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Everyone is first player at some point. If four players the second player will go twice eventually. It works itself out.

Got to play this and several other KTBG at Dice Tower East this year with my wife and 10 year old and we loved it. This and several others have been bought since. They are a great family weight game to play with enough for hard core gamers like me and a good step for my kid. Good review and for sure i think its fair when you look it through the lens of the gamers you are, but it is a KTBG so would be good to see if you played it with your kids or how you think it would play with younger gamers.

I can't stand hidden movement games. Each one I played was a total wast of my time.

Starfish are your friends when you get stuck with a bunch of worthless stuff in your exhibit.

This is my favorite KTBG game. Hands down. Not even close.

I'm so confused about the intro "If you can say the title is only three words" maybe i'm missing something

A few mentions of some art that I've liked- perhaps, it's more that I like the art style, rather than the specific artist? The weirdo art in games like Dungeon Degenerates (Sean Äaberg) and Epic Spell Wars (Nick Edwards). That satire comic book style of Blood Orders (David Hartman). The Old King's Crown, both designed and illustrated by Pablo Clark.

Solo is my favorite way to play this.

I'm digging the Bob thumbnail.. Like Golden Girls or Full House vibes.. 🤣

This makes me just want to play Vinhos or The Gallerist.

Severely underrated game

Beautiful artwork

Thanks for the review! I appreciate the time and thought you put into it.

Number 1 over hyped game. Time Stories

Very cool.. How does it stack up against "We're Sinking?"

Crunch per rule! Love it!

The only Allplay games that didn’t work for me: GPS and Fiction.

Hi guys! Thank you SO MUCH for this review! Unfortunately, the current kickstarter campaign has ended and we did not meet the goal. The good news is, we are reworking our campaign and will relaunch spring next year. I would love to use your review in our new campaign!

Potato man! So fun. Not my favorite trick taker but I do enjoy it.

Thanks for the great review of Fossilis!

2:48:52 what do the thumbs mean? Games you also like or that are also on your list?

Best thumbnail guys haha

That has to be the creepiest thumbnail in board gaming 😂

First in the comments!

I picked this up after hearing someone say essentially the same thing you guys did: You wouldn't think it, but this game is actually quite good. And yeah, it has provided some fun moments. Kind of hard to get people excited to try it with the art/theme, but I appreciate that they tried something interesting.

Great episode, thanks for the shoutout! 😊

Did this game ever get released?

Fantastic review guys. Keep up the great work!

Playing Arcs tonight. This is the first content I’ve watched for the game. We’ll see. FWIW, I appreciate the candor. First, that it’s graphically designed in a way that you can get the rules wrong. Second, that there are a lot of suboptimal turns. That actually helps my mindset - now I know that pivoting is “fine” since suboptimal turns are expected. (And, I appreciate sharing how Mike could have got his agents back by forcing that scoring condition.)

As others Arcs fans would probably state a lot of the complaints described here disappear and become great features once you understand the intricacies of the card play and the game. Same with the combat dice feeling random at first but actually awesome once you understand how to play around them and work around the odds. Personally took me like 4 plays to feel like "this is an awesome game". As you mentioned this is a leader game and just like root you're not gonna get the most out of it after 2 plays. That being said it is a fair criticism to point out that this game doesn't feel good the first few plays and that might not be for everyone. not everyone has the time and space to "work" for a game to get good when there are so many other things to play. But if you think you will be able to give this game enough plays with your group then I would disregard the "negative" points made in this review.

Great review but man, the Dice combat in this is soooo good! First time I've heard that crit.

The people with the least grasp of the game dislike it the most. This seems to be a trend across "negative" reviews across a number of channels. I'm not saying "gitgud" but that you share a profile with most negative reviews. If you don't like feeling like a constant underdog I can see how this is an upsetting experience. You have to be a bit like a poker player and not get too attached to a particular hand or idea of how a round is going to go. My friend played one card and she instantly re-wrote my entire plan for that chapter. I had to burn cards to keep the lead to prevent her from snapping up two extremely powerful Guild cards. Playing passively will generate feelings of helplessness just like in poker (unless you're of course setting a trap) and I see a lot of people just kinda sitting back and writing off entire chapters because they dislike their hand. Seize the initiative, you get two cards back to back. Chain them together. Build up resources before you do that to make it even more effective as well. Use your ships to fight, soften up local targets, consolidate power. Whatever you do, don't just sit there or think fighting is too impolite. Arcs - Conflict & Collapse in the Reach. Use resources, don't save them like you're an RPG hoarder. I've seen so many players just sit on resources for ages missing so many chances to leverage them.

