards
    • Phase 3: End of the round
  • End of the Game
• Solo Game

Contents

• 165 cards
• 1 game board
• 32 discs (4 of each colour)
• 8 cubes (1 of each colour)

Cards

Each card has a back side and a front side. The sample cards in the rulebook (Finnish Board Game Society, Finlayson cotton mill, Faculty of Social Sciences) do not appear in the game itself; they are only example cards for the rulebook.

The back side shows the event name (in Finnish, Swedish and English) and an image. Example: "Finlaysonin puuvillatehdas / Finlaysons bombullsfabrik / Finlayson cotton mill".

Every card consists of the following parts: (1) picture, (2) event, (3) year, (4) explanation. The year and explanation are on the front side (the year side).

Example: 1828 – Finlayson cotton mill. The cotton mill founded in Tampere by James Finlayson became the largest factory in the Nordic countries from the 1850s and remained the largest until the 1920s. It had already become the largest factory in Finland in the previous decade.

Game board

The game board has the following areas: (5) score track, (6) scoring instructions, (7) large century squares, (8) small year squares (00-99). The century squares are 1800s, 1900s, 2000s on the Finland side. The reverse side of the board has century squares 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000.

Basic Game for 2-5 Players

Object of the Game

The player whose turn it is tries to place the card they have received in the correct position on the timeline. Unless otherwise stated, the aim is to know or guess the time when the thing on the card happened for the first time! At the end of the game, the time traveller who has collected the fewest minus points wins!

Setup

Shuffle all the cards and place them on the table as a draw pile, year side face down. For the basic game you need nothing but the cards. The game board, discs and cubes are needed only in the alternative game mode (page 4).

Turn one card from the draw pile face up on the table, year side up, as the starting card of the timeline.

The player who was born farthest from the starting card's event year is the first starting player.

(Illustration: starting card "1999 – Finnish Board Game Society. In 2004 the Finnish Diplomacy Society changed its name to the Finnish Board Game Society when the society's activities had expanded to playing other board games as well." The draw pile lies beside it.)

Course of Play

Phase 1: Choosing cards

At the beginning of the round, the starting player takes cards from the draw pile (1) onto the table, year side face down (2), as many cards as there are players.

Starting from the player sitting to the right of the starting player (3) and proceeding counter-clockwise, each player chooses one of these cards (4).

The starting player thus gets the last remaining card.

(Illustration note: In Phase 1, at the beginning of the round, the player sitting to the right of the starting player is the first to choose one of the cards on offer.)

Phase 2: Playing the cards

When everyone has received a card, the playing of cards begins from the starting player, and turns pass clockwise.

The player whose turn it is (5) tries, without the help of the other players, to place the card in the correct position on the timeline in ascending year order: at the very beginning of the whole timeline (6), between two previously played cards (7), or at the end of the timeline (8).

When the player has decided where on the timeline the new card belongs, they turn it year side up (9). If the card is in the correct place, it is left on the timeline year side up.

If the card is in the wrong place, the player takes it in front of them as a minus point.

Then it is the next player's turn.

(Illustration note: Phase 2: The starting player has already played the cotton mill. The next player now tries to place the Faculty of Social Sciences in the correct position on the timeline.)

Special case: If two adjacent cards have the same year, these cards are always in the correct order relative to each other.

Phase 3: End of the round

When everyone has played the card they received, the starting turn passes to the player sitting to the left of the player who started this round. They begin a new round from Phase 1, that is, by placing as many cards on the table to be chosen as there are players.

End of the Game

The game ends when a number of rounds depending on the number of players has been played:

Number of players	2	3	4	5
Number of rounds	6	6	4	5

The player with the fewest minus points wins. If the points are tied, there are several winners.

Solo Game

You can of course play Aikamatka alone too! The game proceeds in the same way as the 2-5 player basic game. When you place a card in the wrong position on the timeline, the game ends. Your score is the number of cards that went correctly. The starting card is not counted in the score.