Review: Echoes of Time

Introduction & Overview

In an uncharted fantasy realm, four factions govern the fundamental domains of the world: the abyssal depths of the dark waters; the rolling hills, windswept and sheltered by ancient forests; the endless, boundless night skies; and the subterranean tunnels, shrouded in shadows and untold secrets. A primal energy flows quietly through these lands, gathering in hidden fonts of boundless power. Whoever manages to master them will be capable of bending the most relentless force of all, time, and the cadence it dictates upon nature, existence… and life itself. Gather the wisest, bravest, and most prepared fellowship, equip yourself with the right artifacts, and get ready to fight for control over the sources of power. Only those who can manipulate the flow of time will stay one step ahead of their rivals.

This is the premise behind Echoes of Time, designed by Simone Luciani (Grand Austria Hotel, Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar) and Roberto Pellei (Pigeon Explosion). First published in 2025 by Cranio Creations in an English edition, the artwork is handled by Giovanni Calore in his debut work within the board game industry.

Published in Spain by Tranjis Games (the game itself is language-independent, aside from the rulebook), it accommodates 2 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 12 and an approximate playing time of 30 to 60 minutes. The MSRP is €39.95. For this review, we used a review copy of the Spanish edition kindly provided by the publisher.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a standard two-piece cardboard box measuring 29.7 × 29.7 × 6.1 cm (a square box similar to Ticket to Ride, though slightly shallower), we find the following components:

• 4 Time Boards
• 24 Time Tiles
• 105 Fellowship Cards (59 × 92 mm)
• 6 Source of Power Cards (80 × 120 mm)
• 8 Action Cubes (wooden, 2 in each player color)
• 16 Activation Tokens (cardboard)
• 40 Victory Point Tokens (cardboard)
  • 32 of Value 1
  • 8 of Value 5
• First Player Token (cardboard)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Echoes of Time is set in a fantasy realm where four factions clash to control ancient energy sources and manipulate the flow of time to outmaneuver their rivals. The core mechanism revolves around a personal player board with time tiles that shift at the start of each round, reflecting the time needed for cards played from hand to trigger and ultimately join a player’s fellowship. During the action phase, players alternate turns placing cubes to execute two main actions, which include drawing cards, playing new characters or artifacts by paying discard costs and time requirements, advancing cards on the track to summon them faster, or conquering and fortifying sources of power using the strength of their creatures. In addition, players can take free actions to trigger “flame” effects on previously summoned cards or bolster their hold on conquered sources to defend them against rivals. The game ends when the victory point supply runs out, a player assembles 12 cards in their fellowship, or all available sources are fortified. The winner is the player who amasses the most victory points by totaling their earned tokens, the value of their controlled sources, and the points granted by summoned cards.

Key Concepts

Let us start with the Time Board and its Tiles. Each participant receives an individual player board featuring five chronologically numbered spaces (from 5 down to 1) along with a set of six landscape tiles designed to fit inside it. The fundamental engine of the game is based on constant motion. At the start of every round, the tile left outside is pushed in from the left edge, shifting all the others to the right and pushing the tile sitting on space 1 off the board. This physical movement represents the relentless passage of time and allows cards placed on those tiles to be “summoned” as they slide off, officially entering the player’s Fellowship.

The core engine of the game is driven by the Fellowship Cards. These are split into Creatures and Artifacts. Creatures belong to one of four world factions (Water, Sky, Forest, or Earth) or can be Neutral, while also occasionally specializing in War or Magic. Every card features a dual cost: a specific number of cards discarded from your hand, and a designated time track position where it must initially be placed. While sitting on the track, they remain pending projects; once summoned, they trigger their effects (whether immediate or ongoing). Each card also yields victory points calculated at the end of the game. A player reaching twelve cards in their fellowship serves as one of the game-ending triggers.

Alongside these, we find the Source of Power Cards. These represent nodes of primal power contested by the factions. Unlike regular cards, sources are conquered using the collective strength of creatures already established in our Fellowship (cards that become tucked beneath the source, losing their text effects while keeping their icons active). Once under our control, they offer substantial bonuses and a hefty sum of victory points, though rivals can seize them unless we spend an action to fortify them (which usually requires assigning additional creatures to defend the site). Having every source of power card fortified is another possible game-ending trigger.

Each round provides players with two action turns. During each of these, they assign an Action Cube to designate their chosen action. These are placed on the action spaces of the Time Board to resolve one of the four main actions. Since every main action provides two corresponding slots on the board, players can double down on the same move during the same round if necessary, before the cubes are retrieved at round’s end.

