How to play the BioWare games timeline

Every card is a game or add-on from BioWare, the studio behind several of the best-known Western RPGs. A short line under each title describes the game: its setting, its hero, or what the expansion adds. Your job is to put them in order of release year. One card begins on the timeline with its year visible. For the rest, pick a gap each time. Answer correctly and the year sticks beside the title; answer wrongly and the game puts the card in its true place anyway and knocks you down a life, from a starting three.

The catalog mixes licensed tabletop fantasy, licensed space opera and the studio's own sci-fi and fantasy series, plus a few odd side projects. Within a series the order is easy enough, so the real question is how the series interleave, because they were often released close together. Add-ons usually followed their game quickly, though not always. The handheld, mobile and social spin-offs are the easiest to misplace, and remasters land well after the games they collect.

Want a longer game? On the deck tree you can tick this deck alongside any other one measured in release years and dates, and they shuffle into a single timeline together.

What's in the deck

Here are 28 of the 34 cards you might be dealt, with 6 more in the deck. Their values stay hidden until you place them.

Shattered Steel Mech combat game for MS-DOS
Baldur's Gate Forgotten Realms RPG on the Infinity Engine
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast Expansion with Durlag's Tower
MDK2 Action game starring Kurt Hectic
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Jon Irenicus and the city of Athkatla
Neverwinter Nights D&D RPG with the Aurora toolset
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide Expansion made with Floodgate Entertainment
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark Expansion beneath Waterdeep
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Star Wars RPG for Xbox and PC, Revan's story
Jade Empire Martial arts RPG in a mythic China
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood Nintendo DS RPG starring Sega's hedgehog
Mass Effect Galaxy iOS spin-off with Jacob Taylor
Dragon Age: Origins Grey Wardens fight the Blight in Ferelden
Dragon Age: Origins, Awakening Expansion: the Warden-Commander at Vigil's Keep
Lair of the Shadow Broker Mass Effect add-on with Liara T'Soni
Dragon Age II Hawke's rise in Kirkwall
Dragon Age Legends Facebook browser game
Star Wars: The Old Republic Star Wars MMORPG
Mass Effect 3 Shepard leads the war against the Reapers
Rise of the Hutt Cartel Old Republic expansion on the planet Makeb
Citadel Mass Effect add-on: shore leave and a heist
Shadow of Revan Old Republic expansion
Dragon Age: Inquisition The Inquisitor seals the Breach
Knights of the Fallen Empire Old Republic expansion: the Eternal Empire of Zakuul
Knights of the Eternal Throne Old Republic expansion
Mass Effect: Andromeda Pathfinder Ryder explores the Heleus Cluster
Anthem Online looter shooter with javelin exosuits
Mass Effect Legendary Edition Remastered Shepard trilogy