How to play Destinies & Review (Spoiler Free)

Destinies is a story-driven, adventure game.

Title: Destinies

Year Published: 2021

Designer: Michał Gołębiowski, Filip Miłuński

Publisher: Lucky Duck Games

Players: 1-3 (4 player team game with expansion)

Game Time: ~150 minutes

Set-up Time: 1 minute + app-related scenario set up (around 5 mins total)

Ages: 14+

Theme: Fantasy

Mechanisms: App Required, Dice Rolling, Storytelling, Tile Placement

How to win: Complete your Destiny by fulfilling all of the secret requirements on the back of your character card and then complete your finale first.

Game Description

Destinies is a competitive, story-driven, game of adventure and exploration, mixing an app and a board game.

The first in a series of games using a brand-new system called Destinies. This game is set in a dark medieval fantasy universe.

How to play Destinies

This is a spoiler-free how to play video for Destinies showing you everything you need to know to play the game. All examples used are from the rulebook, no story elements or in-game content is shown.

Theme

The base game is medieval fantasy and set somewhat in a near reality. What I mean is, it’s fantasy but not completely unbelievable. It’s believable adjacent.

Setup & Rulebook

The best thing about adventure games with apps is that it reminds you of how to set the game up. There are not many steps in this case but the few there are you don’t need to remember A bonus for me!

The rulebook is short and sweet and explains everything very clearly. I felt very prepared for my first game and I think I only had to check 1 or 2 small rules in the book while playing.

Components & Artwork

The components are really good. The minis are nice if not tiny which makes finding the one you need annoyingly awkward.

The artwork is really nice too, especially on the map tiles where there is plenty of detail. The app is really good and does a good job of managing the game.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

It’s obviously very easy to teach. There are very few rules and the app handles the rest. The only hidden information is the players 2 destinies and they explain themselves.

So anyone that is able to understand their destinies without needing another player to look at them will be able to play the game.

Destinies Summary

I backed this on Kickstarter purely because I like Chronicles of Crime and this had the app integration that made that game work well.

I can’t say too much because everything I want to talk about is a story spoiler so I think I’ll just bullet point the things I really like about this game:

• The components are great
• The level of app integration is a touch on the heavy side but I still love it
• The way the world expands and changes is something I never thought I’d see in a board game
• Items, conversations and skill checks feel thematic and allow you to play your character

For balance, the negatives

• Sadly limited replayability
• Awesome inserts! but it means condensing the games down into fewer boxes isn’t worth it (But I want to!)
• 3 players max isn’t ideal

Destinies Round-Up

An excellent adventure game with an amazing story and even though it’s marked down for the lack of replayability, it’s still very highly rated by me.

RatingI give it 9/10