Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition

• Designer: Mín & Elwen
• Publisher: CGE Games
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 12+
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Lost Ruins of Arnak (“Arnak”) is my #1 game from 2020. Excuse this paragraph of relentless gushing on my part in lieu of a full review. Arnak has earned distinction from myself and the hobby alike by blending well-loved mechanisms, infusing them with fresh concepts, and wrapping them in a tight, well developed package. For a puzzle lover like myself, Arnak is peak optimization competition. A noteworthy portion of that personal acclaim was earned by the first expansion, Expedition Leaders. Expedition Leaders tops my list of all time best expansions in board gaming – essential being the industry buzzword that rings true. Enriching integral game elements, while also adding one new major core mechanism: leaders. Leaders add asymmetry, increased ability, and diversity in strategy, that turned a great game into an all-timer. An inclusion that has solidified Arnak’s life-time spot on my shelves.

So when The Missing Expedition was announced, I was satiated in my Arnak experience, but willing to make room for more should it taste quite right. The Missing Expedition content falls into 2 major categories, that I would say compromise 50% of the package each: 1. More content for the normal game 2. Solo/cooperative campaign. I should admit upfront, that a campaign was not high on my Arnak wishlist – I am not a solo gamer, nor a campaign gamer. I also haven’t tried the cooperative mode, but after reading the rules I don’t intend to explore it. It doubles the solo requirements and averages your scores. While there are some minor elements of cooperation (e.g. pigeons), it seems like mostly the same as the solo experience played by 2 people simultaneously. So keep in mind my review is shaped by this opinion: I am glad to give the solo campaign a fair shake, but the buzz of anticipation comes exclusively from the competitive content. So let’s start there!

Competitive Content: Leaders

This expansion adds more to all of the elements of Arnak: leaders, items, artifacts, guardians, idols, assistants, research tracks, and locations. Some feel rather minor; they add small margins to choices but don’t add new mechanisms. They are well made and fun to play, but there isn’t much to discuss. Other elements feel worthy of deeper analysis, led by the biggest draw of the expansion – 2 new leaders. The first expansion had 6 leaders, so this takes the count up to 8 total with the addition of the Mechanic and the Journalist. While these 2 play quite differently from each other, they have one thing in common – the variability in playstyle is escalated compared to most of the first expansion leaders.

The Mechanic is all about gears turns; instead of basic resources, their cards turn their gear 90 degrees (Spin! That! Wheel!) Often in the early game, there’s no difference; you have to pick one of the silver gear icons, the same result as a base game card. Thus the catch – at the start of rounds 1, 3, and 5, you are given 2 golden widgets, and you pick one to slot in between your silver gear icons. When you earn a gold wheel turn, and it hits on a gold widget, you can either take what is on that gold widget, or both of the silver icons (jeep/boat and one coin/compass).This is how the mechanic creates high variability – there are 8 gold widgets, and whichever ability you start with, will dramatically shape your game. My first Mechanic play, the first widget was “draw a card from the bottom of your deck”. That game, I was hyper focused on getting a great item card round one (a horse of course), and being able to play it immediately. My second Mechanic play, my first widget was “a compass and upgrade a resource”. This widget got me to an early assistant which I leveraged into tablets for future upgrades. These were very divergent experiences – that first gold widget decision weighs heavy on the course of play. Another compelling feature of the Mechanic is the timing of gear turns. There are some silver gear turns to earn – silver gear turns only allow benefits as if the widget slot was empty! Trying to match up your silver turns to empty slots, and gold turns to widget slots, is peak efficiency puzzle goodness. The Mechanic is an incredibly well designed leader – clean, unique, and high strategy diversity. It leaves me wanting to come back for more.

