BY SAGGYHEAD

The Lost Ruins of Arnak was released at the tail end of 2020 and was one of those games that I wanted immediately upon seeing the box. The artwork and presence of that chunky sized box drew me in immediately. This game by Min and Elwen and published by CGE plays 1-4 players in 30-120 minutes. 

Hey, Good Looking

I am a sucker for good looking games. They say that the first taste of food is with your eyes, and for me, games are the same thing. Great artwork and high-quality components will see a game drop into my shopping basket. In this game the artwork is bright and vibrant and draws you into the game. Normally I am not one for huge sprawling games, this game board is huge, and you will likely have to stand up to reach the furthest spaces. But, the board is beautifully spaced out, nothing feels cramped or too spread out. So, I guess this is the exception that proves the rule. 

We Do Not Follow Maps to Buried Treasure

Channelling our own version of Indiana Jones, this game focuses around getting treasure (resources) and trading them in for points and other benefits. As Jones says, you cannot always follow maps to find buried treasure, and here there is no map. You need to punt on exploring a new site to try and snag the best booty, but there comes a risk of being terrified into running away without being able to defeat the guardian that protects the treasure trove. 

This game is set in the fictitious land of Arnak where you are intrepid explorers discovering a new land. Gameplay uses a combination of worker placement and deck building to allow you to channel your inner Lara Croft and reveal new locations on the board and reap their rewards. You place your two workers out onto the board into either revealed dig sites or you can explore using boot, car, boat or plane boons and compass tokens to discover new places. Each time you reveal a site, you will gain the rewards found there, but a fearsome guardian will also appear. 

During a round, you will draw five cards and then you may complete one action on your turn. That could be to play a card, research on the research track or to place a worker and collect resources. The round continues back and forth like this, until everyone decides to pass their turn as they cannot or do not wish to play any more cards, research or place workers. The game is played over only 5 rounds, and there simply isn’t time to get everything done, but you also need to do everything. Luckily by the third round, the combo moves that you manage to pull off mean that the play is incredibly satisfying.

There is a theme in a lot of the games I have played lately of multi-use cards, games like Port Royal and Fort spring to mind. Lost Ruins cards have a boon on them as well as the main action of the card. Some of these actions are instant (denoted by a lightning bolt) and are a “free” action. Each turn you only get one main action, so these instants can make your turns more splashy. You can use the cards for their exploration icon, a boot, jeep, plane or boat in order to visit sites. 

That’s Why They Call It the Jungle, Sweetheart

Each guardian requires a combination of boons and resources in order to defeat them. You must pay off the guardians so they disappear before the end of the round or you will be forced to take a fear card. It doesn’t say you kill these terrifying monsters (giant scorpion, massive spider, girthy snake), so perhaps you simply bribe them to join your exploration party. Except the humongous anaconda, you surely must kill that thing dead. Any fear cards you gain not only dilute your deck, but it also is negative one point at the end of the game too. Defeating guardians will also yield you benefits and a juicy five victory points to help push you to a win. 

Lost Ruins has an excellent game arc, the gameplay builds up quickly and it’s so satisfying to see how much you are able to do on the last round with your five cards. This does mean however that the first round feels a little flat. Everyone has the same starting hand, and you kind of know where the first player is likely to go, so this can feel prescribed. Once the first few extra cards have been bought and the first round is over though, the game comes into its own. This game has so many things to do in it, that it never feels like you and your opponent are following the same strategy. Especially in a two-player game, many sites have a single occupancy which means there is player interaction and it isn’t just you doing your thing. 

The research track is a great way to get bonuses, and it cannot be ignored, especially early in the game. Building up this track will get you powerful assistants that max your resource collection. Trouble is, it eats up so many resources! Because of the snake-like way you climb the track, the route your opponent takes may affect how you progress to try and maximize the bonus tokens you collect. 

Decking Random

One downside to deck builder games is the randomness, sometimes the new card in the card row will work perfectly with someone’s assistant. But this randomness is one of those things you kind of know you will get with a deck building game. For me this is not a problem, as as often as I lose out to Lady Luck, I win due to her shining gaze. This is not a pure deckbuilder, and some cards you buy will activate immediately then go into your discard pile, others will go onto the bottom of your draw-deck so you guarantee that you get this card before those in the discard pile. This mitigates a little the randomness and it gives you more control over your strategy, which is a welcome addition. 

Can You Solo That?

I am not much of a solo gamer really, but in the interests of the review I gave it a bash. Given the current climate, our available opponents have been vastly reduced compared to normal. This automa is easy to run, even for someone not particularly well versed in running a bot player. The AI doesn’t feel clunky and you still feel like you are able to complete your own game. Which means you keep all the fun of a multiplayer game. The solo mode allows for scaling in difficulty which increases the replayability, you can also play the same varying difficulty levels on the harder flip-side of the board too. 

Round-Up

In essence, Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game where you will have what feels like 100 things you want to do, but in five rounds you won’t be able to do everything. What this means for me is that I immediately want to play again. I think about each game afterwards, what if instead of going to that location I had instead risked it all and tried to discover a new site? Would that have got me more points? Would it have utterly messed up my plans? What if I had decided to draw again and picked up that powerful artifact card? Would the story have been different? As you can see, I’m still mulling over my mistakes from my last game. This is the beauty of this game, you are simply left wanting more.

Saggy Score: 96%

Pros:

  • Components have a great quality to them
  • Leaves you wanting more
  • Combo-tastic moves 
  • The game builds up smoothly

Cons:

  • It does take up a lot of table space
  • At the beginning you feel like you can’t do much each round.