Arctic

• Designer: Cedric Lefebvre
• Publisher: Ludonaute
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 10 min / player
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

White, white, nothing but white. You scan the snowy expanse of the Arctic, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inhabitants that live there. The more animals of a type that you see together, the better — yet you also want to diversify your sightings, while moving your totem animal toward the pack ice as far as possible.

To set the game up, place the six landscape cards face up in a row in ascending order, and each of the 6 Animal tokens is placed on the 3 value card.  The Animal deck is constructed based on player count and some cards are removed to form the Reserve deck.    Take the six Animal power cards and choose (usually randomly) which side of the card to show; each side of the power card has a different action on it.  Each player gets an Animal Totem tile which is kept secret.  Finally, form a river of 6 cards on the table and deal each player a starting hand of 3 cards.

In Arctic, you move across the landscape and spot animals, creating a pile of animal cards in front of you. The card on top of your personal pile is your “visible” animal card. Each animal card contains four pieces of information:

• A placement value
• The main animal depicted on the card
• A companion animal
• A draw value

At the start of your turn, place as many cards from your hand into your personal pile as the placement value of your visible animal card. (On your first turn, place one animal from your starting hand of three cards.) For each card you can’t place, draw a card facedown from the deck and place it in a personal penalty pile. Next, using your new visible animal card, move the token of the main animal forward one space on the landscape and the companion animal backward one space or vice versa. Finally, draw as many animal cards from the “river” of six animal cards as the draw value of your visible animal card. (If you now have more than seven cards in hand, discard into your penalty pile until you have seven.)

Each time you place cards on your pile, look at your new visible card and take the matching animal power card from the center of play or whoever currently has it. You can use the listed power each turn for as long as you hold this card, such as moving an animal token an additional space, drawing from your penalty pile, or refilling the river after each card you draw.

When the deck runs out, you finish the round (using the Reserve pile to draw from), then place cards one more time, then score points. For each type of animal, you score points based on the largest set of consecutive cards of this type you have in your pile – 1/3/6/10/15 points for 2/3/4/5/6+ cards. You score a bonus based on the number of sets you’ve completed – 1/3/6/10/15 points for 2/3/4/5/6 sets.  Reveal the animal token you received at the start of the game, and score based on how far it advanced across the landscape (anywhere from 0 to 15 points). Lose 1 point for each card in your penalty pile.   Whoever has the highest score wins. Ties broken in favor of earlier starting position.

My thoughts on the game

Arctic is a linear set collection game where you work on a single stack, and your goal is to get cards of the same type adjacent to each other in that stack.  Sure, the obvious strategy is to try to get 6+ in a row for max points for each animal; but when that isn’t possible – that’s where the strategy comes in.

Each of the 6 animals has a different special ability (well, actually two as each power card is double sided) – but trying to figure out how to leverage the 6 special actions available in your game can play a decided role in what you want to play.  It might be worthwhile to play an animal specifically to get the special action card that comes with it.

As you play cards, you’ll constantly be balancing the number of cards you draw now, and the cards you will play in the next round (as well as the special power you’ll get from the card played last).  There is always the specter of taking penalty points if you draw too many or too few cards – though usually at least one of the special actions allows you to mitigate the penalty pile.  There is plenty of room to balance out the card drawing and card playing (as your hand can go from 0 to 7 cards), but you’ll always be keeping track of your card count.

There is a mild amount of binding – I’d certainly try not to collect the same animal that the player before you is going for, as they will more than likely take those cards from the River before you can get them.

The game also lets you score with the animal tokens on the track, though this part sometimes felt fiddlier than it needed to be.  We are constantly reminding ourselves not to forget the step of moving the chips around, and maybe we’re just bad at the bluffing here, but it was generally obvious by the end of the game who had which secret totem.  I guess someone with more skill could leverage this into a nice 15 point differential; but I have yet to see anyone dupe the rest of the table.

The artwork is quite nice, and the icons are easy to understand. In case you need more explanation for the special powers, they are all listed on a single page of the rules, so you can fold the book in half and leave that out as a reference.  

For me, Arctic is a pretty chill game with some small but interesting decisions to be made along the way.  I think that I would put this as a nice super-filler, and I’m happy to play it more this winter.  

Thoughts from the Opinionated Gamers

Alison Brennan: Each player builds their card stack and at the end of the game scores their longest consecutive group of cards in each of the 6 animal types and for how many groups they have. It has the same feel as Mamma Mia (but with personal stacks). The last card played each turn defines which super power you get, how many cards to draw (with penalties if you exceed hand limit) and how many cards you’ll play to your stack next turn (with penalties if you don’t have enough). Getting this right is a juggling act which slows down the game. You’re often playing 3-5 cards, and the non-replenished draft is 6 cards, so the chances of getting long streaks is a luck-fest which is game determining. It’s also random whether you keep your super-power until next turn (especially 4p) and whether it will be useful or not if you do. This one left us cold.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral. Alison
• Not for me…