If you think a huge game like Gloomhaven might be a bit much for a week or two of vacation, an episodic narrative game like Time Stories might be more up your alley for a family game night.
Time Stories is a wonder of a game. With a simple deck of cards, this cooperative board game catapults you across dimensions and spacetime, guides you through beautifully rendered settings and brings you face-to-face with Lovecraftian monsters — and that’s just in the first campaign.
In Time Stories, players investigate mysteries in settings ranging from ancient Egypt to zombie-infested suburbs. The stories change with your decisions, and your ability to solve the given mystery depends on your cooperation with teammates, your problem-solving skills and your ability to adapt to new elements introduced on the fly by the game.
Time Stories isn’t perfect: You can find plenty of chat boards online with fans debating which stories are best, and which could’ve been better balanced. But even small unbalances ultimately stem from the game’s massive ambition, and it’s hard not to feel swept up by that ambition every time you sit down to play.