Previously, we looked at some of the unique new meta game elements that add a lot of choice, story, and replayability to the expanded Search for Professor Kutil campaign that’s included in our upcoming Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition expansion. Next up, let’s explore what playing cooperatively brings to the experience.

The challenging six chapter campaign can be enjoyed entirely as a solo experience, but it also takes on a slightly different shape when you dive into it with another player cooperatively. In the newly added co-op mode, two players team up against an AI rival, while striving to complete the main challenges and bonus objectives of each chapter. Even with each other’s help, that’s no easy feat—by design.

A team building exercise

One of the bigger design challenges that arose in developing content for the expansion came from the decision to turn the campaign, which was a purely solo experience in the free PNP version released online previously, into a mode that could be enjoyed with a friend.

“We wanted it to become a cooperative two player campaign, and we had to think about ways to make that work,” says co-designer Mín. “Because, currently the player kind of accomplishes a lot in the solo campaign game, and if you add another player into the mix, then you need different goals. So we needed to mix it up a little bit and make it tougher, and make it possible for two players to play the game.”

As such, the scenario win conditions, as well as all of the bonus achievements in each scenario, scale upwards to boost the difficulty in a two-player game. It’s quite tough to complete all of the achievements in a given scenario on top of the main—even in a co-op game—which plays nicely into the teamwork aspect of this new mode. If you don’t work together carefully, you’re going to struggle. Fortunately, we’ve also added some new friends to give you a hand in your fruitful collaborations. 

Birds of a feather

We’ve added a few more layers to encourage teamwork and interaction between players, as well. Including…[checks notes]…errr…cute carrier pigeons?

“The carrier pigeons add a cooperation element, where you can send your friend a resource,” says Mín. “It really helped us to make it even more cooperative, because now you can send jewels or something else of high value that can help them a lot, or you could be needing their help in return.”

Pigeon tokens are a free action that each can be used once per round to send a resource to the other player. They get exhausted after each use, and are flipped over to the nesting side of the token. The twist is that they don’t get refreshed until the next round. Also, the carrier pigeons don’t automatically return to their original owners each round; they stay with the player they’re with until they’re sent back. “So if I send you something with my pigeon, if you don’t send yours with something that round, the next time I can’t send anything,” she adds. “I really like that element of it.”

That’s not the only way players can interact either. In some scenarios, players will need to spend actions and resources to fulfill special goals on the board. In a co-op game, you can pool together the necessary resources for that between players, even though one player will still need to spend an action to complete the goal.

Some encounter card choices also give you an action or benefit that you can hang onto and use later in the game at any point you choose—these can be used freely by either player, not just the person who earned them. All of these nuances add up to a lot of interactivity in a co-op game, which is a very fresh and different way to play Arnak if you’re used to the flow of a regular game. We can’t wait to share this expansion with you soon enough!

Stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe to the Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition BGG page so you don’t miss any important updates!

Our last article explored some of the design thought processes that are going into expanding and updating the story campaign in Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition, but we have so much more to show you!

Adding in more layers of replayability, and giving players the opportunity to make choices that can unlock surprises, is an important piece of the puzzle in the upcoming expansion. That’s where the all-new meta game elements come in. They introduce more weight to the choices you make as you navigate story cards and other objectives throughout the campaign. With every decision you make, you’ll work towards more opportunities to uncover interesting story branches and gain rewards to help you in future chapters.

Adding story unlockables

The original PNP version of the Search of Professor Kutil campaign includes story cards that give you a snippet of story and a choice between two options that provide some benefit you can use. We’re adding more story card options and expanding the impact they have on your campaign with a new meta game progression mechanic that carries over across multiple games.

Each choice you make when encountering story cards will also earn you a special thematic symbol that you’ll mark off on the corresponding track of your campaign score sheet. You’ll also earn symbols for any bonus achievements you complete, too. Over the course of the entire campaign, you’ll progress along these tracks based-on your choices from chapter to chapter. When you complete a chapter, you’ll check the progress chart and potentially unlock special multi-part story events and rewards. This can make for some interesting considerations in the moment — for example: perhaps you could really use a particular reward that one option gives you, but the other would also give you the specific symbol you need to unlock the next piece of side story (and a potential carry-over surprise) at the end of the chapter. 

The goal of introducing the story cards was to immerse players in a theme in the moment and give them a dynamic reward for the choices they made based-on each situation. But Arnak co-designer Mín notes that in the original free PNP version there wasn’t anything that would stay with you beyond those momentary choices.

“And I really wanted that to be a part of it…to let the players experience finding mysteries and connecting the dots,” she says. “If you keep meeting different and strange occurrences then maybe one day you will actually find out what it was all about. I really like that approach.”

Note: we’re also adding new sites and guardians that let you use story cards in a regular multiplayer game of Arnak, though they won’t connect to the meta game when used that way. 

Adding more layers of depth and challenge

Creating story and playing around with the way storylines are revealed was one of Mín’s favorite aspects of working on the campaign. “The idea to add the meta game element came about because I wanted to have some way to connect the campaign,” she says. “I wanted to add weight to the choices you make, so it’s not just ‘right now I need gold or I need compasses’ it was more about ‘I could really use the gold but maybe this sounds like an interesting story I could unearth’”

Chapter bonus achievements have also changed a lot in The Missing Expedition. In the free PNP chapters, achievements were basically some extra goals to strive for that would give you victory points. This time around, they have a more thematic twist and more interesting rewards.

“Imagine that the main goal is the basic thing you can achieve, but the achievements further that and give you a lot more rewards,” explains Mín “For example, they can give you a card immediately and then that unlocks it for the next time you play, but also it unlocks more of the story. It also serves to make the game a little bit harder. Playing the lowest difficulty would be just playing the main goals, and then if you’re really feeling tough you can try going for all of the achievements.”

Next up, we’ll talk more about the differences between playing solo vs co-op. Stay tuned and don’t forget to subscribe to the Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Missing Expedition BGG page so you don’t miss any important updates!