Time Tinkers Review

Time Tinkers is a free card game with a steampunk aesthetic. Players use a standard deck of cards to play a game involving the earning of stacks and the manipulation of a giant clock in the center of the game board. The game is certainly enjoyable, but the amount of fun to be had while playing Time Tinkers is limited due to the single game type offered.

To play Time Tinkers, players pick and choose cards from their hand of five. In picking a card, players must pay attention to the hands on the clock as they point to the most powerful card of that round. If players win said round, they can then manipulate the clock before being dealt more cards and repeating the process. As rounds are played, stacks are distributed around the clock on various numbers, and players can win the stacks played on a clock number by playing the best card and winning a round. The whole thing plays a lot like a game of poker in which single denominations of cards become whole hands and the clock determines wild cards.

The game ends when either the dealer runs out of cards, or a player runs out of their continually draining bank of coins. Once play ceases, coins are compared, a jackpot is awarded to a player at random, and the player with the most coins wins. To ensure victory players must strategically play their cards, determine the best time to seize stacks, and also gather "midas coins" to increase their chances of winning the jackpot at the end of the game.

Time Tinkers is a four player experience that players can enjoy against AI or human opponents. If playing humans, the game is played in a pass-and-play manner, though the game has an item in the store that allows players to request online multiplayer. Other things that can be bought in the game store include other avatars to play as and deck skins. Players can buy all of these things with coins won in Time Tinkers or buy purchasing said coins with real money.

Overall, Time Tinkers is a fun little card game. It has enough to it to keep itself interesting, but not enough to make it a truly remarkable title. If it had alternate game modes, a campaign with loose story elements, or something beyond just the core game, it would be more compelling. At the end of the day, though, there's nothing really wrong with it, either.