Timeline Exercise
Due February 7th, 2024
Timeline is a trivia card game where players must use their historical knowledge to organize events, inventions, discoveries (etc.) into a chronology. There are many variants since the original version launched more than a dozen years ago, and our goal is to design new versions to help explore medieval Spanish history.
Timeline is a card game where each card depicts a historical event, invention or discovery on both sides, with the year in which that event occurred, invention or discovery was made on only one side. Players take turns placing a card from their hand in a row on the table. After placing the card, the player reveals the date on it. If the card was placed correctly with the date in chronological order with all other cards on the table, the card stays in place; otherwise, the card is removed from play and the player takes another card from the deck. The first player to get rid of all his cards by placing them correctly wins. If multiple players go out in the same round, then everyone else is eliminated from play and each of those players are dealt one more card for another round of play. If only one player has no cards after a bonus round, he wins; otherwise play continues until a single player goes out.
[BoardGameGeek, “Timeline,” accessed January 17, 2023: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128664/timeline.]
Read
Timeline “Classic” Rules: https://www.zygomatic-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/timelineclassic_en_rules_compressed.pdf
Take a look at the List of Cards and the demo sample of Timeline cards posted on Perusall.
Read sources that contribute to your work.
Potential Topics
You are free to pursue a field of research that is of more personal interest (this, in fact, is encouraged). Let me know in person or on Teams and I can suggest relevant readings (or you can start with the Encyclopedia of Medieval Iberia for links to key scholarship). It could be anything like, Heroic characters in Iberian literature, important medieval buildings and their creators, famous women etc. Our future game development project will focus on the Conquest of Toledo in 1085. You may wish to locate your research in relation to this future group project.
Listed here are possible topics that already have a book posted on Perusall (and linked below):
● Art
● Ethnic Identity
● Church patrons/donors
● Interfaith relationships
● Muslim experience of Christian Spain
● Jewish Life
● Conquest and Reconquista
● Queenship
● Slavery
● Trade
● Women Authors
Research
General Studies
A good starting point for getting a clear overview of a topic is to read tertiary sources. The Encyclopedia of Medieval Iberia is a good starting place:
Also useful is the series of introductory articles in The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion To Medieval Iberia: Unity In Diversity:
Detailed studies:
On Perusall, there is a folder entitled, Medieval Iberia which has a host of helpful and largely recent books in English on different key topics:
Ethnic Identity in early medieval Iberia: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/late-antique-and-early-medieval-iberia-4-buchberger-erica-shifting-ethnic-identities-in-spain-and-gaul-500-700_-from-romans-to-goths-and-franks-amsterdam-university-press-2017
Interfaith relationships: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/the-middle-ages-series-simon-barton-conquerors-brides-and-concubines_-interfaith-relations-and-social-power-in-medieval-iberia-university-of-pennsylvania-press-2015
Living as a Muslim in Christian Spain: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/the-middle-ages-olivia-remie-constable-to-live-like-a-moor_-christian-perceptions-of-muslim-identity-in-medieval-and-early-modern-spain-university-of-pennsylvania-press-2018
Jewish Life in Medieval Iberia: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/jewish-culture-and-contexts-jonathan-ray-jewish-life-in-medieval-spain_-a-new-history-university-of-pennsylvania-press-2023
Muslim Conquest of Iberia: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/culture-and-civilization-in-the-middle-east-nicola-clarke-the-muslim-conquest-of-iberia_-medieval-arabic-narratives-routledge-2012
Women Authors/Readers: https://app.perusall.com/courses/gaming-the-middle-ages/the-medieval-and-early-modern-iberian-world-71-montserrat-piera-women-readers-and-writers-in-medieval-iberia_-spinning-the-text-brill-2019
Other topics might include looking into the life of key figures that will be important in the Toledo RPG that we will be working on next:
Court of King Alfonso VI:
“Sometime in the fall of 1077, Alfonso’s court included at least the bishops of Léon, Palencia, Burgos, Lugo and Santiago de Compostela, his two sisters, eight counts,” and two or three major magnates.”
· King Alfonso VI
· Queen Constance of Burgundy (married 1079)
· Bernard, Bishop of Palencia
· Osmundo, Bishop of Astorga
· Bishop Jimeno of Burgos
· Bernard, Abbot of the Monastery of Saint Facundo and Saint Primitivo (Sahagun)
· Juan Baldemírez or Alfonso Remírez (royal notaries)
· Maiordomo Pelayo Vellídez (served from April 7, 1079 until late 1086)
· Alferez Rodrigo Ordóñez (served from July 15, 1081)
· Magnate Count Pedro Ansúrez
· Count Martin Alfónsez
· Sisnando Davídiz
Kingdom of Toledo
· Al-Qadir
· Representatives of the Muslim community of Toledo
· Representatives of the Mozarabic community of Toledo
· Representatives of the Jewish Community of Toledo
Indeterminants
· Other Christian Magnates in Iberia
o Alfonso’s sisters Urraca of Zamora or Elvira of Toro
o Sancho Ramirez, King of Aragon (and Navarre/Pamplona as vassal-king to Alfonso VI)
o Berenguer Ramon II "the Fratricide" (1053/54 – 1097/99), count of Barcelona from 1076 to 1097.
o Garcia II (ex-king of Galicia, brother to Alfonso and imprisoned by him (from 1073 or so until his death in 1090).
