Lost Ruins of Arnak – Twisted Paths Expansion Review
Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game I forget just how much I enjoy playing not long after it hits the table. It went unloved on my shelf from 2022 to 2024 and then again from late 2024 until early 2026, but Arnak certainly isn’t the only game I find this with. It’s a shame I let it gather as much dust as I did, because getting reps in with the Twisted Paths expansion pushed me to go back and actually spend more time with the Expedition Leaders and Missing Expedition expansions, both of which I’d bought and in the case of the latter, left sealed. Completionist FOMO strikes again!
I shed plenty of games in the four-year period of near-perpetual Arnak drought, but Arnak itself was never up for sale consideration. There’s something I find comforting about playing it, a mid-weight efficiency puzzle via light deck-building that’s akin to warm soup on a cold, drizzly day. It’s also the only modern boardgame I’ve ever convinced my wife to play with me; she promptly defeated me by focusing on the Research Track (a strategy I’d advised) and then offered me the chance to review the Twisted Paths expansion, originally a part of their Adventure Chest big-box crowdfunding campaign, I took it as a chance to rekindle my love of cardboard adventure once more and fix those abysmal play numbers on BG Stats.
Twisted Paths is the third and as of writing this review, final large expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak. Consequently, it’s aimed at very experienced Arnak players as opposed to recent buyers who I would direct to the Expedition Leaders expansion first and then the Missing Expedition expansion if wanting a more solo/co-op focus. Twisted Paths in fact recommends it be combined with the Expedition Leaders expansion to show its best self, relying on the asymmetric player characters to make the most of the gameplay adjustments found on the new double-sided Owl Temple/Spider Temple board, the largest item in the box and the reason for its conspicuous size, taller than the base game itself.
Alongside the enormous board, Twisted Paths contains new Assistants, Sites, Guardians, Idol & Research tiles, dark Tablets and Lantern Research tokens. Twisted Paths also adds the ‘Purple’ difficulty Rival solo action tiles and the Rival objective tiles, both previously only available via Print and Play from CGE, alongside two new tiles to make the solo mode compatible with the new gameboard. Rounding out the package are some thick card dividers designed for the Adventure Chest box, without which they are completely pointless, but understandably easier to include than machining a new die-cutter for the punchboard sheets. It’s quite possible to toss a lot of this stuff into the base game without much thought, but the dark tablets, Lantern Research tokens and the Owl Temple tiles are exclusively for the new Temples and won’t work otherwise. The Spider Temple and the Owl Temple subvert some of the strategies of the main game and, as the rulebook warns, will adjust typical end-game scores as a result. Blowing the dust off my base Arnak box, I was excited to find a Folded Space insert I forgot I’d purchased. However, refamiliarizing myself with the game was far more of a chore than unpacking components thanks to the rulebook, my only complaint about Twisted Paths as a package.
I know I said earlier that this box is clearly for the Arnak devoted, but it’s no excuse for including a book that fails to facilitate someone coming over from the base game or easing back into expanded Arnak after a lengthy break. For one, the rules skip over some setup instructions that have been adjusted from the base game and make it unclear just what is still expected. An example are the ‘wave’ tokens, used to block excess spaces and tighten up the board when playing a two or three player game – the original rules had these placed over every rightmost ‘double Boots’ space on the Tent sites, but there is only one such space between both sides of the new board. Alas, this doesn’t mean these tokens are forgone, but are placed on any rightmost space regardless of icon when drawn. It’s already been confirmed the rulebook will be revised in a future printing to eliminate such issues, but it was still a hassle juggling three rulebooks and the BGG rules forum to get things prepped. Once the game was underway however, intuitive iconography and a smooth gameplay loop helped this initial slight sour taste wash right out. Being the much cooler looking side of the new board – lava river at night anyone? – I started out with a few games of the Spider Temple.
