Cozy vibes, two players, and plenty of crafting define this beautiful TTRPG about a pair of small, modern day dragons protecting the land and people they watch over while growing their hoards (and story) together.

Jump to:

• Audience
• Setting
• Characters
• Mechanics
• Overall
• Find a copy

Audience for Bonds Between

Bonds Between is an excellent game for all-ages with chill content and little barrier to mechanics.

The focus is on storytelling and collaboration, strategizing your deck builds in a very fun way, and tackling big challenges (despite your small size). There’s a solid safety tools discussion integrated into the game, and the tone and topics throughout the book had a bright feel to them.

For mechanics, players will need to identify numbers/characters and suits from a deck of cards and work together with another player to combine hands into particular combinations. This involves number, letter, and shape recognition and some social emotional skills related to sharing and collaborative discussions.

It’s also highly engaging from a tactile perspective, encouraging you to modify a deck of cards throughout the game by using supplies like washi tape, stamps, and markers… or burning cards (use judgement for young players). I had a rare playthrough/game test with my partner for this review, and the crafting elements in Bonds Between were DEFINITELY a happy inner child experience for us both.

Setting for Bonds Between

Bonds Between is set in a modern day world where dragons are a bit smaller than their ancient counterparts and are more like caretakers of their domains than harsh rulers in the tales of old.

You could find yourself building your nest and hoard in a vending machine at an abandoned mall, inhabiting an attic in a suburban home, or living out of a little free library at the park. From these small and meaningful abodes, your dragons will work together to protect the area each season from various challenges and threats.

In our game, our pair of dragons lived in the cieling spaces of two adjoining shops on main street; one was a little cafe, and the other was a game store (I’ll get into how these matched our dragons in the next section). Our mission: help the owners of the two stores make up after a dispute that started over over a game session.

Other challenges could have included keeping one of the shops open during hard times, helping the folks on main street combat extreme weather, etc. depending on what kinds of trials were drawn from the deck – there’s a significant amount of options with interpretations left to the players, so you’ll get a story that fits your situation, and you can replay with a totally different scenario.

Characters in Bonds Between

In Bonds Between, you’ll be playing with one other person (since this is a duet game) as a pair of small neighborhoodly dragons. You’re both bonded, which means that you are connected in some way… and can cast powerful magic, if you work in unison.

While the game is about telling the story of resolving the challenges you face together, it is also very much about how your two dragons grow together by perservering season after season and supporting each other via gift giving important tokens for each other’s hoards.

Speaking of hoards… the items that your dragons collect are not quite like the piles of gold in certain legends. They’re going to be more personal objects, and can trend towards some modern day themes.

For example, my partner’s dragon, who lived over the game store, was a competitive summer dragon who collected stray game pieces. My dragon was a cozy fall dragon living over the cafe who primarily collected tea-related things (nice smelling teas, tea cups, spoons, the little tags at then of the tea bag, etc).

Mechanics of Bonds Between

Bonds Between relies on an oracle deck (which starts out as a standard deck of playing cards) to determine your scenarios, challenges, etc. Players will also draw from the deck, and then BOTH players combine their hands to to try to make certain combinations, like [2 sets of 3] or [7 cards of the same color], to cast spells and tackle the season’s quest. You have abilities that you can use to help to alter your hands, and…

… you will also need to expend precious items from your hoards.

Your deck represents your hoard, and special items (required for spells) that contain magic through their meaning to you are represented by altered cards – these are cards in the deck that you have modified by adding tape, cutting, burning, soaking in water, drawing on, etc.

Some of these magical items are kept in your own deck to represent the items that you find. Others, though, are cards that you’ll modify and give to your bonded dragon partner. This alters both of your deck compositions over time (some strategy here) AND adds extra special meaning to each of your hoarded items and stories.

For example, my tea-themed dragon may start their hoard with some base cards that I’ve altered to represent five of my favorite real life teas. Then, as we play and exchange cards for different rounds in the game, my partner will take one of his cards, change it, create a story about how it’s a chip from a tea cup dropped by the game store owner or part of a torn cypher some kid left behind at the shop (which, when solved, says “ovaltine”). It fills in parts of the world, and then, when I draw that card again, we’ll remember those story elements and why it was given.

These mechanics made the game fun and challenging (it takes some strategizing to land those spell combos) while also just kind of feeling like giving your IRL friend that you’re playing with little presents, and getting them in return. It’s a good blend of strategy and feels mixed into one mechanic.

Overall thoughts on Bonds Between

I thought Bonds Between was one of the sweetest and kindest feeling games that I’ve played while also being one of the few that has scratched the need to keep my hands busy while playing (there’s esentially a crafting break at the start of each round as you modify new cards).

I also will fully admit that I really enjoyed messing with the card deck… being told, yes, please go burn some cards, bust out that crate of washi tape that you got from an estate sale 3 years ago, go get your colorful pens that you’re too afraid to use on business things… it was kind of wonderful, and I was able to loop my partner in on it too.

I loved this game and may have bought about 10 extra decks of cards so I have them ready for playing with friends at conventions in the future. I’d highly recommend this for playing at home, meeting with a friend at a coffee shop, using as a summer camp activity, giving to a pair of kids who are best friends, or connecting with a pen pal. It’s a beautiful game about seeing each other and celebrating a connection with others.

Find a copy of Bonds Between

You can find Bonds Between on the Brightbard website here!

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