One of my favourite games of the moment is T.I.M.E Stories. We played this at #GamesNight for the first time last year and we were all blown away by the creativity on display in this game. We played Asylum over the course of an evening and then about 6 months later we played The Marcy Case. We liked it enough but the Marcy Case felt a little more straight forward, a little more on tracks and a little less puzzley.
So fast forward again and we finally get the Prophecy of Dragons to the table. I’ve been kinda stoked for this one because I’m a big old school D&D fan, I grew up on First Edition and read almost everything for second and third. I held out less hope for my fellow time travellers whom I knew did not have the connection to the fantasy genre that I did.
And sure enough there was little to no engagement with the theme, but as it turned out the designers maybe didn’t connect with the theme as much as I had hoped either. The Prophecy of Dragons has turned out to be my least favourite of the first three cases.
Firstly it’s long, which is good if you like to get your money’s worth but I could feel gamers fatigue coming off my compatriots and even I was feeling it. We even stopped for dinner mid game because we were starving! Secondly this is really an adventure of two halves and the second half is nothing like the first. There is a thematic disconnect for a start and the investigatory style of go places, learn stuff, run out of time and repeat is completely gone. You punch and kick your way to a boss fight and if you run out of time, well then you’ve gotta slog your way back through it.
We completed our run of the second half of the game first time and I’m glad we did because I was not up for having to do it all over again. We managed it with 1 Time Unit remaining though so it was close.
I’m coming off negative about this experience and it’s not all bad. I loved playing the thief and stealing stuff. And I love that there were areas we didn’t explore and items we might have bought had we had the cash. I love the mini game with the fairies and a lot of the exploration stuff in the first part. I just wish that the second half of the game had been worth it.
The concept of doing a T.I.M.E Stories adventure where the first part is exploring town and gearing up for an adventure really intrigued me but the adventure itself felt a bit too much like “Flip a Card, pass or fail, Flip next card”. Ultimately I felt let down by the promise of this adventure but I’m looking forward to the next one.
