Thursday, January 26, 2023

Lost Ruins of Arnak: the days of hybrid adventure

Like Dune: Imperium, Lost Ruins of Arnak is a hybrid of two game types: worker placement, where each player is given a set number of pawns, which are placed on the board in order to gain benefits, and deck building, where players start with a deck of relatively simple cards, and then add better and more effective cards to their deck over the course of the game. 

The two games are similar enough that they get compared on a near-constant basis, and debate over which one is better is both extensive and inconclusive. We started playing both at around the same time, and quickly concluded that yes, they are similar, but they are also different enough to justify keeping both in our collection.

The game consists of three elements: a worker placement board representing explored and unexplored locations; a card row populated by two different types of cards for players to add to their starting decks; and a research track, where players spend resources in various combinations to advance along the track, gaining bonus points and other benefits. What makes the game especially fun is the way these three elements interact with one another.

There are several different types of resources: coins and compasses, which are used for buying cards, and tablets, arrowheads, and jewels, which are used in different combinations to advance along the research track. Placing workers at locations is the main way to gain resources, but the more lucrative locations are unknown quantities until someone places a worker there for the first time. A temple tile is revealed, which tells you what treasure (resources) you find there, but there is also a guardian tile, a monster that must be defeated by discarding a particular combination of resources. If you don't defeat the guardian by the end of the turn you gain a Fear card, which goes in your deck and is worth negative points at the end of the game. Defeating guardians will gain you various one-time benefits as well as additional points.

In order to place a worker, you have to play cards from your hand with matching travel symbols -- the more remote the location, the more travel symbols it costs to get there. Most of your starting cards also provide either coins or compasses, which are used to buy better cards, but you have to choose whether to use a card for travel or for its resource, you can't do both.

The thing that makes the card-buying row more interesting than in a lot of deck building games is that there are two types of cards: tools and artifacts. Tools tend to have simple, practical game effects, while artifacts are more powerful and worth more points, but also cost more resources to use. At the start of the game, the card row consists of 1 artifact and 4 tools, but each round the number of artifacts increases and the number of tools decreases, substantially changing the nature of the available cards over the course of the game.

It's a great example of a game whose different elements interact with each other in such a way that you have to pay attention to everything that's going on, but the game play is smooth enough to keep this from being overwhelming. There are only five rounds in the game, which doesn't seem like enough in the early rounds when you're only able to do a few actions, but the point of the game is to build up your deck so your cards give you longer and more efficient turns. It's very satisfying, and sufficiently different from Dune: Imperium that I don't see a problem with owning and enjoying both games.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) Lost Ruins of Arnak has been a huge hit for us: it hits the table regularly (which is a struggle when you own 200+ board games) and we always have a great time with it.