Review
Arcs
Arcs improves markedly once the advanced rules, asymmetric alien factions, and their powers enter the picture. It still leaves too much of its balance to the people around the table, but this is no longer an automatic no.
- Published
- 2024
- Designer
- Cole Wehrle
- Publisher
- Buried Giant Studios, Leder Games, 2Tomatoes Games
- Players
- 2–4
- Playing time
- 120 min
My first encounter with Arcs was the bare, symmetrical version, and it left me cold. Bring in the advanced rules, though, and it grows a second face: asymmetric alien factions and their powers give the choices some character at last, and give the table a reason to sit up.
The core is still about getting more out of your own side than the others get from theirs, round after round, rather than all of you travelling along the same neat, empty track. The asymmetry is not window dressing. It changes how you approach decisions, and makes the advanced game feel like a design that has finally decided what it is for.
Asymmetric alien factions and their powers give the choices some character at last, and give the table a reason to sit up.
TheCuttlefish
Then the hitting starts. Players collide, lean on each other’s plans, and laugh when a scheme goes gloriously wrong, but Arcs often expects the table itself to keep a runaway player in check. You need a group that knows when to push back against the leader; otherwise balance is merely a polite hope.
It is not perfect, and it still relies too heavily on the players to keep itself balanced. But Arcs has moved, for me, from ‘put it out for recycling’ to ‘yes, I’d play that again’ — which is rather more praise than it sounds.
But Arcs has moved, for me, from ‘put it out for recycling’ to ‘yes, I’d play that again’ — which is rather more praise than it sounds.
TheCuttlefish
Source: BoardGameGeek
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