Can it be? We have landed on a uncharted island and this could just be the legendary island of Arnak! Well we know it is because the game title told us this! In this game players are competing to score the most Victory Points (VP) by discovering new sites, researching, buy items, collecting artifacts and most of all not loosing points to fear! Now we need to cover the basics;
Players: 1 - 4
Age: 12+
Time: 30 to 120 minutes
What is in the box?
Firstly we need to mention that the artwork in this game is phenomenal, it all looks fantastic and then so do all the little game pieces! In this box you will get;
Main game board (two sides)
Supply board (two sides)
4 basic cards per player 19 fear cards 40 item cards
35 artifact cards 4 camp boards (layer boards, two sides) 15 guardian tiles 10 level 1 sites 6 level 2 sites 12 assistant tiles 1 moon staff 1 clock token 27 coin tokens 27 compass tokens 16 idol tiles 24 temple tiles (these come in 2, 6 and 11 values) 1 sticker sheet (place these on the research meeples) 4 notebook meeples, 1 per player 4 magnify glass, 1 per player 16 tablet tokens 2 archeologists per player
12 arrow head tokens
9 jewel tokens 18 research bonus tiles 5 blocking tiles 10 reserve tiles 1 scoring pad 15 rival tokens for single player That is everything you get in this game, so yeah, you get quite a bit with this game!
Set up
There is quite a bit of work you need to do to set this game up, it is a little tedious but once you do it a few times it becomes second nature and you will be setting this game up quickly.
On your first game you should use the bird side of the board to make it easier and not use the advanced rules. On the main game board on the right hand side just below where all the card spaces are you will see either a large bird cave or a serpent cave, we want the bird side facing us.
Now we need to make sure we have a fear pile, no need to shuffle they are all the same, place this pile on the fear icon at the top of the board, an item pile, shuffle this and place the pile on the trowel icon at the top of the board. Finally shuffle the artifact cards and place that pile on the artifact icon on the board. These are all on the top of the board.
Next take the moon staff and place it just below the round 1 marker just below the piles we have placed to the left, make sure the moon icon cradles the number so you know what round it is. Now to the left of the moon staff you need to place the top artifact card face up, to the right you will need to place 5 item cards with the top card from the pile going closest to the staff and then 5th card going to the edge of the board, it is important that they are placed in order they are drawn.
That is the top of the board complete, now we still have some way to go! Now we need to take all the idol tiles, they literally have a picture of a idol on the back of them, and we need to mix them all up so they are random. Once they have had a good mix you need to do the following;
Pick 8 and place 1 in each of the level 1 sites with the bonus facing up for all to see, the level 1 sites are in the middle of the board. Pick the other 8 and place 1 face up and 1 face down in each of the 4 level 2 sites, these are located above the level 1 sites. Now for the basic sites (these have a tent icon) we might need to block some of the double boots icon spaces (this is the travel value). If 4 players are playing, happy days! No need to block anything. If we have 3 players we need to only block 3! Put the tiles face up (wave side) and mix them, once mixed flip over 3 and they block the 3 sites that were selected, put the blocking tile on the double booted space. If we have 2 players all the double booted spaces are blocked so block all of these with the tiles. We are on to the temple tiles next, on the bird cave you will see 6 boxes (1 at the top, 2 in the middle and 3 at the bottom). We now need to fill these, to do so place the same amount of temple tiles to there are players, if we were playing a 3 player game we would have;
3 - 11 point temple tiles in the top box
6 - 6 point tiles in the middle row, 3 in each section as there are 2 sections
9 - 2 point tiles on the bottom row, 3 in each of the 3 sections Grab all the research bonus tiles, they have the same back as the item and artifacts cards. Mix these up without seeing the bonuses and then take the same amount as there are players and create a stack at the top of the research section (this in on the right hand side of the board). There are a row of magnify glass spaces and at the end of them you will see the space to place this stack. Now start from the top of the research section and place a face up (so you can see the bonus) tile in each space that you are allowed to do so;
