Explore the lands of Arnak to find the hidden treasure!
There is a reason Lost Ruins of Arnak was (and still is) one of the top, hottest games of the year since 2021. The theme is exceptionally well executed, and the game’s mechanics are all familiar and fun to play when combined. Players collect gear and meet travelers throughout their journey in Arnak, exploring distant lands and finding hidden treasures.
In this game, you take the role of an adventurer seeking to discover lost lands and uncover hidden relics (think Tomb Raider). If you love Lara Croft or Indiana Jones as much as myself, then this game is definitely for you. Every action you take in the game feels like an adventure, which is heightened by its beautiful art style. Venture into chasms, navigate twisted streams, fight giant beasts in the jungle, and research the ruins for relics that have been left behind. Will you become the one who discovers the world? Or the one learning all of its history? Maybe you just seek treasure. Whatever your passion may be, the world of Arnak awaits you!
Mechanics: Deck building, resource management, worker placement
ART: 8/10
In all honesty, a majority of games I review will score highly in this category, as art is something I am passionate about when it comes to choosing a new game. The art style in this game is highly thematic and exceptionally vibrant. Graphic elements on monster tiles and cards accurately depict what you are finding or where you are going. For example, items have a wooden crate-looking background, and monsters have jungle leaves as a border. The fear cards show a menacing panther. Even the board’s landscapes are laid out to match the game's mechanics: can you drive there, or do you have to fly or take a boat? The ruins have a clay tone with sketch-style graphics representing etchings on cave walls. The attention to detail is spot on, which nails the art category in my book.
STORYTELLING: 8/10
The only reason this is not getting a ten out of ten is due to the lack of actual stories involved in the gameplay. If it wasn’t obvious from my introduction, this game involves everything it needs to feel like Tomb Raider. While there may be no flavor text on the cards, each item is something practical that you would pack for your adventure. The double-sided game board displays varying landscapes to explore, monsters to encounter, and relics to study. The meeples have explorer hats, and your player board is a tent and supply crates. The resources you acquire are precisely what you’d expect to find on a treasure hunt. Need I say more?
COMPONENTS: 8/10
I love when a game contains exact replicas of the resources without paying for an upgrade. Rubies, arrowheads, and tablets are all made of solid, colored plastic, molded to their exact shape and texture. The board is double-sided, giving two unique play experiences. The round marker and first player token are unique items (staff and clock) even though they are punch-out cardboard. The coins, compasses, and relic glyph tokens are also just punch-outs. The adventurer meeples are enhanced to have explorer hats which you do not often find in many worker placement games.
When researching relics, there are also wooden tokens in the shape of a journal and magnifying glass, accompanied by stickers to place on both sides. Everything is very thematic, but they needed to offer metal coins (or even plastic) to match the experience of all the other resources. Due to the high-quality components they offer, I had to fully upgrade the game myself by purchasing golden metal coins and mini compasses (you can view the links below). This category only loses points due to the punch-outs for two out of the five resources.
COMPLEXITY: 6/10
I am always lenient in this category. Playing a game and mastering a game are two very different things. This game will look daunting with all of its components for a new gamer, but it’s pretty simple to actually play it. Which actions you take and in what order is the challenge, but when playing with three or more players, some decisions are taken away from you, leaving you less choice in the end. If you want to explore, there are limited paths to obtain compasses. If you want to research, you must find a way to get the resources required to progress.
I can say this, the final scores in my play-throughs have always been extremely close, regardless of your actions. I have focused only on researching relics, while another focused on fighting monsters and exploring the land. No matter what you end up doing in this game, it seems to work well. If you are a new gamer, don’t be afraid just to immerse yourself in the theme and have fun with it!
TRAVEL-FRIENDLY: 2/10
There are just way too many components in this one. The game takes up a lot of space and takes some thought when putting it away in the box. The box is large, which makes it a bit more challenging to fit in a suitcase. I’ll give a couple of points here because I was able to condense nearly all of the components into a single bead organizer, which helps with fitting the game into the box more efficiently. If I can forego the infinite component baggies for a game, that’s a win.
UNIQUENESS: 4/10
I have raved about this game so far, but I can’t quite say it’s unique. We’ve all played a variety of games with deck-building, worker placement, and resource management. All that is different is putting them all together under the theme of “adventure.” There are many adventure/treasure-themed games out there. The few aspects I find interesting are the research tracks to uncover new relics. No game I have played has something like that, especially forcing you to move your magnifying glass before your journal, which impacts your strategy heavily. Another unique item is the shape of the monsters with the exploration tiles and how you always discover a monster when exploring a new land. It’s quite flavorful for this to happen, and if you don’t fight the monster, you become fearful, which hurts your overall deck-building strategy.
Final Comments
If it is not apparent by now, this is one of the best games in our collection. We continue to choose this game over and over again. This game has excellent replayability, especially with the different sides of the game board. I love the plastic components (and my upgraded ones), which makes it a great tactile experience. Even after playing this game many times, the scores are always close, and we never know who will win! Pro tip: this is another game that would be great to listen to a soundtrack while playing.
Mash Up Of: Slightly like Clank, but there are too many mechanics to choose any one game.
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Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Game(s) Pictured: Lost Ruins of Arnak
Upgraded Components: Metal Coins, Mini Compass
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