Dice Upon a Time

Today's review is of the 2019 release, Dice Upon a Time.  For 2-5 players, it takes 45-60 minutes.

Overview
It's a "Grimm" world out there, and everyone is questing!  To start, each player chooses a fairy tale character familiar to most of us (Rapunzel, Snow White, Puss in Boots, etc.), takes 5 dice of the same color, and draws two quest cards and one magic item card.  All players roll their dice and set them aside; starting with the first player and moving clockwise, each player:
- activates a die (places on a map location)
- moves their character (if possible)
- resolves anything that happened while moving (like drawing story cards, magic item cards, or obtaining items like bread, apples, or gold)
- completes a quest (if possible)

game contents; image from here

A chapter is done when all players are out of dice.  Then, dice are gathered and rolled anew, leading to a new chapter.  After six chapters, the highest score wins!

A few notes:
- A player can move their character only if their die activated the location between where the character is and where they want to go.  But watch out!  The die must be of value equal or greater than the current die on that path, and once a third die is placed, no more characters can use that path until the next chapter!
- Quest cards come in values of 2-4, and as you'd expect, the higher the number, the harder it is to complete.  You can have up to 4 active quests at a time, and remember- you have only 6 chapters to complete them!  Quests are graphically described, and often simple, like:
-- visit a location
-- deliver an item (or items) to a location
-- visit one location, pick up an item, deliver to another location
-- discard items of a certain type and quantity

Review
I like this game, and the kids did, too.  I picked it up at Essen, and it appears to be a kickstarter that's not officially out until 2020.  The concept is simple and mechanics fun.  The rulebook isn't perfect- it omits some things that required web searches to determine- but the gist is there.  The components are good quality and there's lots of variety for replayability.  I like that there are things you can do with your dice when you can't activate a path- you can put it on one of the board corners to give you other bonuses.  That's handy when you don't roll well.  All in all, this is a winner.

Rating: A