How to play
One phone is the DJ. Everyone else builds a timeline of songs, oldest on the left. First to ten cards wins.
What the game is
Every card has a QR code on one side and the artist, title and original release year on the other. You scan the code, the song plays, and you have to work out where it belongs in the row of cards in front of you — before your oldest, after your newest, or somewhere between two.
You never have to know the exact year. You only have to decide whether the song is older or newer than what you already hold. That is why it works across generations: a grandparent hears a 60s hit and knows, a teenager hears last year’s single and knows, and the 90s bring the whole table in. Two to ten players, about half an hour, first to ten cards wins.
Setup
- Shuffle the cards and put them in the middle, QR side up, so nobody can read the years.
- Everyone takes the top card and lays it down year side up. That is the start of their timeline.
- Everyone takes two tokens. There is no token in a Rewindy pack, so use whatever is on the table — coins, bottle caps, matches. Nobody may hold more than five.
- One phone opens the scanner. Whoever holds it is the DJ. That can be one person all evening, or the phone can travel round the table.
- The player to the DJ’s left starts, then play goes clockwise.
No account, no music subscription. Scanning a card plays the official 30-second preview straight in the browser. Because the preview is short, agree up front whether a song may be played twice.
A turn, step by step
The DJ scans the top card
QR side up, straight from the pile. The song starts. Nobody turns the card over yet.
You place it in your timeline
Older than everything you have? Left. Newer? Right. Somewhere in between? In between. Slide it in face down and take your time — the song keeps playing.
Optional: name the artist and title
Say both before the card is flipped and you earn a token, whether or not you placed it right.
Others may challenge you
Anyone who thinks you are wrong puts one token where they believe the card actually belongs.
Flip and check
In order with its neighbours? It stays and your timeline grows. Out of order? It goes to the discard pile — or to whoever challenged correctly.
Next player
Play passes to the left.
The tokens
The tokens are what turn this from a quiz into a game. They reward knowing more than the year, and they give everyone else a stake in your turn.
Earning them
Name both the artist and the title of the song that is playing, correctly, before the card is flipped: one token. Where you put the card does not matter — a wrong placement with the right answer still pays. You start with two and can never hold more than five.
Spending them
- Skip a song — 1 token. Never heard it? Pay one, the card goes on the discard pile and the DJ scans you a fresh one.
- Buy a card — 3 tokens. Take the top card straight into your timeline, year side up, no guessing. A fast way to close the last gap.
- Challenge — 1 token. Someone placed a card and you think they are wrong? Put a token where you think it belongs. Right, while they were wrong: the card is yours. Wrong: the token is gone. If several people challenge, the first token down counts.
Tokens are the difference between a close game and a walkover. A player one card from winning can be stopped by two well-placed challenges, and three saved tokens can take a game outright.
How you win
First to ten correctly placed cards. Everything in your row counts: the card you started with, the ones you placed, the ones you bought and the ones you won by challenging. Want a shorter game? Agree on five or seven before the first scan. Playing in teams, some groups finish the round so both sides have had the same number of turns, and then the longer timeline wins.
House rules
None of these are official. All of them get used. Agree on them before the first scan.
Exact year
The year has to be right, or within two. Order alone is not enough. Brutal, and the best variant for a single-decade deck.
Play to 5 or 7
A shorter timeline for a big group or a round before dinner.
Teams
Two or three people share one timeline and think out loud together. The best way to play across a wide age range.
Everyone answers
Anyone may call the artist and title, not just the active player. First correct answer takes the token. Loud and fast.
No skipping
Drop the one-token skip. Tokens are then only good for buying and challenging, which makes them worth more.
One deck, one theme
A single decade or a single genre. Much harder, because the songs sit close together.
With two players
No rule changes needed — you take turns being each other’s DJ, and challenging still works because there is always exactly one opponent to bet against. Two suggestions for a duel: play to 12 or 15 cards so it does not end in ten minutes, and switch on the exact year rule if you both know your music. If you would rather it not feel like a quiz, play it cooperatively: one shared timeline, and see how close to twenty you get.
Using cards from the original game
The rules above are the rules of the boxed timeline game, so cards from either source play together. Shuffle a Rewindy pack into a deck you already own and you have an expansion — your wedding songs, one decade, one artist, or three hundred tracks nobody at the table has ever heard.
Cards from the original game carry their publisher’s own QR codes, which point at that publisher’s own service. Scanning those needs their app, not this one — Rewindy’s scanner reads Rewindy cards.
Tips for guessing
- Production gives the decade away. Drum machines and synth pads put a song after 1980 whatever it sounds like otherwise.
- Voices age. Most artists have a recognisable period, and the same singer at 20 and at 45 is not the same instrument.
- Genres have a heyday. Disco in the 70s, grunge in the early 90s, EDM in the 2010s.
- Listen to the recording, not the song. Tape hiss, narrow stereo and a soft top end all say "older" — but careful, a remaster can hide every one of them.