The ‘darker’ side of Arnak, the Spider Temple is a tough board to play on, making some big alterations to the standard Temple track and punishing players who get too ‘greedy’. Changing more things out of the gate during setup, the Spider Temple keeps a supply of ‘dark’ tablets on the bottom of the main board. Initially filled with dark tablets equal to player count in each space, as they are emptied by players collectively spending them on the Temple track, each space progressively dishes out larger end-game point losses. Over to the right, the Temple track’s unique feature is five ‘Altar’ spaces for Artifact cards which – surprise, surprise – require dark tablets to trigger. Once a player gets a Research token above an Altar space, they can spend a dark tablet as a Main action to select an Artifact card from the row, execute its effect, lay the card on the empty Altar space and place the spent dark tablet on the spot matching their player colour underneath. Of course, this then prevents the card from entering any players deck, but does allow them, or any other player for that matter, to trigger the card up to three times by spending dark tablets. Have the majority of dark tablet tiles under an Altar? You just scored yourself some bonus points as denoted above the card space, a minor way to offset any negative points from messing with these forbidden items. Ascending to the top of the Spider Temple track needs discipline, focus and just a bit of luck from Sites, Guardians and the card decks, hence the expected lower scores. For me, this was Arnak at its brain-burniest, the trade-off between spending dark tablets for powerful Artifact effects and then opening myself up to some end-game negativity making me chew on my turns a little bit longer than I might have otherwise. That said, the much brighter, points-heavier Owl Temple on the other side of the board had me equally tortured over minor mathematics.
A much friendlier looking board, the Owl Temple nevertheless wrinkles the temple track to a huge degree with some incredible bonuses, but always at an opportunity cost. For a start, the second row of Level 1 Site tiles has an added cost of two coins but an extra bonus Idol tile. Why would an abundance of Idol tiles be helpful? Well, that’s thanks to the newly included ‘Owl Temple’ tiles which can be bought by moving up the temple track. Worth 1, 5 or 10 points, they can be combined in pairs to create a new space for an Idol tile activation independent of the player board, saving up to 4 points by the end of the game. Having been on the receiving end of someone executing this strategy very well, I can attest that it both pays dividends to the successful player and will cause very real pain to any player trailing in their wake and nabbing only the single point Owl Temple tiles, if any, as a result.
At the outset this seems like a simple variation on the ‘race up the temple’ strategy the original board is known for, yet the resource cost for the 10 point tiles feels high at each point the lead player is likely to run across them. To boot, taking them constitutes and action, so other players can put pressure on simply by moving closer. The Owl Temple hides another twist to the temple track; Secret Passages. At certain intervals, players can choose to slot their Magnifying glass token off to the side, get a little benefit and then ‘restart’ the Owl Temple again with the new Lantern token. Doing this means paying twice for a number of movements up the track, but the rewards bestowed by the Lantern bonus are improved over the Magnifying glass and both tokens will score any end-game Research points. It’s wheels within wheels and amps up the order-of-operations, resource conversion and competition to the next level – no wonder the designers recommend using the Expedition Leaders powers to gain a leg up. This extra crunch comes with a little extra time on top in a high player count game though and will likely see 30-45 minutes added in a 3-4 player game, at least for the first few runs.
CGE production is something I’ve really come to appreciate. The density of their cardboard and the nice matte finish on each piece have begun to feel luxurious compared to some other modern productions that skimp on cardboard quality and finish. Their iconography is intuitive and the colours are evocative, both sides of the new board capturing the intended mood. The box feels too large, but without the Adventure Chest there’s no way to store the full gamut of Arnak products anyway – as it is, even a Folded Space insert has only saved me the Expedition Leaders box, with the Missing Expedition hopefully condensing into the Twisted Paths box, or at least the parts that work in a multiplayer game. There’s a real risk of expanding a game so much that taking it to a game meet becomes a chore. With Twisted Paths I fear Arnak has hit that point, something CGE seem aware of given they currently have no plans for further major expansions. Would it be great if I could fit the new board in my base box? Absolutely. But I’ve long felt the larger a box gets, the less likely it is to get played, so I’ll take a more portable Arnak over the alternative if it means I sometimes have to lug a second box along with it.
Lost Ruins of Arnak is one of many medium-heavy order-of-operations/action efficiency/resource conversion euro games, even on my own shelves. What sets it apart for me personally are the inviting thematic visuals, a smooth loop and (perhaps most crucially) ending right when I would love to have another round. Twisted Paths, not coincidentally, feels like the exhaustion of all avenues to further extend Arnak without resorting to the sort of expansion that fundamentally changes what the game is. The Temple track, oft criticised as the most crucial element of a solid Arnak victory, now has enough variability to satiate hardcore Arnak afficionados thanks to Twisted Paths, while designers Min and Elwen seem to be content with going out on a high note that leaves me wanting to play more rather than own more.
