This was our favorite game of Essen. We freaking looooove it! It may be our fav game of the year. It's all about trying to extend your round as long as humanely possible. Sooooo good
I played this one on board game arena and was immediately hooked… I love the strategic thought of trying to extend your rounds as long as possible and optimizing resource conversion. Also great it can be a 1 player game. It all feels incredibly balanced and there are many paths to victory
Played this today on boardgamearena. Very fun and satisfying game. if you're immediately turned off by deck building (as I usually am) fear not! The deck building is just a way to cycle thru actions.
@@FallenB1ade just went through the link in my email and it looks like it was pre-orders only "Pre-orders have been closed. If you are interested in purchasing Lost Ruins of Arnak and Under Falling Skies, please, contact your local store. All the best, CGE Team"
I just played my first game of Arnak. What a great, beautiful game! When the last round started I felt I was way behind, not even halfway the research track, but what a last round that was! Each move triggered another, and I played through all my entire deck, and moved up the rest of the track even buying the top tablet.
I don't usually like Euros and I based on setup I expected to hate this game. But once you actually start playing it quickly becomes a lot of fun. It's very very good.
Surprised it didn't make excellence. But hey ho, I played this on Grogans channel and I had such a blast with this. Theme, look, balance, choices and like you said its not stupidly long, take note Euro game publishers!! Can't wait for my copy!
Yup. It's not a work placement deck-building game. It's a point salad with a slow engine-build that uses worker placement and deck-building to move that engine.
Welcome to the hobby! A euro game could be explained from a high level in that they are games that are more focused on the mechanics and less on theme. They also sometimes do not have a lot of player interaction.
This game looks great and the art is gorgeous which are definite pluses. But the mechanisms and gameplay remind me a LOT of Clank, just without the dungeon crawling aspect. Actually my partner hates the final race to escape the dungeon in Clank so this might be a better alternative.
Are the bonus tiles face-up or face-down when placed? I played first time today and we put them out so it was face-down, which made it more of a discovery. Bit me when I got a "bonus" I couldn't use.
To me, it seems like a just another euro with a huge variety of different mechanisms for points with little thematic connection for what the points represent. For me it's a hard pass but I don't like most euros so that's not too surprising. Too bad as I like the jungle adventure theme and the art. I imagine euro gamers will enjoy it.
This seems like a cross between Champions of Migard and Ckank! In the jungle. I love both games, so I'm gonna get my hands on this. Thanks for the video!
It might seem so, but it really isn't. Any smaller, and the design would suffocate itself. Sure, you could cram it all on a 20% smaller board, reduce the gaps between things, but it would look awful and way too noisy. I picked a few tricks working with graphic designers (I am a game designer myself) and, as they say it, "the design needs some space to breathe". And Arnak is a nice place where you can see that idea. I would not decrease the size of the board, but for a smaller main board I'd maybe remove the resource and tiles side-board and cut the card row (either the top with decks or both rows) and have players put those cards where ever. That might shorten the board a bit. But, then again, the original size fits nicely on a regular sized dining table where you'd play something like this. This is not a party game, nor is it something you'd play for 20 minutes on a coffee table. So its size is not really an issue.
Just searched for the game out of curiosity. Didn't know that Boardgames are so popular on youtube. Seems like nowdays there's no content that isn't covered by people :D
Board games kinda exploded in the last decade or so - people realized that you can introduce a lot of mechanics and make very interesting games. For a long time, board game as a concept was tied to the games like Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk etc. Very basic concepts with a lot of flaws. Modern board games cover a huge variety of topics and mechanics and they really exploded in popularity, to the point where you are getting popular PC games ported into a board game format (like Frostpunk, and most recently, even Skyrim). And when ever something is really popular - of course you will have it on RU-vid. Truth be told, the biggest channels were there before the Board Game boom, but since then they have grown quite a bit. Market is booming. Gaming moved more towards indie games and board games, rather than AAA PC/Console games, due to high prices and years of sub-standard products from the biggest game studios.
The artworks for this one is just beautiful. The details on the drawings are very impressive. Components are great! I kinda wish the coins and compasses would in plastic but that will make the RRP is a lot higher than it is now. At first, things are a bit confusing, this and that, then the cards, etc, etc. Once you get the flow, the next rounds and games will be just smooth. If one thing they could do differently is the guardians, it could be replaced by mini-quest or puzzle, tho it might get repetitive. All in all, an impressive game to be added to your collection.
