Arcs (board game)

Last updated
Arcs
Conflict & Collapse in the Reach
Arcs game box.png
Designers Cole Wehrle
IllustratorsKyle Ferrin
Publishers Leder Games
Publication2024 (2024)
Genres Space opera
Players2-4
Playing time60-120 minutes
ChanceMedium
Age range14+

Arcs: Conflict & Collapse in the Reach is a space opera board game designed by Cole Wehrle, illustrated by Kyle Ferrin, and published by Leder Games in 2024 alongside Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion, a large expansion which significantly modifies the base game into a three-act legacy campaign. [1] In Arcs, players compete to gain the most points by fulfilling variable objectives, taking actions through a trick-taking system and using different dice to attack enemy starships, with each player possessing variable powers. Following initial releases to Kickstarter backers, the base game and expansion were released to retail on October 1 2024. [2]

Contents

Gameplay

The base game of Arcs is a fast-paced strategy game set in the "Reach", an area of outer space. Players portray spacefaring societies, and attempt to win by obtaining galactic supremacy, [3] gaining points by fulfilling various objectives called "ambitions", [1] which include constructing buildings, upgrading their respective spaceships, gathering resources from the various planets depicted on the board, and waging war. [4] Each game is played over five "chapters", or rounds, and begins with a randomized setup. [1]

A large amount of gameplay revolves around trick-taking using action cards. This begins each round with one player, who has the 'initiative', [5] leading by placing a card onto the table from their hand and taking actions based on the card's suit, and other players following based on the number on that card, [4] sometimes being restricted into copying the same action as a result. [5] Some cards allow more actions to be taken, with a base number of 1 actions per turn and extra actions allowed if resources, which are also used to score points, are spent. The player who leads is able to declare an ambition, determining how players score points in that round, but in doing so drops the number on their played card to zero, meaning that others can easily overtake them in the turn order. Available court cards enable players to customise their personal gameplay through individual powers, and can be stolen by other players. [1]

Players fight with starship pieces which can be in three states; healthy, damaged or off the board, [1] effectively allowing them two points of damage. [6] Three types of dice are used for different types of attack on the board, with blue dice offering low damage but no risk, red dice being more aggressive but coming with significant risk, and orange dice which enable the theft of resources but at a high risk. [1] The attacking player can choose to distribute damage among their own ships while concentrating damage on individual enemy ships, thus encouraging players to play aggressively. [6]

The Blighted Reach Expansion

Arcs: The Blighted Reach Expansion is a day-one expansion of the base game which turns it into a three-session campaign with changing rules. At the beginning of the campaign, players are given a choice between two "fates", some of which introduce new systems to the game which affect all players and which can change between each game of the campaign if that player chooses to do so. The board state is retained between each game in the campaign. [2]

Development

Wehrle has stated that after the completion of the design of his 2021 game Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile , he "was filled with all sorts of odd ideas that didn't fit into that game", and "wanted to stay in the space but design something new," making a more "narratively chunky" game. He was inspired by roguelike games. [7]

Initially marketed during development as Arcs: Collapse and Conflict in the Void, the game was announced on October 3, 2021. At this point, Wehrle described it as a "short campaign game" playable in 2 to 4 sessions for 3 to 4 players and with a total run time of five hours maximum. [7] In February 2022, Wehrle stated that the game would have "40 to 50" different objective cards to pursue, leading to "tens of thousands of different possible game states", including secret objectives, with the result of each game having a direct impact on the setup of the next. [8]

On May 3, 2022, [9] A Kickstarter campaign was scheduled for May 24 until June 14 that year, with shipment to backers estimated to begin in December 2023. [10] Unlike Wehrle's 2018 game Root, players of Arcs were expected to have starting identities rather than asymmetric factions, and unlike Oath, the game world would be reset after three games of the campaign. [9]

On May 17, 2022, Leder Games announced that it planned to separate the campaign section of Arcs from its replayable base game, instead marketing the campaign as an expansion; Wehrle cited potential future struggles in marketing Arcs as a big-box experience, as well as the need to provide an "arcade mode" for players to understand the game better before beginning an "overwhelming" campaign as the main reasons for this change. [10] In doing this, the game could also be designed with the intention to add further expansions in the form of add-on modules by their other designers. He designed the campaign expansion as a "three-act structure", in which the acts were individual playthroughs that each flowed into the next game through analog "procedural generation". Wehrle intended for the game to operate in a similar way to games such as Twilight Imperium and Eclipse, though with significantly quicker games of 60-90 minutes. [3]

The Kickstarter campaign earned over $532,000 in its first five hours when launched. [3] In March 2023, while Arcs was in its early access development stage, Wehrle stated that the game would feature a two-player mode, requiring a restriction of the size of the map, alteration of how cards were drawn and change to how players gained resources and scored points. [4] The game's full retail release was expected in September 2024, [5] though it was eventually released on October 1 that year. [2]

