Online music timeline game — a free card game alternative
Needle Drop is a free online alternative to the Hitster card game. A song plays, everyone tries to guess the year, and the player whose turn it is places it on their timeline. Get it right and you can keep going — but one wrong guess wipes out everything you won this turn.
What is Hitster?
Hitster is a popular music timeline game where players listen to a song and place it in the right spot on a timeline. Needle Drop brings the same idea to any screen: one host, several phones, and a shared party game.
How a turn works
- A mystery song starts playing on the host screen.
- The active player picks the gap in their timeline where the year belongs.
- Correct? They can risk another card or bank the cards they won this turn.
- Wrong? Every card won this turn is lost and the turn passes to the next player.
Three difficulty modes
- Year only — just place the song on the timeline.
- Year + artist — name the artist too. Minor spelling mistakes are allowed.
- Year + artist + title — all three must be correct to keep the card.
Two ways to play: Timeline and Buzzer
Timeline is the classic guess-the-year game. Buzzer mode turns the same song library into a race: everyone gets a BUZZ button, the first buzz stops the music, and that player answers artist (+1), then song title (+1), then the year (+2 exact, +1 within a year). Bank the points at any time or push your luck — a miss hands a steal chance to everyone else.
Why play Needle Drop instead of Hitster?
- No cards to buy or carry — just a link.
- Everyone uses their own phone as a controller.
- Play for free with a fixed 40-song set, or unlock the whole library for unlimited games.
Needle Drop is an independent game. Hitster is a trademark of its respective owner, which is named here only to describe how the two games compare. Needle Drop is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by them.