Also, the expansion that came since then and a single player story campaign (in 4 chapters) is a very nice add-on. I hope the game evolves with more story campaigns (for solo or multiplayer) over time, it does not really need anything else. Add a few stories with some Legacy mechanics (at least between the chapters, as it currently does), some story-related items and artifacts, and it is all you need. I don't think that adding new boards and mechanics to this game (as expansions tend to do) would work well. But a story?! Yes please! I played through the currently only available one and it is awesome!
IDK, its deckbuilding aspect is pretty weak compared to the rest of the game, in contrast to Copycat's WP and deckbuilding halves being about as significant as each other, as well as mutually affecting each other quite strongly. Dune: Imperium and Endless Winter: Paleoamericans might be closer to being Copycat's successors/balanced hybrids, but even those might lean slightly more towards the WP part, based on reviews I read
I know, right? I have both of these on my wishlist and I can't decide between them. And there's that Endless Winter one on Kickstarter as well. Three worker-placement deckbuilding hybrid games for up to four players of similar weight and length.
@@blacksheep9950 Yeah, me too. After watching gameplay of both, I thought that Dune seems more strategic, with more paths to planning. The reviews also clearly leans to Dune. :)
Surprised its not a seal of excellence. Im currently pledging Endless Winters and it seems somewhat similar in some respects....Notably the worker placement + deck building but also the many ways you can go about the game (exploration, animal collection, etc in endless winters. They are both beautiful.....im now debating which one I should get...I love the style of both, the art of both, and the concept of both lol.
I was also having the same debate but decided on both mainly because Endless Winter won't be delivered until over a year from now. Allows me to play Arnak for at least a year and decide if there is room for both in my collection or one goes to the trade/sell pile. The struggle for me was more so between Arnak and Dune: Imperium but Arnak looks much better and I don't care for the Dune universe.
I already played Endless Winter and found it quite boring, it's too long for its depth and there's only one main strategy. Also, it's different mechanisms don't blend very well. I haven't played lost ruins of arnak, but it looks way better.
@@franciscorojas8088 Definitely not „way“ better. Endless Winter is more creative (possibly more disjointed) but Arnak is as safe and unexciting as a game can get
@@nerzenjaeger Beorn actually specified: "different enough /you would want both/". Want to own also typically means want to play, and games overlapping enough that you won't want to play both isn't that unusual. For example, Hanamikoji and Battle Line are not the same but they're similar enough to me that I don't feel the need to own both of them, personally. Beorn clearly started with "Do you think" so he's asking Tom if he feels that way about the two games to him. I think it's odd you find the question baffling.
@@kazmadan exactly for me at least I typically keep my collection somewhere between 100-200 so with two games coming out listing the same mechanisms I just am curious if they feel similar mechanically. As I am very interested in both
It’s a perfectly fine game. Nothing more, nothing less. If you read up on it I can tell you that it delivers exactly what you would expect. It won’t surprise you in any way. It has no highs, no lows.
Frankly, "judgment" looks really inelegant in print - how exactly is "dgm" pronounced, anyway? The spelling "judgement" just looks better and more natural. Language changes over time ... Vote with your keyboard. www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/judgement-vs-judgment/
@@rd2234 But the OED says "judgment" is the weirdo. What evidence do you have to convince me that the ugly spelling is better? www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/judgement www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/judgment
@@Steve_Mazza 'Judgement' is accepted in common British English spelling while 'Judgment' is the common American English spelling, however, both American & British legal documents adhere to a more proper common standard and both use 'Judgment'.
According to Corner to Corner with Rahdo, it seems Dune Imperium was Tom's favorite game played during Essen Spiel. I wouldn't be surprised if he gives it a 9 or higher.
Only in theme and for the mechanism of deck-building. El Dorado is a race game driven by deck-building. It has no resources outside of the cards, nor does it have worker placement.
I hate the way he handles the board and the components, the beginning is especially off putting when the components are thrown from the top. Please stop doing that.
Just a seal of approval? This is an ego thing. Tom Vasel doesn't want to go with the flow and puts his heals in the sand. Same thing with Zee and Nidavellir. Arnak is an excellent game and Tom Vasel knows it.