4 player game - all will be filled
3 player game - place them in all but the ones that have a 4 player marker at the top of the placement box for the tiles
2 player game - place them all in but ignore any that show they are for 3 or 4 player game only Sounds confusing when written out but check the placement spaces and you will see some show they are for 4 or 3 players only. Now take the resource board and place it at the bottom of the main board, once placed fill each of the boxes with the matching resource tokens. Grab the level 1 site tiles and shuffle them and place them face down (will not see the site info) on the space provided for them on the resource board, this is to the right. We now take the guardian tiles and shuffle them and once again place them face down next to (to the right) of the level 1 tiles. Finally take the level 2 sites and shuffle them and do the same as the other tiles. We now need to place the assistant tiles, take them and mix them all up and place a pile of 4 in each of the boxes provided (just above the tiles we just placed) make sure that they are all showing the silver side (they have a silver and gold side). The last part of setting up the game board is to place 1 notebook and magnify glass meeple at the bottom of the research tracker for each player, of course pick the colour you would like to play. Okay we have finally set up the game board! But that is only the game board, we now need to set up our camp board (player board) which to be fair is pretty easy. Pick the colour board to match the meeples you took for research, take the two matching archeologist meeples and place them on the board, I like to put one on each tent. Take the 4 starting cards that match your colour and take 2 fear cards, shuffle these and place them face down on the deck section of your board, this is to the far left. We need to find the person playing who most recently visited a place they had never visited before to pick the first player, give them the clock token to show they are the starting player and finally do the following;
1st player = 2 gold tokens 2nd player = 1 gold token and 1 compass token
3rd player = 2 gold tokens and 1 compass token 4th player = 1 gold token and 2 compass tokens These are the starting resources for players. Okay we have done it! Breath easy because you have finally set up the game and you are now ready to play!
How to win!
In this game the player with the most VP at the end of the 5th round is the winner! You score VP in many different ways and we will cover that in the next section!
How to play!
In the game, you have 1 main action which you can only perform 1 per turn and then you have free actions. I would like to cover these first because it will make more sense this way. Any action that shows a lightning bolt is a free action, for example placing an idol on 1 of the idol slots on your player board is a free action, it does not take up your main action and you can still perform free actions. Now you might be thinking why do I not just cash in the two compass and two gold token free actions I have on my cards? Well you see these cards in the top left hand corner also have a travel value and you will also need them! Let us look at the main actions there are;
Dig at a Site
Discover a New Site
Overcome a Guardian
Buy a Card
Play a Card
Research
Pass There are 7 main actions and like I said before you can only perform 1 per turn, turns are different to rounds and we will also cover that. Dig at a site, this is where you place 1 of your archeologist meeples from your camp site onto 1 of the 5 basic dig sites on the board, you have to pay the travel cost (1 boot (2 boots if you they are in the game)) by discarding a card with that value. Discarding is where you put it in front of you, exile is where it goes to the discard piles at the top of the board. Now there is a chain of travel;
Plane can be used for any (spending 2 gold also counts towards a plane)
Boat can be used for anything apart from the plane Car can be used only for a car or boot
Boot only covers a boot Anyway once you have discarded that card you can place your meeple and then collect the rewards, now they are all straight forward apart from the gem , the gem forces you to discard another card to collect the gem, if you can not or will not discard you can not use this space. This action is a easy way to get some nice easy tokens at the start of the game.