Managing temporal triggers is handled with Activation Tokens. These small markers serve to track when we have triggered the “Flame effect” on a Fellowship card or Source of Power. Crucially, these abilities can only be activated if the card’s flame color (blue, yellow, or red) matches the icon on the time tile currently sitting off the board. Placing an activation token onto a card exhausts its effect until the end of the round, at which point all tokens are collected and returned to the supply to allow fresh combos on the next turn.

Lastly, we have the Victory Point Tokens. These accumulate in your player area as various card abilities are triggered throughout the game. Beyond measuring success, these tokens act as the game’s clock, since exhausting their central supply (which scales based on player count) is the third endgame trigger.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Prepare a general supply of Victory Point tokens with 12 points per player (24, 36, or 48 points for 2, 3, or 4 players). Set the remaining tokens aside to form a secondary reserve.
2. Randomly select a number of Source of Power cards equal to the player count and place them face up in the center of the table. Return any unused Source of Power cards to the box.
3. Shuffle the Fellowship card deck and place it face down in the center of the play area.
4. Create a shared pool of Activation tokens within reach of all players.
5. Each player chooses a color and receives:
   • A Time board, placed in front of them.
   • A set of 6 Time tiles (place 5 on the Time board according to the diagram in the rulebook, keeping the remaining tile beside the board).
   • 2 Action cubes.
6. Draw 7 Fellowship cards from the deck to form your starting hand.
7. Randomly choose a starting player and hand them the First Player token.
8. Beginning with the start player and proceeding clockwise, each player must place one card from their hand onto their timeline, discarding the required cards for its cost and slotting it onto the matching time tile.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Echoes of Time is played over an indeterminate number of rounds. Each round consists of three phases.

Phase I: Time

All players resolve this phase simultaneously:

1. Shifting Time Tiles: Take the Time tile currently off your board and slide it in from the left edge. This pushes all tiles one space to the right, causing a new tile to slide off the far right edge.
2. Summoning: If shifting the tiles causes any card to slide off the board, it is summoned directly into your Fellowship. At this point, resolve any immediate effects (lightning bolt icon), while its ongoing abilities become available.
3. Drawing: Finally, each player draws one card from the deck into their hand.

Phase II: Actions

This phase consists of two action turns per player. Starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player resolves one action turn at a time. On their turn, the active player must perform one main action by placing an action cube on an empty slot of their personal board. They may also trigger any number of free actions, either before or after their main action.

Once the main action and any free actions are resolved, play passes to the player on the left. The phase ends once all players have completed both of their action turns.

The main actions are:

• Draw 2 Cards: Draw two Fellowship cards from the deck into your hand.
• Play 1 Card: Place a card from your hand onto your board. To do this, discard the required number of cards shown on its cost and place the card onto the time tile matching its printed value. If a card features a time cost of 0, it is summoned directly into your Fellowship. No more than two cards can occupy a single time tile. If a card would be placed on a tile that is already full, place it on the next available tile of higher time value instead.
• Advance 2 Cards: Shift two cards on your board one space to the right, or advance a single card two spaces to the right. Moving a card past space 1 summons it immediately.
• Conquer/Fortify a Source of Power:
  • Conquer: Use Creatures from your Fellowship to claim a Source of Power (either from the center or stolen from an opponent). The combined strength of your chosen Creatures must exceed the defense value of the Source (or the combined defense of the group protecting it if controlled by a rival). If successful, add the Source to your Fellowship and tuck the attacking Creatures underneath it; they lose their text abilities but retain their active icons for future synergies.
  • Fortify: Secure a Source you already hold. If the total strength of the Creatures tucked beneath the card matches or exceeds its fortification requirement, trigger its endgame reward and fully hide the Creatures. These defenders no longer provide abilities or icons, but the Source is permanently locked and cannot be stolen.

The available free actions are:

• Trigger the Flame effect on a card (provided it matches the color on the tile currently outside the board) by assigning an Activation token to it.
• Bolster control by shifting Creatures from your Fellowship beneath a Source of Power you currently hold.

Phase III: End of Round

If an endgame condition has not been met, proceed as follows:

• Players holding more than 10 cards must discard down to the hand limit.
• Retrieve action cubes and return all activation tokens from cards and Sources of Power back to the supply.
• Pass the first player token to the player on the left.

A new round then begins.

Game End

The game concludes at the end of the second phase of any round in which at least one of the following triggers occurs:

• The central pool of Victory Point tokens is exhausted. Any further points needed during that round are drawn from the secondary reserve.
• Fellowship complete: A player gathers 12 cards in their Fellowship. Sources of power count as 2 cards, while tucked Creatures do not count toward this limit.
• Total dominion: Every Source of Power in the game has been fortified.

