Lost Ruins of Arnak: Twisted Paths Expansion Board Game Review

Lost Ruins of Arnak: Twisted Paths Expansion

WBG Score: 9

Player Count: 1-4

You’ll like this if you like: Lost Ruins of Arnak

Published by: Czech Games Edition (CGE

Designed by: Elwen, Mín

This is a review copy. See our review policy here

By Steve Godfrey

Off the back of this expansion I asked a paving company If they could lay twisted paths up to my front door. Apparently my front garden is too short and the best they could do was one mildly wavey path, which doesn't have the same ring to it when you're theatrically telling guests to “trek through the mildly wavey path to my door.” What with that and my “smoothly opening new front door” I’m seriously starting to rethink this year's Halloween haunted house. 

New tools of exploration.

First lets get the simple stuff out of the way. This expansion comes with 2 new level 1 and level 2 sites, 4 new guardian tiles, 10 idol tiles and 8 new assistants. All of these can just be shuffled into your regular game and are just extras that are independent from the expansion boards.

As a quick note, this expansion was designed to be used with the leaders from the previous expansions. You can play the game without them but as the rulebook says, you’ll be in for a more challenging game. For some that’s a friendly piece of advice and for others that’ll probably be a full on challenge. I’ve not tried it without the leaders so I can’t speak to how it works. 

The main event for this expansion is of course the new double sided board, each side having its own unique twist with both twists being focused mainly on the new research tracks on each board. Rather than just making new research overlays as in the past, the new boards mean they can populate them with expansion specific elements without the need for too much extra in the way of components and set up. The new board is a lot bigger than the regular Arnak board so if you brought this separately (rather than part of the big box) then it won’t fit into your base game box.

For each of these I’m gonna assume you know how to play Arnak. If you don't you can either check out my original review for the base game for a brief overview (found here) or any learn to play videos scattered on the internet. 

The Owl Temple

For this board you’ll need to take the new lantern token for each player which will go with your other research tokens. Then set up the new Owl Temple tiles as per the rulebook. These are jigsaw style pieces each with different point values, either 1,5 or 10. This board has two sections for exploring level one sites. One has the normal cost and the other will cost you three compasses and two coins but will also give you two idols for exploring them rather than the standard one. You move up the research track in the usual way but this track also holds secret passages at varying points up the track that only a player's magnifying glass can enter.

When you reach one, you may pay the research cost to enter and take the reward which will be an Owl tile. The lower ones have the smaller points value on them while the further up you go their points value increases. Your magnifying glass is now locked in this space for the rest of the game and no one else can go into this particular slot. However, this will now unlock your lantern. It moves in the same way but yields different rewards on each space and will score their own points value in the same ways as the other tokens. Your notebook can now move up to you magnifying glass or your lantern, whichever is the higher. There are other spaces on the research track to collect Owl tiles from and to get these you simply pay the cost when you're at that level with one of your tokens. 

So what do these Owl tiles do? Well, when you've got two of them you can fit them together and they create an extra slot for your idol tokens to go on. As per usual you can use an idol for one of the slot effects but you can now place it on this newly created slot rather than the regular slot on your board meaning that you won't have to sacrifice those points on your board.

Owl be quick about this one.

At first I wasn't thrilled with the idea of giving up my magnifying glass. It feels very counter intuitive, especially when the reward for giving it up can feel very slight if you take the lower of the owl tiles on the track. Yes, in the long run it can go to bigger things but at the time giving up all those potential rewards on the research track for (at minimum) a point token doesn't feel like a great exchange. In fact, gambling on trying to race up the track to the higher point temple tile just adds to your decision space. However, they’ve made those lantern rewards so tantalising that maybe jettisoning your magnifying glass early might just be worth it? I really like that this adds to what could already be a tense race up the research track. There are some nice 10 point tiles at certain points on the track and two in quick succession of each other and boy is it tense if more than one of you is racing to get them. 

