Disney heroes crystalize to save the Realm from the Vortex of Chaos in Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition) game. With a board that changes every game and four heroines to choose from (so far – hoping for expansion packs!), Chronicles of Light is an intense, collaborative game for ages 8 and up and each game takes about an hour.
What’s in the box?
There are a LOT of pieces to this game. There are four characters: Belle, Maid Marian, Moana, and Violet. Hopefully, Ravensburger will introduce new characters in expansion packs (Snow White and Vanellope, please!). Each character has: a token for the board; a health token; 2 dice (yes, that’s 2 per characters); 5 action tokens; 6 shadow tokens; 2 Darkness cards; a set of quest tokens (the number varies per character); 2 Realm of Light tiles; a Hero card; 4 Quest cards; and a player board. There are also 2 game tokens (the Leader Badge and the Vortex Token); 2 additional Darkness cards (Crystal Castle and Starlight Lake); a Shadow token bag; an action board and health token for the team; and 2 additional Realm of Light tiles (Crystal Castle and Starlight Lake).
TOP TIP: Keep all the pieces for each character in a separate quart-sized Ziploc bag, so it’s easier to set up the game each time you play.
How to play Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition)
Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition) is a world-building board game and that world changes every time you play. As noted above, there are a lot of pieces to manage for Chronicles of Light. Set up is fairly simple, if you follow my tip above and keep each hero’s pieces separate. Otherwise, you’ll have to separate everything out at the beginning of each game.
TOP TIP: If you haven’t separated the pieces beforehand, the back of each Hero’s Player Board shows the pieces that belong to that Hero.
Each player then sets their own game space by placing their Player Board in front of them and putting their Hero Health token on the 3 (the top of the health line). Place the four unlocked Action tokens face-up on their spaces on the board and the locked Action token lock-side up in the center. Each player chooses a Quest card at random and follows the set-up instructions on the card for their quest.
Shuffle the Realm of Light tiles for each of the characters who are playing and the Crystal Castle tile and place them on the board one by one, making sure to match land to land and water to water. That’s the only requirement. You can place the tiles in any order or shape as long as land touches land and water touches water. The board will change every time you play! Each player places their Hero token on the Crystal Castle tile.
The Shadow tokens for each player are put in the Shadow Token bag, then removed one by one and placed on the shadow face spots on the tiles.
Set the Action Board on the table and then Team Health token on the heart with the number of players on it. Add the Crystal Castle Darkness Card to the Darkness Cards for the players in the game (add the Starlight Lake Darkness Card if there are only two players). Shuffle the cards and draw the correct number of cards for the number of players (see the instructions). Put the rest of the cards back in the box with the rest of the unused players and tokens.
Now, go save the Realm!
How to Win Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition)
The player who last watched a Disney movie is supposed to go first. (If your family watches movies together, the person who picked that Disney movie can go first.) The leader changes each round, so everyone will have a chance to lead. We are Disney heroes, remember? We share. This is a collaborative game, so you start by sharing your quests and actions. Your goal is to win together. That said, if there are multiple ideas for how to progress, the leader of the round makes the final decision.
To begin the game flip the top Darkness Card and follow the instructions. Place the Vortex token (6 side up) and the rest of the Shadow tokens on the board.
TOP TIP: For beginners, put the Crystal Castle tile in the middle of your board, building around it as you add tiles; choose the easiest quests (also do this if you want a quick game); add an extra Darkness card to the deck (or make the game harder by removing a Darkness Card).
Play continues with heroes completing the quests on their quest cards (in numerical order). All players work together to complete the quests. There may be a need to battle a shadow. You must defeat the shadows to pick up Quest tokens or move off of a Shadow token’s space. This is where the dice come in. All players in the Shadow token’s space roll their die. The goal is to beat the Shadow’s strength number. If your first rolls are too low, each player can opt to reroll once per battle. Be careful with how you choose to reroll so you don’t lose a higher number for a lower one or, worse, roll damage. If you defeat the Shadow, you get to turn over the Shadow token to reveal the Light. If a player’s final roll is damage, they have to record that damage by moving their health token down one spot per damage. If they hit zero, they have to move the Team’s health token down one.
Rounds are counted as days in Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition) and each day ends when 6 action tokens have been played or they just decide they don’t want to do any more actions. The game board is then reset for a different day by removing all action tokens, turning over a new Darkness card, and passing the Leader badge to the next leader (clockwise, generally, unless your family has its own way of sequencing turns).
Darkness Cards tell you how many rounds you have to complete your Quests, defeat the Shadows, and destroy the Vortex. If you can’t draw a new Darkness card, you’ve lost the game.
Destroy the Vortex! The Darkness card tells you how to move and defeat the Vortex. The Vortex moves around the board according to where the card says it should be placed and it spawns Shadows, too. The Darkness cards tell you how many. If you run out of Shadow cards, you must gather light cards from the board and add them to the Shadow token bag to be used again. Individual Heroes can weaken the Vortex in battles, but the Vortex can only be defeated by all of the Heroes together.
The Heroes Win! The Heroes win if they complete all of their Quests, defeat all of the Shadows on the board, and destroy the Vortex.
The Heroes Lose! The Heroes lose if they can’t play a new Darkness card at the beginning of a new day or the Team Health token hits zero.
Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition) is a challenging game, but easy to play in the sense that the instructions are really on all of the tokens and boards. Ravensburger’s Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls (Disney Edition) is for 1-4 players and is recommended for players 8 and up. Yes, there is a single player version. You set the board up for 2 players and play both Heroes. Because it’s collaborative, you could include younger players as team members. It would be a fun date night game, too.
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