Discover a new site, this is quite similar to the above but with a twist, now you can pay 3 compass tokens to discover a level 1 site or 6 to discover a level 2 site. Once you pay the compasses you then pay the travel cost, then you finally move to that spot with your meeple. Once you are on the spot you claim the idol and place it face down on your camp board, you then also collect the reward from that idol. Now we flip the top site from the piles depending on which one we are doing and place it on the space. You then collect all the rewards for the tile, then you place a guardian tile on top. Now on another turn you could try and defeat the guardian by paying the cost or wait till the end of the round and collect your meeple but gain 1 fear card, fear cards -1 from your score but are great for using basic sites. Overcome a guardian, you pay the cost that is shown, could be spend 3 tablet tokens to defeat the guardian, now I say defeat you actually win them over, because you also now get to use their bonuses (top right hand corner) and they will score you a whooping 5 VP at the end of the game. Buy a card, this is how it sounds you can buy any card that is face up and pay the cost, if it is an item card it will be gold tokens if it is an artifact you will pay with compass tokens. If you buy an item you need to do;
Slide the card to the right to fill the spot and keep doing this until the last spot is empty and fill a new card in that spot. Place the card to the bottom of your deck. If you buy an artifact card you need to do;
Move the card to the left to fill the spot until the last one is empty, flip over a new card and fill the empty spot. Use the cards abilities there and then and put the card in your discard pile. Both cards will give you VP and give you an ability which will come in handy, also they have a travel value! Play a card, this is where you play a card that is not a free action from your hand, if this is an artifact card you will need to spend 1 tablet token to use the ability. Most if not all item cards have no cost to pay them unless it is a card that turns a gold token into a gem and so on. Research, now when you are researching your notebook can never surpass your magnify glass but they can share the same square. Follow the path on the research board (certain areas do not connect to other ones meaning you can not take this path) and pay the cost, once you have paid move the meeple up. Collect any bonus tile on the square and take that bonus and also score the bonus on the right hand side to match the meeple that you moved up, this is an area where you will gain your assistants and upgrade them, first two notebook bonuses are silver and then next two are gold meaning you flip over the assistants to their gold sides. First player to reach the top with their magnify glass takes the highest scoring spot and takes the top face down bonus tile. This is not the end you can still spend tokens to collect other research tiles form the temple! The rulebook does explain this further. Pass, if you can not place anyone else, have no cards to play or just want to you can pass and end your turn until the start of the next round, other players will carry on playing until everyone passes! Now once everyone finally passes the round ends and we need to prepare for the next round! Take back your archeologist meeples and take any fear cards if they are on tiles with guardians still. Collect your discard pile and give it a good shuffle, once shuffled place it to the bottom of your deck. Refresh any used assistants buy turning them the right way up. The card to the left of the moon staff and the one to the right get exiled to their piles. Move the moon staff to the next round marker (long as it is not round 5). Do what you would do when buying cards to fill the gaps. Pass the start player clock token to the player to the left as they will start the turn. That is everything, that is the main actions covered and I think I have done enough here to explain to you how the game plays, how to set it up. Once the 5th round ends of course you need to work out your final VP, add all your VP up, remove any fear and bing bang boom you have your final score! Now lets move on to the final thoughts!
Final Thoughts!
This was a vote I left up to my followers to pick my 100th game, it was abig decision and one that I could not make on my own, I instead picked 8 that I really wanted and let the people pick. They did not disappoint, the game is fantastic, the artwork is out of this world and most of all it is a fun game, little stressful at times when you just need 1 more bloody compass but can not get one kinda stress, nothing major. I think you need to play the game a few times to start to get into the swing of the game and find a good balance for yourself. I found that I just plain suck at this game but I think overtime I will get better at this game. I do not have much bad to say about the game, the pieces are great, the tokens do not rip (looking at you here Gloomhaven JOTL). The al concept of the game works and there is nothing negative about this game. I wish there was more rounds because I always run out of time with 5 rounds and I have such big plans! That never seem to come to light, I would have liked more tiles for level 1 and 2 sites to mix it up and more item and artifcat cards but this is just me nit picking at the game. For the price you pay you get a lot out of this game, you can not grumble, plus you will have hours of fun playing this game and discovering the hidden treasures the island as to offer. 9/10
