Lost Ruins of Arnak

Overview

I brought Lost Ruins of Arnak to an afternoon session with two friends—three players who are used to medium-to-heavy strategy games—and we were immediately taken by its promise: an archaeological expedition that fuses worker placement with deck building. Designed by Elwen and Mín and published by Czech Games Edition (among others), the game aims squarely at players aged 12+ who love engine-building and exploration. We played once, over about 90 minutes, and my group gave the experience a middling overall rating (I recorded a 5/10 personally) despite a lot of things we liked.
The concept is elegant on paper: send your expedition members to claim resources, research tracks, and sites on the island while improving your expedition deck for future turns. The target audience—strategy gamers who enjoy combining mechanics like Dominion-style deck building and Lords of Waterdeep-style worker placement—will immediately recognize the appeal. For our group, the thematic hook of archaeological discovery was a major draw; the game sells the fantasy of expedition leadership well. However, the integration of systems comes with a learning curve. The interaction between deck-building choices and where and how you place workers took a turn or two to fully understand, and that first reconciling phase colored our initial impressions.
In short: if you love thoughtful, midweight euros that reward planning and adaptiveness, Arnak will delight you. If you prefer lighter, faster games or get frustrated by marketplace variability, it may be less satisfying.

Setup and Components

Setup took about 10–20 minutes for our first play. There are multiple boards, various decks, the discovery tiles and artifact mixes, player boards, and a bag of tokens to manage, but the box layout and the clear iconography kept setup from being tedious. The publisher’s icon language is mostly clear—there were only minor accessibility hiccups that required a quick rule lookup. Everything is logically organized, which matters when you need to build the central market and research tracks before players take their first turn.
Component quality is good; the cards shuffle and handle well, the cardboard tokens and tiles are sturdy, and the artwork is simply beautiful and immersive. The art and graphic design do a lot of the heavy lifting in selling the theme: the ruins, excavation markers, and artifact illustrations all contribute to a tangible sense of discovery. No component issues cropped up during our play. The overall production value makes the game feel like a premium product, enhancing first impressions and the tactile satisfaction of placement and card play.

Gameplay and Theme

Gameplay flows around placing workers to gather resources, pay costs, explore discovery sites, and purchase cards from the market to tune your deck. Each turn requires you to think about both immediate gains (for example, reaching a high-value exploration site before an opponent) and long-term deck synergy (which cards will make future actions more efficient). The turn order: progressive mechanic and the limited spots on sites create those tense competitive moments where you race to claim the best exploration tiles or artifacts—we had a few heart-in-throat rounds fighting for a single high-value site.
The game’s most satisfying element is the engine-building progression: you buy and draft cards that meaningfully improve subsequent turns, and you watch your expedition become more efficient and capable as the game progresses. That feeling of seeing your deck synergize with your board position is consistently rewarding. The multi-use cards and once-per-game abilities add interesting decision points. They make you juggle when to spend a card as an immediate resource versus when to bank it for a more powerful effect, and that tension was a recurring highlight in our session.
However, the interface between deck and worker placement isn't perfectly frictionless. The interaction took a turn or two for everyone at the table to internalize—particularly how buying certain cards impacts available worker actions later. It is mostly-skill-driven gameplay, but the market can introduce frustrating variance: sometimes the card market simply doesn’t offer options that fit your developing strategy, and that can make a given play feel less satisfying. Player interaction is mostly indirect conflict; you rarely attack opponents directly, but you do race them for sites and market cards, which fueled the social and competitive energy during our quiet, focused play. Overall, the theme is perfectly integrated—the mechanics consistently evoke excavation, research, and artifact discovery, and I felt like a leader of an expedition rather than a point-chasing engine-builder in abstraction.

Final Thoughts

After one play our impressions were mixed but intrigued. The game hits the sweet spot for strategic players who enjoy building engines and managing multiple systems in parallel. Replayability feels very high: the variable setup, multiple paths to victory, and different artifact combinations promise lots of return value. In our session the length felt just right; 90 minutes let each decision mean something without dragging. Downtime was moderate—because players plan their turns carefully, there can be moments waiting for others to resolve long, thoughtful plays, but it never devolved into boredom.
For groups who love a satisfying mix of deck building and worker placement with an evocative theme, this is a strong recommendation. For newer players or those who prefer streamlined experiences, the layered interactions and market variance may frustrate: the card market sometimes fails to support your intended strategy, and the initial rule understanding takes a couple of turns to click. My concrete wish after this first play is for a touch more variety in the starting research tracks to diversify opening decisions; that small change could make opening turns feel less samey. Overall, I plan to play again—this design rewards repeated sessions and experimentation, and with familiarity the game’s deeper strategy and beautiful presentation should shine.

Pros

• Immersive theme integration — every mechanic (exploring, researching, claiming artifacts) strongly reinforces the archaeological expedition feel.
• Satisfying engine-building — deck improvements and board positioning create tangible progression and rewarding synergy over time.
• High production quality — clear iconography, sturdy components, and beautiful artwork that enhance setup and play.
• Very high replayability — variable setups, multiple victory paths, and different artifact combinations keep rematches fresh.

Cons

• Market variance can stifle strategy — sometimes available cards don’t support your plan, making turns feel constrained; consider house rules or variant market setups to mitigate.
• Initial learning curve — the interaction between deck-building and worker placement takes a couple of turns to internalize; expect a slow first game and allow time for repeated plays.
• Moderate downtime for thoughtful players — long planning phases can create waiting periods; using a visible turn timer or encouraging parallel planning can help.