Create your own game

Send us your Timeline

If you created a Timeline and want us to add it to the website let us know using this form.

How to create a timeline

All you need to create a custom timeline game is to create a Google Sheet with the the events of the game. No need to creating an account or learning a new interface just follow the instructions below.

The Google Sheet must have two sheets:

1. The first one must be named info and it must contain the information about the game such as title, poster image description and so on
2. The second one must be named events and it must contain the information of the possible events of the game

The sheet named info must have to columns: name and value. The values on the name column can be:

• title
• image
• description

The sheet named events must have one row per event and must have the following required columns:

• date
• title
• image
• action

Additionally, you can add the following optional columns: help, back and link.

Examples

The best way to learn how to create a timeline is to look at an example.

This Google Sheet can be used as a starting point and generates this Timeline.

Other examples:

• United States History that produces this Timeline.

Make Google Sheet public for View

After you created the events of the game you need to make that sheet public and use the form on the top of this page to create your timeline.

Advanced options

Languages

Columns that display text infosupport multiple languages and will change automatically based on the language the player selects.

To extend that info you need to add two columns instead of one. For the title to be in English and Spanish you need to replace the title column for: title.en and title.es with the corresponding values for each language.

It’s not necessary that all columns have the same languages. Just as many as you want and leave the other columns with their default version that will be used regardless of the language.

This Google Sheet contains all the columns that support languages and generates this Timeline.

Value-based Sorting

By default, games sort events chronologically. If you want to create a game that sorts by a different value (e.g., population, number of goals, points), you can do so by following these two steps:

1. Use the date column: Enter your numerical sorting value in the date column of the events sheet. The game logic will automatically sort based on this value in ascending order.
2. Add custom instructions: In the info sheet, add a new row with the name instructions (or instructions.en, instructions.es for multiple languages). The value should be a clear instruction for the player, explaining both what to sort by and the direction. For example: Sort the players by the number of goals scored. Left corresponds to the fewest goals, and right corresponds to the most goals.