Now that our in-house Arcs expert Andrew Lynch has shared his thoughts on Arcs, we thought it would be fun to have other Meeple Mountain contributors share their thoughts on the latest design from Cole Wehrle, in the form of our Quick Peaks roundups. Since Arcs has spent a stretch as what feels like the only tabletop game out there, let’s see what some of our other writers have to say about the hottest game in the world!
Arcs: That Campaign Was Something Else – Justin Bell
I have played Arcs eight times now—five plays of the base game, and a three-game series of “Acts” known as The Blighted Reach, the Arcs campaign expansion. The campaign is quite an investment, starting with a learning curve that I would describe as significant. The base game rules for Arcs can be taught to almost any gamer in about 15 minutes. The campaign rules might take you 30-40 minutes on their own. I did the five base game plays before trying to learn the campaign…and I was still checking the campaign rulebook by the end of the third and final Act. There are so many new rules that there is literally a second rules booklet that players build during the start of each round of the campaign! Did a game so accessible and so interesting need enough rules to turn it into a heavy Lacerda-style strategy game?
While we didn’t think the campaign’s narrative really captured any specific magic, the framework was fun to navigate and some of the things in that big box are wild. (Don’t even get me started on the Thanos-style “Fate” known as the Planet Breaker.) It’s interesting to see what the game will throw at players, but it comes at a very high cost—a greatly-increased playtime (at least one hour longer per game than base Arcs), an experience that often had players doing very un-Arcs-like tasks (one player was essentially playing a deduction game in the second Act), and a mess of cards that needed to be described to opponents nearly every turn to ensure all players understand what is possible during combat.
I can see why some players prefer the campaign over the base game…if anything, designer Cole Wehrle and the development team at Leder Games have done a masterful job building so much content for fans to explore the Arcs system. (And that’s before we’ve gotten any expansions!) But for me, base Arcs is so good, so accessible, so fast, and so much fun that I think I’ll be in good shape with just the base game for a while.
Would I play Arcs again?:
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Arcs: Database Constraints – Thomas Wells
I’ve only played the base game of Arcs once, and I have minimal interest in doing so again. Ultimately, the core ruleset offers little in the way of innovating on the core loop of dozens of other area control games. Like many Wehrle designs and games of the Pax lineage, the game is “drag the first player down and stop hitting them when they’ve had enough.” Rinse and repeat.
The campaign, The Blighted Reach, on the other hand, is a unique experience. If you’d like to see what’s exciting about this design, it’s a must-play. I’ve opined elsewhere about my contempt for the idea of gateway games, or games which scaffold you into trying other games. 18XX for example: if you’re trying to see if you like the system, you ought to play the one that offers the largest expression of what makes 18XX 18XX. Most games are explicable and coherent, and with the right instruction, most people can learn anything if they have interest and motivation to do so.
The simplest way I can describe what makes the campaign good is this: scope. The Blighted Reach manages to capture the feeling of being an inhabitant in a big galaxy with competing material interests. Sure, there’s a whiff of drag the leader down, but now, doing that has often unexpected consequences. My attempts to punish one player in a campaign game resulted in a devastating loss for me in that Act of the campaign that I wasn’t able to fully recover from until the 11th hour of the next. The additions of neutral components (the blight) and shared components (the empire) add dimension and strategic depth to the play space, and the odd tangential goals players pursue add delectable texture.
I don’t love the whole “games tell stories” bit. People tell stories. People interpret. Art is dead embers awaiting animation. The Blighted Reach is a database, and it’s a rich one. It’s a database that records player decisions, successes, failures, foolhardiness, courage, cowardice. You can play all three acts of the campaign or just one. In any case, it’s not for those looking for a quick light game, but it rewards the effort you invest. As a designer, this is what I try to bring into my games, and I am always impressed to see someone else prioritizing the same thing.
Would I play Arcs again?:
★☆☆☆☆ – Would play again but will cry about it
Would I play Arcs: The Blighted Reach again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Thomas Wells.
Arcs: Space Stew – Abram Towle
My experience with Arcs thus far is incredibly minimal–a single play of the base game in which we were constantly realizing things that we had been misplaying and misinterpreting despite the relatively low rules overhead. I was very impressed with the speed of the teach–a maximum of 15 minutes–before we dove straight into the game with the ghosts of the rules marinating in the background of our minds.
Coming from a background inundated with trick-takers like Hearts and Sheepshead, the core gameplay loop of the base game was easy to pick up. Just like games in a similar vein, you’re never guaranteed a hand where you can win a bunch of tricks outright. Instead, you’re left to navigate towards what the cards give you like you’re a smuggler flying through an asteroid field. It’s a game of limited resources and managing their allocation by playing in the moment and not planning too far ahead.
When we wrapped up the game, I was actually disappointed because the initial response from my group was that they didn’t really care for it. Between a combination of the trick-taking (described as “clunky”) and the relentless space warfare, things just weren’t clicking. On the other hand, I couldn’t stop thinking about the game because I wanted to try it again without making some of the gamebreaking blunders that we had made early on.
A few hours later, however, we were talking about Arcs again and the sentiment was beginning to change. One of my friends flipped their view on the trick-taking 180 degrees, instead extolling how there was a surprising amount of strategy in how you played your cards, especially with the claiming of Ambition being factored in. Just like how I had been reminiscing about the game, it seems like Arcs had wormed its way into the minds of my group, allowing them to percolate on its gameplay. This makes me hopeful that additional plays are in my future, and–hopefully–The Blighted Reach as well.
Would I play Arcs again?:
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Read more articles from Abram Towle.
Arcs: Loading, Ready, Run – Will Hare
I’ve played Arcs about half a dozen times now. Games simply don’t hit the table around my house quite as often anymore. But I’ve excitedly introduced Arcs to just about every person with a passing interest in it over the last month or so.
Here’s the problem: I’ve yet to even sniff the Blighted Reach campaign. The largest problem with Arcs being so popular–and being the only friend with a copy–is that I’m constantly teaching groups of new players how to play. That means I’m just teaching them bare bones Arcs at its core. We’re not even using the asymmetrical leaders or lore modules, as recommended by the rulebook. I once thought myself to be enough of an advanced board gamer that I could skip that recommendation, but I truly cannot advise doing that. The way the leaders and asymmetrical powers change the core game loop is something you cannot appreciate until you’ve played the core game loop.
Most leaders come with a drawback and a benefit. It is nigh impossible to understand the pros and cons of each leader’s specific quirks without running through the base game. The Rebel gets extra dice in battle! Cool! But they can’t move more than two ships at a time. Eh? Is that a big deal? When looking at an initial setup without playing, you might think no. In actuality… yes! And without that understanding, jumping right in with the leaders and lore modules is just asking for someone to have a bad time.
That being said, obviously, the meat and potatoes of this thing is the campaign expansion. I’ve read through a lot of the cards and have a good understanding of how zany things can get, and I am licking my lips waiting for the opportunity to jump right now. Hopefully, my next playgroup will be some combination of the people I’ve taught already. Otherwise, if I’m teaching someone else the base game again, I’ll still enjoy myself, but I’ll just shed a single tear as I stare wistfully at the campaign box.
Would I play Arcs again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Will Hare.
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