Reception

Arcs received high praise from critics. Rob Wieland of Forbes praised the game for its speed compared to Twilight Imperium, Eclipse and Star Wars: Rebellion . He remarked that the base game was "one that's stayed in the conversation with my friends long after we’ve tried it out," and compared the start of each game to "a Star Wars cold open", with players feeling as though they were "the head of a big space bureaucracy". [1] Bell of Lost Souls compared the game to "if Warhammer 40,000 stopped pretending it wasn't as goofy and silly as it is" and called it a "space opera". [5] In July 2024, Luis Aguasvivas of NPR listed Arcs as one of the best games of the year thus far. [11] Polygon awarded it the Polygon Recommends badge, stating that its expansion was "completely over the top in all the best ways, and there’s nothing yet released quite like it", and it was "a magnificent design that deserves recognition as one of 2024’s best releases." [2] Matt Thrower of IGN gave the game a 10/10 "masterpiece" rating, writing that the game was successful in its attempt to "balance challenging strategic elements with the classic fun of negotiation and dice-rolling", and that it was "an awesome thing to behold, carving a story arc of its own right through the annals of board game design". [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Jackson Games</span> American game publishing company

Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and the gaming magazine Pyramid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powered by the Apocalypse</span> Design framework for tabletop role-playing games

Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop role-playing game design framework developed by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker for the 2010 game Apocalypse World and later adapted for hundreds of other indie role-playing games.

<i>Kingdom Death: Monster</i> Board game

Kingdom Death: Monster is a cooperative board game created by Adam Poots and released in 2015.

<i>Scythe</i> (board game) Board game set in an alternative history version of 1920s Europe

Scythe is a board game for one to five players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games in 2016. Set in an alternative history version of 1920s Europe, players control factions that produce resources, develop economic infrastructure, and use dieselpunk combat mechs to engage in combat and control territories. Players take up to two actions per turn using individual player boards, and the game proceeds until one player has earned six achievements. At this point, the players receive coins for the achievements they have attained and the territories they control, and the player with the most coins is declared the winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legacy game</span> Board game genre

A legacy game is a variant of tabletop board games in which the game itself is designed, through various mechanics, to change permanently over the course of a series of sessions.

<i>Gloomhaven</i> 2017 cooperative strategy role-playing board game

Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game for one to four players designed by Isaac Childres and published by Cephalofair Games in 2017. It is a campaign-based dungeon crawl game including a narrative campaign, 95 unique playable scenarios, and 17 playable classes. Since its introduction the game has been acclaimed by reviewers, and has been described as one of the best board games ever made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wingspan (board game)</span> 2019 board game about birds

Wingspan is a board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It is a card-driven, engine-building board game in which players compete to attract birds to their wildlife reserves. During the game's development process, Hargrave constructed personal charts of birds observed in Maryland, with statistics sourced from various biological databases; the special powers of birds were also selected to resemble real-life characteristics. Upon its release, Wingspan received critical and commercial acclaim for its gameplay, accurate thematic elements, and artwork. The game also won numerous awards, including the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres. Several expansions and a digital edition have been subsequently published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spirit Island (board game)</span> Co-operative strategy board game

Spirit Island is a euro-style co-operative strategy board game designed by R. Eric Reuss and published by Greater Than Games in 2017. Digital versions have been released for PC, iOS, and Android.

Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right is a 2018 asymmetric strategy wargame board game designed by Cole Wehrle, illustrated by Kyle Ferrin, and published by Leder Games. In Root, players compete for the most victory points through moving and battling using various factions with unique abilities. Upon its release, Root received positive reviews, and was followed by four expansions. A digital version, developed by Dire Wolf Digital, was released in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leder Games</span> American board game company

Leder Games is a board game developer owned by Patrick Leder and based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is best known for publishing asymmetric games such as Root and Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile, which were both designed by Cole Wehrle. As of 2023, board games released by the company have usually been illustrated by Kyle Ferrin.

<i>Sagrada</i> (board game) Dice-drafting board game

Sagrada is a dice-drafting board game designed by Adrian Adamescu and Daryl Andrews and published in 2017 by Floodgate Games. Each player constructs a stained-glass window using dice on a personal 4×5 game board board with restrictions on the types of dice that can be played on each space. Players gain points by completing public and secret objectives for dice placements, and the one with the most after ten rounds is the winner.

<i>Pax Pamir</i> 2015 board game by Cole Wehrle

Pax Pamir is a board game originally designed by Cole Wehrle and Phil Eklund, released in 2015 by Sierra Madre Games. Its second edition was solely designed by Wehrle and published in 2019 by Wehrlegig Games. It concerns the Russian, British, and Durrani empires struggling for dominance in Afghanistan, with players assuming the role of local leaders. Pax Pamir received positive reviews upon its release and was nominated for several awards.

