Game Review: ARCS
Conflict and Collapse generates some good grade A table salt...
Welcome to the Glyph and Grok - A “weekly” blog-letter exploring topics in the tabletop gaming arena. We explore design, execution, and culture relating to anything played on a tabletop.
Introduction
This year at Gencon, I got the chance to play a couple games of Leder Games' ARCS. This was very popular at the convention and was hard to get your hands on as they sold out of copies each day.
Fortunately I was at Noble Knight in Madison, Wisconsin two weeks prior, which was when that store received their retail Kickstarter pledges. I had enough in store credit to pick up a copy without actually realizing how popular it was. When i’d previously seen the game, I was not drawn in, but I had a feeling about it when I saw this time.
In retrospect, I should have known I would love this game. I'm a big fan of the designer Cole Wehrle. My favorite game for a long time has been ROOT, and I own and enjoy OATH - but have some trouble getting that one to the table as much.
ARCS will have no issue getting to my table.
The Game
We're only discussing the base game here. There's a whole expansion with a box bigger than the base game that turns it into a short campaign space opera, but none of that for this entry.
There is a merry and thoughtful combination of theme and mechanics in Leder games that I always find compelling. From evocative differences between the asymmetrical playable animal factions in ROOT and each copy of OATH grows to have a different deck representing the denizens of the realm based on which “faction” has been winning in previous games.
In ARCS, everyone starts on a level playing field as a space nation vying for dominance. Some ships, a space port, and a city providing one of the game’s resources in a random placement is the basic setup. The two games I played were straight up like this, but even the base game comes with space faction leader cards that sprinkle in asymmetry similar to games like Cosmic Encounters.
Trick-taking is the foundation of the rounds of this space strategy opera and defines the kinds of actions that can be most numerously executed. This process is much longer and drawn out in games like Twilight Imperium, but here it is VERY streamlined and easy to grok. The combination of larger strategy and keeping track of what cards might still be out there to be played is a brain tickle.
The actions that can be taken the most this turn will be of the suit of the lead card, the highest value of which will take the trick and initiative next turn, and if the lead player wants, they can activate one of the victory point goals for the round at the cost of giving up their initiative. I can't stress enough how enjoyable this little multi-axis decision is for me.
The suit of the card, the number of the card, and the number of pips on the face of the lead card are all directly effective of what happens on the turn the card is played.
You’ll be influencing court members for special abilities, creating cities and space ports, blowing up your enemies ships/cities/space ports, taking captives and trophies, stealing resources, and telling the story of a space nation in the far reaches of space.
Conclusion
This game more than any of the Leder games i’ve tried previously does such a good job of the mechanics providing interesting decisions while sinking to the background to give the player a feel that they are actually doing the things the mechanics are simulating.
My feeling is that the decision points related to each abstracted part of running a space civilization are successful in making you think as much about the effect of your decisions on the rest of the table as your own immediate actions. I’ve had instances of this after playing many many games of ROOT and understanding what each faction is likely going for at any given time, but ARCS managed to get me there in a single playthrough.
There may be things I end up not liking about this game, and I am not sure if I will get the campaign version (I mean yes I will get it, probably only a matter of when) but the basic gameplay loop and the replay ability of this game at even a basic level is quite impressive.
If you like strategy games, if you like space strategy games, this feels like a top tier space empire strategy game that far exceeds it’s entry price and will get a lot of time at your table.
What I Am Up To
TTRPG Reading: Shadow of the Demon Lord, ICRPG, Shadowdark
TTRPG Production: Develope my Gencon One-shot into a sellable product
Audiobook: The Daughter’s War, The Blacktongue Thief
Useful Things For Your Games
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