Chrono Drop Game
A timeline runs along the bottom of the screen, and every card on it shows its year. An event card falls from the top with only its name, such as Magna Carta sealed. Steer it over the gap where it belongs and drop it. Placing a card is a comparison, not a recall, so you can do well before you know many exact years, and every card you place shows you its year.
Event cards fall toward a timeline. Drop each one into the right gap between the years already placed.
How to play
- An event card falls toward the timeline. It names the event but not its year.
- Steer it left or right. The marker under it shows which gap of the timeline it will land in.
- Drop it, or let it land on its own when it reaches the timeline.
- In the right gap the card joins the timeline. One gap off, it cracks and slides into its real place. Two or more gaps off, it shatters, the right gap flashes its year, and you lose a life. Three lives lost end the game.
- Five cards fall in each level. Then a new level deals a new timeline.
A timeline starts with 2 cards in levels 1 to 3 and with 3 from level 4. A card takes 15 seconds to fall in level 1, 1 second less in each level after it, and never less than 6 seconds. Levels 1 and 2 deal from all of history, from 490 BCE to 2001. From level 3, each level deals from a shorter run of events that sit next to each other in time, so the gaps can be only a few years wide.
On a keyboard, press ← and → to steer and ↓ to drop. Escape or Space pauses, and pausing hides the card's name, so it cannot buy thinking time.
Scoring
- The right gap: EXACT, 300 points.
- One gap off: CRACKED, 150 points.
- Two or more gaps off: SHATTERED, no points and one life lost.
Points come only from where the card lands, never from how fast you drop it, so take the time you need. Your five best scores are saved in this browser, with the level each game reached. In practice, the falling card shows its year, a shattered card costs no life, and the game never ends on its own. End it from the pause screen. Practice games are not saved.
About the events
The game deals from the 75 events of our historical events matching game, from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE to the September 11 attacks in 2001. Every year was checked against both Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and an event whose year the two do not agree on was left out. Where the name of an event does not say where it happened, the place is in parentheses. Years before 1000 carry BCE or CE, so 490 BCE is earlier than 9 CE.
To remember a year rather than work it out each time, turn it into a picture and tie it to the event. The Major System turns digits into words, and a memory palace can hold a whole timeline in order.
Get more ideas for placing dates in memory palace ideas for historic dates, or try our other free memory games.
