Designer: Michal Golebiowski (Jetpack Joyride, Spaghetti), Filip Milunski (CV, Magnum Sal, Warsaw: City of Ruins)

Artists: Karolina Jedrzejak, Magdalena Leszczynska

Publisher: Lucky Duck Games (Chronicles of Crime, The Grimm Forest, Tiny Towns, Vikings Gone Wild)

Genre/Mechanisms: dice rolling, exploration, miniatures, role-playing, storytelling, tile placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Time of Legends: Destinies is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total more than 11x the initial funding goal with 8 days left to go on the campaign!

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About:  Close cooperation between Lucky Duck Games, creator of the Destinies system, and Mythic Games, creators of the Time of Legends: Joan of Arc universe, have produced this competitive, story-driven adventure & exploration game featuring Scan&Play app-based gameplay; it’s the first in a series using this technology, and includes two campaigns and four standalone scenarios.

How It Works: Players take turns Moving and Visiting a Point of Interest. When Moving, players may move up to 2 tiles away from their current position, counting orthogonally (so no diagonal movement). If the tile has already been explored, the player moves their miniature to that tile and chooses one of the Points of Interest to visit on the tile. If the tile has not yet been explored, then the player flips the tile up, moves their miniature to the title, places Points of Interest on the tile, and places new tiles around it with their Fog of War side up. Then the player chooses one of the Points of Interest to visit on the tile. Visiting a Point of Interest involves using the game’s app and making narrative decisions. This may include an Interaction, Taking a Test, Scanning Items, and Trading.

Other game concepts mentioned in the rulebook include Experience, the Main Dice and Effort Dice, Virtue, and the scannable Item Cards. There are also plenty of Events in the game, which will usually refer the players back to the app. At some point, there will be an Epic Finale triggered (and a separate Finale will be triggered for each individual player), and regular turn structure will cease for the player in question. At that point, the player must use their prepared items and resources to progress through the end of their scenario finale.

Comparisons:  The game is very narrative-driven, and probably should draw some comparisons to the likes of Mansions of Madness with its app-driven gameplay. But the scope of the game has more in common with the likes of The 7th Continent and recent narrative board game Kickstarters like Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Etherfields, Sleeping Gods, and Trudvang Legends. Also, Time of Legends: Destinies is a rare entry in the competitive app-driven genre. That’s right, players aren’t working together, but competing against one another. And then there’s the fact that Destinies has been produced by a collaboration between Lucky Duck Games and Mythic Games. For their part, Mythic Games is in the middle of a Kickstarter for Legends of Destinies: Joan of Arc 1.5, which expands their own massive story-driven and miniatures game, set in a shared universe.

What Should I Pledge?:
$49 Knight Pledge: the core box plus the Myth and Folklore Expansion.
$79 King Pledge: the Knight Pledge pus the Sea of Sand Expansion.
$129 Legendary Pledge: the King Pledge, plus the Bound By Fate Expansion, 25 Medieval Metal Coins, 3 Neoprene Player Mats, and 1 Large Stitched Neoprene World Mat.

Add-Ons:
$20 4 Large Neoprene Player Mats
$20 1 Large Stitched Neoprene World Mat
$20 28 Medieval Coins
$20 Bound By Fate Expansion, a 2 vs. 2 mode that can be applied to the rest of the game

KS Exclusives:
All pledge levels included the Myth and Folklore Expansion. While this may be sold in the future, likely for an MSRP of $30, it will not be packaged in as a freebie with retail versions of the game. All of the Neoprene Mats, the Medieval Coins, and the entire Bound By Fate Expansion are KS-Exclusives that will likely never see retail.

All-In Total: This one really depends on how you want to use your copy of the game. If you don’t require the option for 2 vs. 2 play, and you have no use for the generic Neoprene World Mat, consider the King Pledge for $79. In the continental U.S., that pledge level plus an estimated $18 in shipping totals $97. If you want the Bound By Fate 2 vs. 2 play, plus all of the extra bells and whistles, then in the continental U.S you’re looking at $129 for the Legendary Pledge plus an estimated $24 in shipping for a total of $153.

Time of Legends: Destinies completes its Kickstarter on Wednesday, October 16th and tentatively ships in September 2020.