Two Rex Plays #20 - Lost Ruins of Arnak
In this edition of Two Rex Plays we’re discussing Lost Ruins of Arnak, a deck building, worker placement game designed by Michal Štach and Michaela Štachová and published by Czech Games Edition. After discovering the lost island of Arnak players have 5 turns to send their meeples out on expeditions to find golden idols, fight guardians in ancient temples, and research the island’s mysterious past.
Here are the design features we enjoyed:
Rewards strategic play – On our first play through the decision space seemed really tight - you only have two meeples at your disposal, and even their most basic actions require additional resources to carry out. But as you learn the various mechanics at play you can start to identify strategies than allow you to chain together a sequence of events that extend your turns.
Deck Building – We haven’t played anything that combines deck building with worker placement before, and the combination is great fun. There are only 5 turns so your deck is correspondingly small and there are strategies to prune it further and refresh your hand multiple times each turn.
Fantastic artwork – The card art is striking and thematic but it’s the board itself that really shines, depicting an imposing vista which captures the sense of exploration which is at the heart of the game.
Assistant cards – One of the powers you unlock early on is the ability to purchase, and later upgrade, assistant cards. The assistant cards each have their own unique power which enables a wider variety of strategies to be pursued.
Diverse routes to victory – The game genuinely allows different routes to victory without obviously favouring one style of play. On the face of it, the choice is between exploration / guardian fighting and the research track, but once you overlay the deck building mechanic it offers a series of more nuanced strategies. For example, on our first play the winning strategy used an assistant that allows you to buy artefacts at a discount, upgrading that power through the research track, and then stacking the required resources for use on the final turn (it needed to be the final turn to avoid over stacking your deck in subsequent rounds).
We played this on Board Game Arena rather than Tabletop Simulator which is our usual platform for playing board games remotely. Whilst TTS is essentially a sandbox where you have complete freedom, BGA is a more focussed affair with each game individually coded and its rules strictly enforced. It’s a really interesting contrast and both have their place, if you know a game and want to play it as originally intended, then BGA is the more polished experienced and comes complete with a number of bells and whistles. If you want a more organic and flexible game, especially if you went to stray from the rules (either on purpose or by accident!) then TTS is still the closest we’ve seen to the physical experience. Whichever platform you chose, it’s great to have so much choice.
Interested in Lost Ruins of Arnak? Find out more here:
Board Game Geek Page
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/312484/lost-ruins-arnak
Publisher Czech Games Edition
Expansion pack – Expedition Leaders
https://czechgames.com/en/lost-ruins-of-arnak-expedition-leaders/