Since it’s more than likely that most of you will essentially be going up the research track for a third time it can push the game time up. Of course a lot of this depends on how quickly people activate their lantern and how efficiently they play. As for the new Idol slots, I like the idea of them. The fact that they're worth points at the end just makes the higher points ones more juicy to go for, coupled with the fact that they stop you from losing those precious points on your main board. It does kind of take away the risk of using the idols though which is one of the aspects I like in the base game. In a lot of sense I’m torn. I like the idea of that loss / reward aspect of the base game, but then I really like the satisfaction of getting more “free” resources to allow me to do even more things and make more combos. Granted a lot of the extras you get will more than likely be moving the lantern token. 

This board seems to encourage players to balance out their games a bit more and do a bit more of everything. If you explore and gain a lot of idols then getting the owl tiles from the research track is gonna be worth it. On the flip side, if you get some of the tiles then you may as well try and make use of them by doing more exploring to get the idols. You won't necessarily be at a disadvantage if you don’t, but it gives both aspects more synergy.

The Spider Temple.

The only new thing you’ll need for this side of the board is the new dark tablets. Place two per player in each of the slots for them at the bottom of the board. Each slot from left to right will have an increasing negative number on it. 

There are two ways you can collect these tablets. Either from research spaces or from site spaces on the board. When you activate one of those sites you can pay the cost to take a dark tablet from the left most space at the bottom of the board. You can use dark tablets in the same ways as regular tablets and when you spend them that way you put them back in the rightmost empty space. The other way to use them is to invoke an altar on the research track. At the start of the game alters are empty spaces on the research track that can fit a card. First you must have a research token above the altar. If the altar is empty then take an artifact card from the display, put it in that slot and activate its ability. Then put that dark tablet in your coloured space below it (you can have three max of your colour under each one.) These cards are now locked in those spaces and now any player can invoke those cards in the same way as long as they have a token in any space above that altar.

At the end of the game any unused dark tablets on peoples boards go back to the supply filling in right to left. The negative number on the right most empty slot will be the number you need to worry about because at the end of the game every dark tablet players have under alters will lose that many points for each one. The player with the most tablets at each altar will win the printed number of points above it. 

This is my favourite of the two maps. I love that it gives the research track access to much stronger abilities but it's all player led. It also ramps up the tension on the race up the research track because it's not until you're above an altar that you can activate it. So if you want to be the one to choose the card you need to get a shift on, especially if you want to put out artifact cards that are going to compliment your current play style. The genius of this board though is how seemingly cheap they've made using those artifact cards, just one dark tablet! Obviously it’s there to tempt you into taking that leap because the benefits, depending upon which cards are being used, could be huge for your game and at the start of the game it’s almost a no brainer to do it. It’s just one little altar and the first tablet space on the board isn't even empty so you're not even losing points for it yet, It'll be fine right? Of course! That is until other players follow your lead and that's when it starts to escalate.

As others start using those altars and the dark tablet supply starts to dwindle, then starts the race for the majority points as you desperately try and claw back potential lost points at the end of the game. The problem is, the more you add a tablet to get a majority, the more it dwindles the supply at the bottom making those lost points more devastating. It's a big addictive tug of war, except the harder you pull the worse you're making it for yourself and it’s brilliant. I love the psychology at play here though because as you desperately fight for the majority you soon realise that you'll probably be better off just not adding more tablets. Except there's a part of your brain that really wants those positive points. 

Is it worth getting Twisted?...sister

With ‘more stuff’ and two new boards, each with different vibes that will appeal to different play styles. If you’ve already got the leader's expansion and just want more Arnak goodness that you can throw in with little fuss then this is a no brainer. For experienced players each board is a five minute teach for each board and then you're away and back in this world that you already love but with all new ways to explore.

Right, this wavy path needs to be more spooky so I’m gonna break it up into pieces to make it, I dunno, more, crazy? Huh, crazy paving, I think there might be something in that!