by Simone Luciani

By Simone Luciani and Roberto Pellei

Roberto: For several years, I had been trying to create my own board game. At the store where I worked, with the help of my customers and friends, I had tried several times to develop prototypes, but I never went beyond a few simple playtests. Something was always missing. It was as if I were waiting for that one original idea so compelling that it would push me to overcome the blocks created by my insecurities.

I kept thinking about the passage of time, reflecting on how games masterfully use this concept in their mechanisms. What would it be like to play cards from your hand using only this element? Simple time — marking the rhythm of turns with elegance and simplicity. I wasn't sure how to build the engine that would make this project possible.

Initially, I thought of using dice to manage different actions during a turn, both as timers for building cards on the board and as activators for attacks and various abilities. I created a first prototype in which three factions battled with spaceships to destroy each other's outposts and colonize the planets in the center of the table (as shared objectives), aiming to score the most victory points.

Then one afternoon, Simone came to the store, and I told him my idea of creating a game in the style of Race for the Galaxy, using time as the cost to play cards from hand. I remember he said he was planning to create something similar and invited me to develop the idea together.

Simone: I'm fascinated by the concept of time and probably even a little obsessed with the idea of recreating it in a board game. Games like Tzolk'in, Barrage, and even the lesser-known Polaris share this idea of something flowing — a stream that players must learn to manage, even though they don't fully control it.

A few years ago, I saw the well-known video game Clash Royale and was inspired by the idea of a game in which cards had a "time cost" that determined how long you had to wait for them to come into play.

I liked the idea of timed abilities, too, such as a giant who is strong but acts rarely versus a goblin who is weak but attacks frequently. That idea remained as a few notes and sketches, but never became compelling enough to push to the top of my list of projects.

Sometime in 2021, I came up with an idea that seemed interesting because it could recreate both dynamics in a simple way: a sliding board made up of a series of tiles where cards were played. Each turn, the tiles would shift, and one would move off the board. The outermost tile would have an icon indicating which abilities were triggered. In my mind, the idea was convincing, but in the world of ideas, everything always works perfectly.

Not long after writing this down, I met Roberto at the store where he worked, and during our chat, we realized we both had a similar vision: to create a card game driven by time. I proposed the sliding board concept, and he found it interesting, so instead of making two games heading in the same direction, we decided to join forces on a shared project.


Roberto: Encouraged by Simone's experience and support, I got to work seriously. At first, he proposed turning the game into an expandable format like Magic in which the goal was to reduce the opponent's life to zero through a series of attacks.

In the weeks that followed, the project began to take shape. The dice were immediately replaced by the sliding board with tiles. After a few attempts, we decided to return to the original idea that I had held so dear.

Simone: The first step was to play the game Roberto had already created, which was in a playable prototype state. Our initial meetings were focused on playing and discussing. The game worked and had a structure, but removing the dice and adding the sliding board and tile-triggered effects meant rewriting the game. Even with a working prototype, we found ourselves at a crossroads, with many possible directions.

The idea I had in mind was to create a two-player game — maybe an LCG — in which the goal was to "destroy" the opponent. There was also a point-based ending, but it was still a fairly aggressive confrontation.

After a series of discussions and evaluations, Roberto created a new prototype, and we tested the game again. The new version worked, and the sliding board gave a good feel.


Images of the space-themed two-player design
After spending a few months with this version, something still didn't feel quite right, so we decided to take a step back and move toward a multiplayer game with lower player interaction. However, we didn't want a game with very low interaction. Even though we were moving away from the idea of war, we still liked the idea of keeping an element of conflict between players, so we developed the concept of power sources over which players would compete, without being able to directly attack one another.

Roberto: A next step was changing the theme, with the space setting giving way to fantasy creatures and mysterious places. Then we added an additional card cost to play cards from hand.

Once the base structure was shaped, the prototype passed to Simone, who skillfully made changes and improvements that led Echoes of Time to its final form in the following months. One of the last additions was the fourth faction, with a neutral one to balance and increase the variety of combos.

An early fantasy-themed version of the game. Here the three activation icons were changed to numbers, but this was quickly abandoned.
The icons then returned as S, M, F in three colors
A version of the shrines
Simone: The new version seemed convincing, although I didn't really like the space theme. Race for the Galaxy already explored that very well, and telling stories about spaceships and planets in a card game seemed difficult.

I suggested switching to a fantasy setting with anthropomorphic animals, and the prototype was remade. We increased testing and received positive feedback, but something still didn't work. The time cost alone wasn't enough, card draw was too limited, and the choice of which cards to play wasn't always tense or meaningful. Sometimes they were even obvious.

I proposed adding a card cost. Even though this added a more classic mechanism and "dirtied" the original idea, it worked well. Now players drew more cards and had to discard some to pay for costs.

At this point, I began reworking the prototype to improve balance and combo variety. Some combos were streamlined, others added. We introduced the fourth faction, the two icons (military and mage), and the concept of neutral cards. More testing and months of balancing followed, but the game now felt truly compelling!

Early versions of the new prototype
A prototype close to the final version
Roberto: I want to thank Cranio Creations and Simone Luciani for making this project possible, and for allowing me to debut in this world. I hope you will join us in this new gaming experience, that you'll appreciate the effort and dedication behind it, and that you'll spend hours of fun using your time in the best way possible.

Simone: Even though I love complex Eurogames — and many of my most appreciated designs belong to that category — my heart has a special place for card games with high variety, card interactions, and ever-changing combos. As a great fan of this niche, I'm truly happy to have worked on a game that explores the genre in a unique way. It's a game I really enjoy playing!