Such a long time loop almost seems scarier to me than a short one! Imagine locking a rural farm in a 10-year loop — horrifying! They could go for decades without even realizing. Good adventure hook, then! The actual features are cool, although I'm not really sure how playable or impactful Déjà Vu is at a real table. The whole item generally seems like more downside than upside, but the flavor is good.
Play project
The Chronoscope's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #18 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
| Creativity | #23 | 3.909 | 3.909 |
| Overall | #30 | 3.284 | 3.284 |
| Enjoyment | #39 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Usability | #45 | 2.682 | 2.682 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Very clean page design and layout (not that it’s being judged - I just appreciate it).
I’m curious to how the Déjà Vu ability would be used at the table. A year in-game is a rather long period of time (at least at my tables), and I could see the act of replaying through the previous year’s adventures perhaps a bit tedious, should the players befall the device’s consequences (even if the gameplay is easier due to level-ups and skill-gains). Having a sidebar on ways to introduce this complication to players would be greatly appreciated, as well as advice for re-running scenarios (and keeping them fresh), perhaps breaking out of the loop in other ways, and/or returning to the “save state” before the recursion. This feels like a fun mechanic for a one-shot — but for serialized campaign play or West Marches-style games, it feels like an administrative/directorial headache.
Overall, I do like the item; and the expansion for artifacts.
I like how Draw Steel artifacts are inherently story items, and this is a great example of that.

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