Deadlines Review

boardgamequest.com:

Players try to classify famous people according to their date of birth, date of death, and length of life. The player that makes the fewest mistakes wins.

Benjamin Franklin said it best in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789, “…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except for death and taxes.” It’s over 200 years later and both are still true. While taxes are something that humanity could ideally and eventually overcome in a positive Roddenberry-type future, death unfortunately is and likely always remain a constant.

Now for something more uplifting… hopefully. Today’s review is Deadlines from FoxMind where players try to classify famous people according to their date of birth, date of death, and length of life. The player that makes the fewest mistakes wins. Deadlines is for 1-10 players and plays in about 20 minutes.

Deadlines set-up is quick and straight-forward. You place out the three Tombstone cards: Date of Birth, Life Span, and Date of Death. You then shuffle the 204 Character cards and divide them equally into 3 piles with the character name side up above the 3 Tombstone cards. Flip over the top character card in each pile to its date side and place under each of the Tombstone cards in the play area.

The oldest player goes first. That player selects 1 of the 3 Character cards and, without looking at the date side, chooses which Tombstone column to place above or below the Character cards in the play area. Placing cards in Date of Birth & Date of Death cards must be in chronological order and cards placed in the Life Span are from shortest to longest from top to bottom.

The player flips the card to the date side to see if they are placed correctly in that Tombstone column. If the card was placed correctly, then the card stays in the play area, that player’s turn is over. If the card was placed incorrectly, that player suffers a penalty and places the Character card in front of them.  Either way, play then passes to the right.

Once 12