The Journalist is all about the story – they are willing to take extra time talking to locals, if there’s a story to scoop! At setup, The Journalist places article tokens on every possible level 1 and 2 location. When the Journalist has a meeple at a location with an unclaimed article, they can spend a travel icon matching that location to claim it (writing the article). The Journalist gameplay really focuses on getting extra travel icons – for them, cards that give 2 travel icons become a much larger focus of the game. If they can afford those extra movements, they can be rewarded handsomely. Claimed articles can be played any time on their newspaper (publish the article). The newspaper is how the Journalist achieves variability – they have 4 double-sided newspaper pages, picking 2 at setup. So while writing articles remains the same each game, the reward for publishing has 24 possibilities at setup alone. There is a breadth of choice during play as well, as rewards have incentives based on the order you claim them. What direction are you looking to go on your paper – down the page to get stronger rewards, or finishing rows to unlock free idol slots? If writing and publishing articles was the whole story, it would be a solid character. But of course there is one more twist. Apparently, the Journalist works in tabloids – shame on them but good for us! The Journalist can have their book 1 level above their magnifying glass on the research track; they’ll write the story without all the facts. This is a huge deal – the book has much stronger rewards, and you can get to them earlier than any other player. Example: the new cave track requires the magnifying glass to sacrifice an idol for a benefit, but when the book arrives the player gets an idol back. Other leaders have to be prepared, pay up front, then be reimbursed. The Journalist just walked in, took the first choice of idol, then sacrificed it after the fact. No prep needed, No wait required, No problem! Long story short, the Journalist may be my favorite leader so far. They are a perfect example of how leaders can shift focus in play in a really positive way.

Competitive Content: Other Items

Items and artifacts are the lifeblood of Arnak – it’s a card game first and foremost, so it needs card options. I felt Arnak had a healthy amount of card variety after the first expansion, but now it’s in marathon shape. While I enjoyed all the cards, I will highlight one new style of card that I call “later artifacts”. Artifacts, unlike items, get activated immediately when you buy them, but you must pay a cost to play them from hand in the future. This makes artifacts very powerful instant abilities, but somewhat weaker for building your deck. These new “later artifacts” have a split ability: one when you purchase, and another option you can only pick when you play them from hand. These have more allure in early rounds, increasing the focus on deck building with artifacts. They are another new twist to Arnak and quite pleasing to strategize around. All of the cards are a great addition and keep the game feeling fresh.
Arnak originally had 2 research tracks, each tied to their respective side of the board. With the first expansion, they added 2 new tracks, with more involved rules, that could be played on either board side. As I prefer the Snake side of the board, I really was only playing 3 tracks before this expansion. Adding 2 new tracks, both full of flavor and new ideas, is the sneaky best value add of this expansion. So much of the focus of Arnak is climbing these tracks, and the options now feel rounded out. I will note one issue: the new tracks prioritize flavor over function. We had issues with seeing the connections on the tracks as the spaces are a part of the art, and not noticeable boxes like the previous tracks. Specifically the first level locations on BOTH the waterfall and cave tracks.

The final piece of the competitive content is the new locations. These new locations incorporate the encounter cards from the campaign. When you visit the location, you draw a card from the corresponding deck and it has 2 choices: something you can take now, or something you can cash in later. For me, these are the big miss of the expansion. So much of Arnak revolves around min-maxing your way up the research track – “Ok, if I get a jewel I can move up my book, which gives me the assistant, who gives me the coins to overcome this guardian, which would allow me to use their boon to upgrade to an arrowhead to move up my magnifying glass”. That is what a typical monologue sounds like in my head when playing Arnak, and it’s why I love the game. Here is what playing these locations sounds like: “I guess I’ll go there and see what happens”. It cuts the core feedback loop of Arnak off at the knees, which compounds by the way locations work in Arnak – once you reveal one, it’s there all game. One of my largest biases in board gaming is event cards – I rarely enjoy them. These feel like personal event cards. If you find that you love events in games then maybe these locations will be your favorite, but for me these are a non-inclusion. I am happy with the location diversity in the game already so no biggie.

