One of the games that I loved getting to play at Gen Con was Lost Ruins of Arnak. This and Dune Imperium both came out at about the same time. And both are deck building and worker placement games. One, obviously, has a Dune theme, and I need to play that one still. But I really liked the adventure theme, exploring for lost treasures and fighting monsters, that the Lost Ruins of Arnak has. But how does it play and does it live up to the theme?

How To Play – Lost Ruins of Arnak

The goal Lost Ruins of Arnak is to accumulate as many points as possible. You do this by going up a research track, exploring locations, defeating monsters, and buying cards to put in your deck that will give you abilities and points. You do all of this over five rounds.

The main actions you do on the board are activated by placing out workers. But you only get two workers per round and rounds do not only last two turns per person. While those workers can be used for big pieces of the action, such as exploring a location, gets golden idols – worth points – and then fighting monsters at those locations, also worth points. Much of the game is around pushing up a research track and buying the cards.

The research track, if you make it to the top, is one of the best ways to get points. Though, when everyone knows that and works towards it, the points that you get don’t differ massively. But if you don’t make it to the top, you will be behind. But in game, it mainly gives you additional resources to spend. The cards are where you get more of your additional actions. Buying and playing the cards really gives you an opportunity to create an engine of what you are doing.

What Doesn’t Work

Two things, that at least without the expansion, I feel like don’t work extremely well. The first is how important the research track is. And this is really the main complaint. You need to make it to the top of the research track. If you don’t, you might do really well in other areas, but you will end up behind in points. It is just too much to catch up on. Now, that isn’t to say you can ignore everything else. The points are that much, and like I said, the research track when everyone makes it to the top is less impactful. It’s just very important to make it to the top.

The other thing is maybe more of a personal thing. But I wish that I had one more round. Granted, you’d be pushing less on the research track and optimizing for that if you had one more round. But with one more round, I feel like I could just have that one more great turn where I am using all of those cool cards that I put in my deck more than once, maybe twice. I say this knowing that most likely what would happen is I’d want another round. So five is solid for the game to keep it from going too long. But I wouldn’t mind six.

What Works

Deck Building

The deck building in this game is meaningful. And I really appreciate that. In a lot of bigger deck building games, yes it matters, but you end up with so many cards, and cycle through it so many times, you can buy whatever you can afford, for the most part. A thinner optimized deck might be better, but if you get points on cards, might as well add in another card that gives you points. Here it really matters because you don’t get that many and you don’t see them too many times.

I also like that with the deck building the cards you buy go on the bottom of the deck. So, with a thinner deck and drawing up to five cards in hand each turn, you see cards fast. I buy two cards on turn one, I know I’ll see them and can use them on turn two. Not having that delay of waiting for them to get shuffled in, and then they could be shuffled to the bottom of the deck is really nice.

Items and Relics

And I like with the relics that you get to use them right away and then they go to the bottom of the deck. Thematically, if you get supplies, they are shipped in, so you get them soon but not right away. If you get a relic, you’ve found it in the ruins. So you can use that right away. But as a trade off it uses your explore tokens to get it, which you need for the map, and has a cost for future uses.

Worker Placement

Finally, with the worker placement, I like how that grows with options throughout the game. At the start of the game you put your workers on camps to just gain resources and then hopefully you can explore fast. The locations that you explore cost a bit more to activate in future rounds, but you can activate them again, or anyone can. So now you are able to go to those spots as well and activate them. Which probably give you more resources or a variety of resources.

I also like with the worker placement that you only have two. More workers certainly could give you a ton more to do, but with the tight number of spaces to start, you’d have to add in more. And it makes how and when you use them even more impactful. If you can find a way to move a worker through an item or a relic, that is huge. And it is a really interesting part of the puzzle of the game as to how you can utilize your workers.

Who Is It For?

I think this is for someone pretty early into hobby gaming. I wouldn’t introduce hobby board games to someone with Lost Ruins of Arnak. But if they have played some other games, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Catan, and the likes, I don’t think this game is too bad to pick up.

Or it is for someone who might not be that interested in worker placement. I am someone who thinks worker placement is fine, but thematically not many of them interest me. Lost Ruins of Arnak has that fun Indiana Jones type them on a worker placement game. So that intrigued me more so, and with deck building pulled me in. I think it can be an entry point or a worker placement that is easier to get people to play.

Final Thoughts on Lost Ruins of Arnak

I really enjoy Lost Ruins of Arnak. And I suspect that I will enjoy it more as I add in the expansion stuff. It changes up the board for the research track. And it gives you variable player powers, which is something I really like. I like being unique as I play. But even without that, I really enjoy the puzzle of the game.

My negative of the research track is less around it not being interesting. The research track is pretty fun. It is more that you need to do the research track and get to the top to really have that much of a shot at winning the game. But, like I said, everyone needs to do that, which means that the points aren’t too different and it does come down to everything else in the game.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: B

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here