Viticulture is a worker placement board game published by Stonemaier Games in 2013. The game's design was crowdfunded via a campaign on Kickstarter, with the concept of players building an Italian vineyard. Upon its release, Viticulture received praise for its engagement, but its luck was critiqued. Several expansions and reprints were later released.

<i>Thirsty Sword Lesbians</i> 2021 tabletop role-playing game

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a narrative-focused tabletop role-playing game that emphasizes telling "melodramatic and queer stories". The game was funded via a 2020 Kickstarter campaign and published by Evil Hat Productions in 2021. It uses a modification of the Powered by the Apocalypse game system.

<i>Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile</i> 2021 asymmetric board game

Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile is a 2021 board game with asymmetric gameplay and legacy elements designed by Cole Wehrle, illustrated by Kyle Ferrin, and published by Leder Games. In Oath, players compete to become the Chancellor, and the events of each game influence the events of the games that follow. Upon its release, Oath received positive reviews, and an expansion for the game is in development. The game is part of an increase in the release of games that are based on a scenario or have a campaign structure, and is focused on fantasy politics and crisis.

<i>The Last of Us: Escape the Dark</i> Tabletop game

The Last of Us: Escape the Dark is an upcoming tabletop role-playing game published by Themeborne. Based on Naughty Dog's video game The Last of Us, the tabletop game was developed in partnership with Naughty Dog as an extension of Themeborne's Escape the Dark games. The game allows up to five players to control characters from The Last of Us. The goal is to reach safety from enemies while exploring locations from the game. Themeborne announced the game in November 2022; it was funded through a Kickstarter campaign, and is due for release in November 2024.

<i>John Company</i> (board game) 2017 board game by Cole Wehrle

John Company is a board game designed by Cole Wehrle, originally released in 2017 by Sierra Madre Games with a second edition in 2022 by Wehrlegig Games. The game concerns the fortunes of the British East India Company (EIC), nicknamed "John Company", as it trades with India and China, raises armies, and influences Parliament. One to six players take the role of families who co-operatively run the Company for profit, while competing against each other to acquire the most prestige.

Flamecraft is a card game designed by Manny Vega which was fundraised via Kickstarter and published in 2022 by Cardboard Alchemy featuring illustrations by Sandara Tang. Players act as "Flamekeepers", assisting shops in town with dragons and enchantments in order to have the best reputation by the end of the game.

Cole Wehrle is an American board game designer and academic. He has designed the board games Root, Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile, and the upcoming Arcs at Leder Games, and he co-owns Wehrlegig Games with his brother, designing the historical games Pax Pamir, John Company and co-designing Molly House.

<i>Quest</i> (role-playing game) Tabletop role-playing game

Quest is a rules-light, fantasy tabletop role-playing game designed to welcome beginners to the hobby. It was created in 2019 by T.C. Sottek, executive editor at The Verge. It was published by Sottek's indie publishing company, the Adventure Guild, after a Kickstarter campaign raised $153,614. Quest was nominated for the 2020 ENnie Awards in four categories. Since 2022, the digital edition of Quest has been available for free. Other creators are allowed to make and sell products based on Quest.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wieland, Rob. "The Trick To Taking A Game Of Arcs Is Being A Flexible Emperor". Forbes . Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Theel, Charlie (2024-10-01). "Arcs is the ambitious new sci-fi board game from the designer of Root, and it's extraordinary". Polygon . Retrieved 2024-11-17.
  3. 1 2 3 Percovich, Gianluca (2022-05-24). "Arcs is a 4X board game from the team behind critically acclaimed Root and Oath". Polygon . Retrieved 2024-03-02.
  4. 1 2 3 Meehan, Alex (2023-03-20). "Root creator's next board game, Arcs, will feature a two-player mode". Dicebreaker . Retrieved 2024-03-02.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Sall, Matt (2024-06-16). "Timing is Everything in Leder Games' New Quick Playing Space Opera 'Arcs'". Bell of Lost Souls. Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  6. 1 2 3 Thrower, Matt (2024-11-13). "Arcs Board Game Review". IGN . Retrieved 2024-11-17.
  7. 1 2 Hall, Charlie (2021-10-04). "Designer of hit board games Root and Oath reveals Arcs: Collapse and Conflict in the Void". Polygon . Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  8. ↑ Meehan, Alex (2022-02-24). "Root creator's next board game Arcs can be played "thousands of times"". Dicebreaker . Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  9. 1 2 Meehan, Alex (2022-05-04). "Root creator's next board game, Arcs, gets a Kickstarter launch date". Dicebreaker . Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  10. 1 2 Carter, Chase (2022-05-24). "Root and Oath creator's new board game, Arcs, splits its campaign mode into an expansion". Dicebreaker . Retrieved 2024-07-16.
  11. ↑ Mastromarino, James Perkins (2024-07-16). "The best games of 2024 so far, picked by NPR's staff". NPR . Retrieved 2024-07-18.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.