Campaign Content

The campaign for Missing Expedition consists of 6 scenarios. Conveniently, the expansion comes pre-packaged with the cards in order for the campaign. If your motivation is the campaign, CGE has saved you significant setup time. Each scenario is built on the solo rules of the base game with some twists – if you’ve played the solo experience in Arnak before, you will know 80% of the rules. While the base game of Arnak is all about the score, in the campaign that takes a back seat. At campaign end, you compare your total win differentials in each scenario, which determines the “quality” of your campaign end flavor text – that’s it really. The scenarios instead have 3 major points of focus that you are trying to juggle that you don’t see in base game Arnak: the win condition, the achievements, and the encounter cards.

The largest focus of the scenarios is on the win condition – if you complete your goal, you win, regardless of how well you scored overall. You even win with a negative score, albeit disgracefully. Objectives make the campaign stand out from a “score 100, you win” style solo design. First scenario example: there is an owl guardian on the research track that has your first clue. In order to climb the research track, you must explore new locations to push back the fog obscuring your way. So now, the player’s primary focus is on getting compasses, to ensure they can explore new locations, and to climb the track with their magnifying glass so they can overcome the guardian near the top. These objectives will dramatically shift your playstyle scenario to scenario, which is where most of the campaign fun lives and breathes. I won’t spoil later scenarios just in case, but some objectives are quite unique and memorable and I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth of these scenarios. Also noteworthy, you can move onto the next scenario even if you fail, if you accept a penalty in the next scenario. This is a nice option for those getting beat up that don’t want to replay the same scenario over and over again.
In addition to this main objective, you will be given 3 achievements that you can try to achieve. Once completed, they immediately put an item/artifact from the expansion on top of your deck. This is an excellent design, as it’s a fun way to introduce the new cards through the campaign. Often with board game expansions, throwing 20 cards into a deck of 120, you barely see some of that new content. Here, they ensure that you can read and potentially earn exclusively the new cards. Often these achievements are difficult to complete, and of course in cheeky fashion, they focus on avenues in the game that aren’t related to the main objective.

Overall, these achievements are a really nice touch; I enjoy having targetable goals to balance with the main objective, and playing with the new cards specifically.

There are six decks of encounter cards, each tied to their respective scenario. Each scenario provides a different means in which to acquire encounters – often not required to win but impossible to avoid. As mentioned previously, they have 2 choices – an ability to use right away, or one you can keep to use later. Big picture, there are “story symbols” next to each potential choice as well. At the end of each scenario, you will cross off the symbols on paths on a sheet matching the symbols you’ve earned from achievements and encounter cards. If you cross off a “plot point” symbol, you will read some flavor text and earn an item/artifact from the expansion that will go on the bottom of your deck in the next scenario. If familiar with the roll and write genre, this is a very, very lightweight version where you can earn ammunition for future scenarios. Again, I love that they have found a way to incorporate just the new cards directly into your plays. So while I don’t like encounter cards, they do have an added incentive in the campaign to be more intriguing. In essence, these feel like an integral part of the overarching success of your campaign, even if they are not a major focus on how to win each scenario.

Final Thoughts/Opinions

The Missing Expedition adds a lot of experience to Arnak. I absolutely love the new leaders; they are 2 of the most fleshed out leaders designed so far. The new research tracks take the variability of Arnak up another notch. I personally would acquire this expansion if it was just for those two pieces alone. The other competitive content (sans locations) is sweet icing, but the leaders and tracks are the cake. The campaign, driven by objectives, felt like a unique play experience and not just Arnak versus a bot, which I appreciated. I like that the campaign often rewards you with brand new cards, allowing for a natural injection of new content. While I enjoyed the campaign, I will be putting that content in a separate box, and I’m not sure if I will be revisiting it in the future. I enjoyed my one completed campaign and wanted to see it through, which is more than I anticipated as someone who doesn’t solo. I would speculate based on extrapolation that solo enthusiasts would avidly enjoy this campaign.
If you only own the base game of Arnak, you absolutely should be buying the Expedition Leaders before this. While The Missing Expedition isn’t essential, it’s still a great product for a great game. I think if either half of the content appeals to you, you won’t be disappointed in the results. In the end, I am glad to own all of Arnak and glad that Arnak continues to grow in its effort for world domination.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Ryan P
• I like it.
• Neutral.
• Not for me…