Journey Through Time: A Preview of Sarah’s Singularity

Journey through time, avoid paradoxes (or chase them!), complete missions, and become the one, true Sarah, in this time bending game that is currently on Kickstarter.

Gameplay

Each player is a Sarah from a different timeline. The original Sarah Prime is time traveling through history and causing mayhem. Your goal is to complete missions to clean up time and become the new Sarah Prime.

A Sarah card is dealt to each player. Each Sarah card has its own unique ability. Missions are divided into different eras of history. You select an era for each player in the game plus one, keeping them separate from each other. You put the remaining eras back in the box. You then take all the companion cards that match the eras you’re playing with, shuffle them, and put the others back in the box.

Seven companions are drawn from the companion deck and the Sarah Prime token is placed next to them: this is the prime row. Next you place the mission cards in order, from earliest era to latest. One mission from each stack is placed face up and a companion is dealt to each one, also face up. Every player is then given three companion cards, and finally, each player is dealt two personal objective cards and chooses one, discarding the other. These can award you points at the end of the game for such things as completing certain types of missions or having certain types of companions in your hand at the end of the game.

The game takes place over seven rounds. At the start of each round, you take the next companion in the prime row. Every companion has icons that show its skills and also which era of time it is from. You place the companion and the Sarah Prime token in the companion’s era.

Every player then uses their selector deck of cards to choose which era of time they are traveling to this round. All players reveal at once. If you travel to the era that contains Sarah Prime or to the same era another player chose, a paradox occurs. Any players involved in a paradox discards their Sarah card and draws a new one.

On your turn you can take any of the following actions, but only once. You can pick up a companion that is currently in your era (if the companion is not from that era, you take a token from that era which can be used as a wild icon when completing missions there). You can play a companion from your hand onto the era (if the companions belong in that era, you can play two). You can use your Sarah’s power. If the icons of the companions currently in that era match the icons listed on the mission, you can complete the mission, in which case you take the mission card, draw a new one, and discard all the companions that were in that era and draw a new one for it. Finally, at the end of your turn, you discard down to five companion cards in your hand or draw until you have three.

After seven rounds, or once all the missions of any time zone have been completed, the game ends. Players add up all the points for the missions they completed, any tokens they earned but did not use, points from their personal objective, and bonus points if they completed the most of any of the four types of missions. The player with the most points is the new Sarah Prime and wins the game!

Review

Time travel makes for a fun theme, and Sarah’s Singularity plays around with it delightfully. There’s a nice range of eras from prehistoric to present day, and the range of companions is really neat. The artwork and variety in the companions in general is fantastic, and we enjoyed seeing the various missions that came up and how they fit into each era.

The paradoxes are a nifty mechanic, is it can both benefit you and harm depending on how useful your Sarah’s ability is in your current circumstances — if you want you can always force a paradox by visiting Sarah Prime.

Setting up the game can take a bit of time, as you have to sort out the eras, companions, tokes, and selector deck cards you’re be playing with.

There is a lot of strategy involved in choosing eras, trying to avoid other players, and choosing which companions to pick up and where to play cards. You often have to think a couple turns ahead if you want to complete a mission but this can open up opportunities for other players to steal missions from you. The game does have a good bit of luck mixed in as some of it depends on the companions you draw, but that luck mixes nicely with the strategy.

Sarah’s Singularity is simply a great game. From theme to mechanics it hits every note right and we had so much fun with it. Check it out on Kickstarter, enjoy the art, and see for yourself.

Pros: Fantastic theme, great blend of strategy and luck

Cons: Set up takes a bit of time

Disclosure: this preview is based on our evaluation of an unpublished prototype of the game, which is subject to change prior to publication. While a modest payment was received to expedite the review process, our thoughts and opinions expressed here are honest and accurate.