Timelines: Slot Overview

Reality can genuinely outdo made-up stories. Back in 1971, physicist Joseph Hafele and astronomer Richard Keating ran a fairly straightforward test tied to relativity. They flew a set of atomic clocks around the globe and then compared them with clocks that stayed on the ground. Remarkably, the airborne clocks showed a different time than the ground-based ones, backing up Einstein’s time dilation idea: time passes faster the farther you are from the earth’s surface, where gravity is weaker. In other words, someone living on the top floor of an apartment block technically ages faster than someone closer to street level.

These differences are tiny, though, so there’s no need to panic about turning into Gandalf while your downstairs neighbour keeps Frodo’s youthful glow. Let’s park relativity for now and focus on something less brain-twisting: an online slot from Northernlights Gaming called Timelines. It combines a time-repeat mechanic with a 9 Masks of Fire style scatter prize system. Timelines plays out on a 5×3 game grid, and after each spin ends, the reels are “snapshotted” and saved above the main grid—5 previous spins sit there, which can make the display feel pretty busy. Behind the reels is a hazy, time-travel wormhole-style backdrop that fits the concept, but overall the visuals don’t quite gel and come across a bit budget.

From a stats perspective, Timelines is a medium volatile slot with 243 ways to win and a hit frequency of around one win every three spins. It offers four RTP configurations depending on jurisdiction, with a top return of 96.17% and a minimum of 86.81%. Betting ranges from 10 p/c to $/€25 per spin, and you can take this time-hopping trip on any device.

There are eight standard pay symbols in total: four low-paying gems and four higher-paying, futuristic-style items. A five of a kind pays 0.5-1x the bet with low symbols and 2-10x the bet with the high pays. Timelines includes no wilds, but it does feature multiplier symbols that apply to ways wins and stack together when multiple multipliers land at once.

Timelines: Slot Features

The standout idea here is the Timelines Bonus, so it makes sense to begin with that. As noted earlier, there are five mini reels saved above the main grid, and whenever a clock-face Timeline Symbol appears, it transfers up to 15 symbols from those stored mini reels onto the main reels. The imported symbols can be regular pay icons or Epic Strike symbols, though it’s important to note that a win isn’t guaranteed. Switching your stake stores mini reels separately for each bet level.

Epic Strike

Hitting at least 3 Diamond symbols triggers a reward from the Epic Strike feature. Specifically, if 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 Diamonds are visible, the payout is 1x, 3x, 10x, 30x, 80x, 200x, 1,000x, or 4,000x the bet, respectively.

Free Spins

Landing 3 Wormhole Symbols awards 10 free spins. During free spins, Timeline and Multiplier symbols are increased on the reels.

Timelines: Slot Verdict

When Timelines arrived, it felt like slot developers were on a small kick of revisiting what came before. Not long ahead of it, 4ThePlayer took a swing with 10X Rewind, and Hacksaw Gaming did the same with their heavy-going Itero. Each title brings its own angle, but they’re all rooted in humanity’s pull toward the past. Timelines’ habit of preserving earlier spins even got us thinking about why certain memories stick while others disappear, how they influence who we are now, and which moments drift off and never return. Unless, of course, you’re someone with highly superior autobiographical memory, or HASM, able to recall huge stretches of life with striking clarity. That kind of recall could be a gift—though it might also be a burden if you’re forced to replay awkward moments on repeat.

Timelines itself can feel a bit awkward—tacky, even—and, to be fair, that’s not unheard of in some Northernlights releases. The studio often seems happy to mash elements together and move on instead of polishing every last detail. The end result here is a noisy mix of gems, clocks, a smeared background, and grids that look a little flimsy. Still, looks aren’t everything, so it’s worth shifting attention to how it plays.

On the gameplay front, it’s easier to cut it some slack. Although Timelines sits in the 9 Masks of Fire tradition—which the Microgaming family of studios appears endlessly fond of—Northernlights has attempted to put a fresh spin on the formula. They do that in two key ways. First, the inclusion of multipliers helps support a top win of 9,500x the bet; second, there’s the distinctive Timelines Bonus mechanic. Some will point out that if Timeline symbols are effectively pulling random icons from the last five spins, they might as well be pulling random symbols from anywhere, which slightly undermines the game’s supposed USP.

Even if that sceptical take has some merit, Northernlights has at least tried to offer something different for players who enjoy scatter symbol prize-style slots. The presentation may feel a bit off, but if you can get past the visuals, Timelines could still deliver a few enjoyable moments in a 9 Masks of Fire with a twist sort of way.