Once the final round concludes, proceed to end-game scoring, where each player tallies:

• Points accumulated in tokens throughout the game.
• The victory point value shown on controlled Sources of Power (the left value if merely conquered, or the right value if fortified).
• Points printed on all cards in the Fellowship, including cards tucked beneath Sources of Power (cards still on the board do not count).
• Endgame bonus points granted by card scoring criteria.

The player with the highest score wins. In the event of a tie, the player who fortified the most sources of power breaks the tie; if still tied, victory is shared.

Variants

Lower Interaction: Remove all fellowship and source cards displaying the crossed swords icon to reduce direct conflict between players.

Personal Opinion

The world of engine-building card games is remarkably vast. Yet, when looking back at the pioneers that laid the groundwork for the genre, two essential titles come to mind: San Juan (read the tocho-review here) and Race for the Galaxy (read the tocho-review here).

These two designs share a deeply intertwined history born of a single initiative. Following the massive success of Puerto Rico (read the tocho-review here), Rio Grande Games publisher Jay Tummelson sought to release a card game adaptation of Andreas Seyfarth’s modern classic. Two competing prototypes emerged:

one crafted by Andreas Seyfarth himself, and a civilization-themed design by Thomas Lehmann that fit these shared mechanisms. During development, both designers collaborated closely. Indeed, several of Lehmann’s innovations, most notably using cards as currency, ended up embedded directly in Seyfarth’s final ruleset.

Their creative philosophies eventually pulled them in different directions. Seyfarth favored an elegant, streamlined adaptation faithful to Puerto Rico’s original spirit, whereas Lehmann pushed for greater complexity, deeper card synergies, and a richer strategic ceiling. Rio Grande chose to move forward with Seyfarth’s design under the title San Juan. Lehmann’s prototype was shelved for a time… until Rio Grande Games published it years later as Race for the Galaxy, which quickly grew into a genre benchmark while San Juan gradually settled into its shadow.

Even so, the tableau-building genre did not fully erupt into the mainstream until the runaway success of Terraforming Mars (read the tocho-review here). Earlier entries like Deus (read the tocho-review here) or Seasons (read the tocho-review here), which I personally hold in higher regard, never reached that scale of widespread recognition. On the back of that breakthrough, publishers embraced engine-building designs with far greater enthusiasm.

This brings us to today’s contender within the genre, co-designed by one of the premier names in modern development, Simone Luciani (alongside Roberto Pellei). Let us see how Echoes of Time fares on the table, not without first thanking Tranjis Games for the review copy that made this deep dive possible.

Echoes of Time challenges competitors to build a fellowship of creatures and artifacts hailing from various factions, competing to seize control over hidden power fonts across the realm and amass the highest renown.

Unsurprisingly, this is a tableau-building card game that borrows heavily from the classics mentioned earlier, as well as a few others I will touch upon shortly. The overarching goal is to pile up victory points before the endgame trigger is tripped. This relies on several factors, most notably exhausting a shared victory point supply tied to the player count—a mechanism lifted straight from Race for the Galaxy.

Similarly identical is the condition of placing twelve cards into your fellowship tableau, injecting a pronounced race dynamic where players rush to deploy cards as swiftly as possible, making card play the cornerstone of their available action turns.

Unlike most card games, however, cards are not brought straight into play; instead, they are queued onto a time track, giving every card a dual cost. On the one hand, you must pay the immediate cost by discarding other cards from your hand (again, matching Race for the Galaxy). On the other hand, the card must be placed onto a specific time space.

Because these time tiles generally advance at the start of each round (barring effects that accelerate track movement), the initial position represents the exact number of rounds required before the card enters play and triggers its abilities.

This concept is not entirely unprecedented either, as we already encountered a similar timeline mechanism in Ancient Knowledge (read the tocho-review here), complete with the two-card cap per space. The key difference here is our ability to directly manipulate card positions along the track (in addition to moving time tiles), either via card abilities or by spending action turns on specific board spaces.

Cards fall into two primary categories. Creatures bring strength values alongside their icons and special effects. Artifacts, meanwhile, provide potent synergies but carry no combat strength. That strength value is vital for contesting the coveted sources of power.

These sources are set out at the start of the game and function as supercharged fellowship cards offering larger point yields and superior effects. Claiming one requires assembling a creature squad whose total strength surpasses the source’s defense value. If unclaimed, this threshold is printed on the card itself; if controlled by an opponent, you must beat the combined defense of the group protecting it.

Furthermore, these power sources serve as the third endgame trigger and, in my experience, the one that reliably ends the game first. Emptying the victory point supply is a slow burn, and deploying twelve cards into your tableau is equally demanding.

