I don't often play trivia games these days. I suppose Trivial Pursuit overdose in high school and the avalanche of clone games created a kind of Pavlovian response to the whole genre. These days, a trivia game has to offer something different beyond the usual 6 category, roll-the-dice, move-your-mice format to convince me to give it a shot. Enter Chronicles. It's about time. Or, more accurately, years. And it manages to be much more entertaining than Times to Remember, the last game to try this twist.
The game board is a calendar representing a complete year. Major (and some minor) holidays are marked on the board, and each player can add six of his own. They can be placed almost anywhere, but there's a certain amount of fun in making holidays out of your birthday, anniversary, etc. Landing on one of these spaces lets you skip ahead a month on the gameboard.
Players roll a special die on each turn to determine the category of their question: americana, television, music and movies, sports, science and inventions, or world history. If you don't like your category, you can roll again— but you're stuck with whatever you get the second time.
All trivia questions n Chronicles have years as their answers. The twist is that you don't have to hit the year on the nose to move forward. The closer to the correct year you come, the more spaces you get to move. Each question has a window of five to one hundred years in each direction— the harder the question, the larger the window and the more points a bullseye is worth. In a very nice touch, the scale is printed at the bottom of each card, so you don't have to look in the rules or do any math.
You also don't have to answer a question. After hearing it, if you really haven't a clue you can pass it to the next player, who immediately gets a free shot at it. You then get another question. You can pass as often as you like at no penalty other than providing the next player with a free scoring opportunity.
I didn't expect to enjoy Chronicles, but I was pleasantly surprised. Although you may not get the answer on the nose, you can usually get close enough to move forward. This makes you feel less stupid and keeps the game fun for all. If trivia games are still your thing, the "close-enough" approach of Chronicles makes it a good candidate for family play.