· Taifa kings, including:
o Umar Al-Mutawakkil ibn al-Aftas (King of the Taifa of Badajoz)
o Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad (Seville)
o Al-Mutamin, one of two heirs of the king of Zaragoza and brother Mundir, ruling over Lérida and Tortosa
· Distant Churchmen:
o Cardinal Richard, papal legate
Steps:
The best first step for game design is playing games like the one you are designing. I have three variants of the Timeline card game which you can borrow to play. As homework, you should make a plan with your fellow students to play another round.
Timeline expansion packs have 55 cards. That is a bit much to expect of you, so your goal is to create 25 cards in your thematic field. If you look at the List of Cards for Timeline, you will see that the cards are very simple. In word and in picture they list present the names of key inventions or events such as “Pottery” or “Telegraph” or “End of WWI” on one side and the date on the other.
Your goal is to create card text – thus a list of 55 key events, inventions, people, discoveries etc. that fit into your field. Each event should have a clear year as a date (never a date range). So, if you want to make a card for Queen Urraca of Leon, identify something like, “The Death of Queen Urraca” (1126 CE). Timeline has different variants – one is based on inventions (e.g. one card simply reads “Bicycle” for its clue – if you want to have a variant like this make sure you note this in your introduction.
All cards must have date references as CE (Common Era/ aka AD, “anno domini”). If pertinent, you can also add years in the Islamic calendar (noted by the letter H, for years after the Hijra.). And if pertinent, you can also add years in the Jewish Calendar (calculated as Anno Mundi – years after creation calculated through dates in Genesis. Roughly, 622 AD = 1 H = 2887 AM. Using alternate dating systems could be a game variant we could incorporate…
If you are working on the theme of “Warfare”, for example, you could compile a list of key warriors and generals, battles and military inventions that can be located to the Iberian Middle Ages. Your cards should have a logic to them that tells a story – the early medieval conquest of Iberia by Muslim armies means there will likely be more Arab generals in the earlier side of the Timeline, and more Christian generals in the High and Late Middle Ages.
If you are working on Trade, you could work on the establishment of new ports, or roads, or the first time a trade good is attested in Iberia. You could name the founder members of key merchant families or list important travellers and when they arrive at key cities in North Africa, for example.
Think of what story the names and dates tell. Don’t just choose the names, events, etc. randomly.
Reading is the best way to quickly find linked ideas for your cards. The history of Medieval Iberia is a rapidly changing field and the last twenty years has seen its history completely rewritten – two long-lived dictators in Portugal and Spain meant that only a very specific kind of Iberian history was told for most of the 20th century. The huge interest in Medieval Hispanic Studies over the past 20 years –particularly in the United States– has allowed a very different portrait of Iberia to be unveiled. So, this is to say, try to stick to more recent works in English (or Spanish if you are able) and avoid older encyclopedias/ textbooks.
Skim through books which seem most pertinent. Read the introduction carefully – they usually tell you an overview and major conclusions of the author’s research most clearly. Then skim the rest for interesting names, events etc.
When you get a sense of the history the book is telling, try to find events that will tell a story if laid out from beginning to end. Organize your facts into branching timelines
One of the issues in producing a game like timeline, is to balance play and knowledge. The more obscure your facts become, the less able a general audience will be to play it. Thus, think about how things change your game. Is this timeline variant only accessible to students who have done the reading (and thus the game is about cementing learning through play and not for a general audience)?
Produce:
Texts must be printed out on paper as well as the document sent to the professor by the end of day via message on Teams February 7th.
A snazzy title for your game variant.
The text and dates for 25 Timeline cards showcasing aspects of your field of research,
Identify with an asterisk beside the card name, three cards which you think are most likely to be known by a general audience, (i.e. something we could make into a new game altogether).
An introductory statement (250 words) describing your Timeline variant, the story about Iberian history it tells and explaining what you hope players will learn. You can include any hand drawn work (flowcarts, brainstorming work) that might help understand your process.
A bibliography of works used in your research. Note at least two works, one of which has to be a book-length scholarly study. Cite your works in Chicago style.
Optional: You may wish to design a rough draft of cards – showing text, images etc. This would give you bonus points at this stage. In the future, you will be asked to produce draft cards after this initial work has been assessed.
Optional: An additional paragraph on branding, artistic style of images etc. would also contribute to putting together your work.
Assessment:
10% of Winter Term mark.
[1] BoardGameGeek, “Timeline,” accessed January 17, 2023: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128664/timeline.
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