Destinies

Ordinarily I would have passed without a second thought: 15 mm miniatures that mostly earn their keep by keeping the table footprint small, plus a companion app that the game cannot run without. Yet Destinies earns its place because, with two players, it delivers on its promise without demanding that you build a small construction site before the adventure begins.

There are five scenarios, one standalone and four linked into a campaign, and you choose from a generous roster of characters. Then you enter a sandbox world with the feel of a simple old CRPG and try to fulfil your destiny before your opponent does. Each round, you travel somewhere, the app presents choices, you roll dice, enter your successes, and move on. Clean. Fast. The QR codes keep exploration moving.

Most of the interaction is in the race. You are not constantly punching each other in the face, but you watch the other player gather clues and know they may be heading for the same ending. The dice-and-successes system is the clever bit, so clean that I would happily use it in a full RPG. The app has its rough edges, and its scripting engine does not always seem equipped for many conditionals, so stories can become linear or fail to join up quite convincingly. No need to grade the rulebook here: the app has taken that job, for better and worse.

Once the roughly 10–12 hour campaign is done, there is little reason to return, and repetition shows itself before the game can become a habit. But for those few sessions, this is a fresh and comfortable proposition, far less fussy to set up than Fallout and without its deliberate abstraction. Destinies will not convert anyone who hates apps; it is, however, a very good two-player adventure when you want to get going quickly and beat your friend to their destiny.