Once again, this is a mechanism that echoes earlier designs, such as Res Arcana (read the tocho-review here), another gem from Thomas Lehmann. The twist here is that while places of power in Res Arcana remain locked to their conqueror permanently, players here must spend a follow-up action to fortify their prize, often requiring free actions to assign extra creatures to the defensive line.

Those free actions represent the final mechanism I want to highlight, and arguably the design’s most original spark. Many card abilities—both on fellowship cards and sources—feature a colored flame icon in one of three shades. Identical icons appear on the time tiles, meaning the tile sitting outside the board dictates which flame abilities can be fired during that turn.

This dynamic is easily the most engaging aspect of the game, setting it apart by forcing players into tight, methodical planning to sequence actions effectively. For instance, triggering a card that advances the timeline shifts the external tile, immediately unlocking a different set of flame abilities. Calculating when a card will resolve and tracking how frequently its flame effect can be triggered becomes paramount.

With that context laid out, we can dig into overall gameplay impressions. Echoes of Time ultimately comes across as a solid design that gets the job done, but it borrows so heavily from established staples that it often produces an unmistakable sense of déjà vu.

Certain elements, to be fair, are executed far better here than in previous attempts—most notably the time track. The temporal puzzle is genuinely compelling because card effects are rich and diverse (each faction focuses on distinct thematic perks), whereas Ancient Knowledge felt flatter and its timeline management proved less engaging than anticipated.

Another striking quality is the game’s level of direct interaction. Unlike most engine builders, several card effects allow players to strike at opponents directly. These attacks can be devastating. Rather than losing a nominal resource as in Terraforming Mars, you can lose cards from your active tableau or hand, which directly robs you of tempo and actions. Players sensitive to direct take-that might find this frustrating. Personally, I don’t mind it, and it gives the design a distinct, sharper edge.

What falls short for me? The round structure tops the list. Card-driven engine builders thrive on a continuous, flowing cadence, and the experience would feel much cleaner if a player executed their two actions and their upkeep phase in a single sitting. In other words: when your turn arrives, you slide your tile, resolve summoned card effects, draw a card, execute your two actions, and check hand limit.

While the current setup arguably trims downtime slightly, it results in a stilted rhythm. During the opening time phase, if multiple players resolve triggers at once, everyone has to pause to manage interactive effects despite simultaneous play. A continuous turn structure might complicate contesting power sources, but as it stands, the flow feels messier than it needs to be.

The role of card draw luck also cannot be ignored. Much like other games of its ilk, you are subject to the whims of Lady Luck. Drawing cards that lack internal synergy leaves you with an uphill battle. At the end of the day, any group of creatures can snatch a source of power regardless of synergy, but anyone who manages to string together an engine of matching effects will pull ahead effortlessly.

Finally, the game length leaves me with mixed feelings, primarily because matches almost always conclude via fortified sources. On one hand, I appreciate a brisk, punchy playing time reminiscent of Race for the Galaxy (read the tocho-review here). On the other hand, the race for sources feels so overwhelmingly dominant that it steers the trajectory of the game, rendering proceedings slightly predictable.

As is common in the genre, the experience shines brightest at two players, cutting downtime to a minimum and eliminating the awkwardness of picking an opponent to target with nasty effects. The target is clear and balance holds firm. Adding more players inflates downtime, offering little in return beyond a few additional sources on the table.

Replayability holds up well thanks to a generous card pool. The small assortment of power sources feels slightly sparse, but the true meat of the game lies in the fellowship deck, which hides plenty of rewarding synergies across its various faction traits.

Component quality is more than respectable, featuring dual-layer boards with built-in channels to guide the sliding tiles cleanly. The cardboard punchboards offer great thickness and clean cuts, while the cards provide decent weight, a snappy core, and a smooth finish (sleeving is recommended to prevent wear). The wooden action cubes are standard fare, and the rulebook is clearly laid out.

Visually, my impressions are split. Giovanni Calore’s artwork is technically striking, but the tone feels overly grim and dark for a light card game. We are greeted by anthropomorphic creatures that look ready to rip your throat out at a moment’s notice. I would have welcomed a brighter, more vibrant palette. Still, on an artistic level, the execution remains high-caliber.

And let’s wrap this up. Echoes of Time is an engaging tableau builder where the designers skillfully combine mechanisms seen across classic titles. Its standout feature is using time as a secondary cost alongside card discards, creating an intricate puzzle elevated by sharp, cutthroat player interaction. However, the rigid round structure feels clunky, disrupting a flow that would benefit from continuous turns, while swingy card draw can heavily dictate engine efficiency. Nevertheless, the frantic race for power sources makes this an entertaining pick for players who enjoy direct conflict and tight scheduling. A title that, despite a few rhythmic hiccups and familiar design beats, delivers an aggressive and satisfying take on temporal planning. For all these reasons, I rate it a…