I played this at GenCon 2024 and had picked it based on the hype, the designer's reputation, and the trick-taking action system. I did think the action system was very interesting (probably the best part of Arcs overall), but your complaints about it came up when I played as well so even the trick-taking was a disappointment. The rest of the game, though, fell really flat for me. It didn't take long for me while playing to realize I didn't care about most of the things I was doing on the board anymore.

To be clear, all you need to surpass is to play a higher suited card than the lead card. You do not need to play a 7 in the example at 1:30. Since the lead card was a 2, you can surpass with a 3, 4, 5, or 7. Not sure if that was just an error in the explanation here or if you played the game that way, but that would make a HUGE effect on the game and would make the cardplay seem much more harsh and random than it actually is. Also I'm confused by 25:27, the ambitions don't flip when they "don't score". The lowest one flips at the end of each Chapter, and all the ambitions reset at the end of each Chapter. If you need your agents or ships back, just declare that ambition and you'll get them back. I understand wanting to "do something on defense" as well, it's a different feeling than a lot of other dice combat games, but in reality Arcs just takes the offense and defense roll and combines them into one. Lots of dice combat games are just roll-offs, for instance Eclipse or Twilight Imperium. Sure you get to roll dice as the defender, but at the end of the day it'd be the same result if the attacker rolled the die in terms of agency. So sure you might not physically roll the die in Arcs but it's just quicker and not actually much different in terms of "ability to defend".

Heads-up for those who care: this review apparently has been recorded after TWO plays, one of which with incorrect/incomplete rules. In my opinion, it is absolutely not enough experience for an accurate (good or bad!) review of this game. As anyone who has played enough Root, Oath, Pax Pamir, or John Company knows, Cole Wehrle is a designer who makes games meant to be explored over numerous plays. One or two plays will not be enough to form a solid opinion - much less an opinion you call a capital R Review and stick a number at the end.

Also, just to add, I think a lot of the hype around Arcs is built around the campaign expansion more than just this base game. Of course if you just kinda bounce off the base game I doubt it turns it around for you, but the the stories that can evolve from all the changes that get brought into the game in that are what I feel like is particularly exciting.

I do think one of the biggest mistakes is marketing this as "trick-taking". When I taught it for my first game, I called it trick-taking adjacent. Knowing trick-taking will give you an idea of how that part of the game works, but there's still all sorts of nuance that turns it into something not quite trick-taking (can't play lower number cards of the same suit, some cards played face up some down, etc). It's close, but I think there's an expectation of what that is when it's called trick-taking, and it's just not quite that in function.

Great review!

Cole’s designs are fascinating and mechanically super interesting but seldom fun

I don’t want to keep playing games that I don’t like. Sure there could be some puzzle that I have not discovered but I would rather play games that I like and don’t frustrate me. Life is too short for that.

"Get Good. You guys suck at this game!" That's what a wehrle fanboy would say lol 😂. I have the same feeling about the game. I like it but it doesn't have staying power because of all the randomness. I hope there will be an expansion that fixes issues.

Hi, what are your thoughts a year or so down the line? @boardgamerundown

So thrilled to see circadians chaos order getting some love. Such a great game. I’ve always seen myself as more of a euro gamer. But circadians really works for euro gamers that don’t mind a little conflict. Such a great design. The action selection mechanic is just pure genius. Can’t recommend it enough. 🎉🎉

Your play through is one reason I backed this game. Have y’all heard from the designer since this play through??? Backers want their game or their money back.

Hi, have you heard anything from the creator of this game? It’s been 2 years now and this guy won’t give us an honest update on where the game is at in production. Your video is one reason I backed the game. The kick starter page is full of angry posts at this point.

I just noticed that during the outro, Mike is just sitting there staring blankly while the other dance.

1:03:46 that was a good one

Thanks for coming by our booth! Good to see you guys!

At least Tim does not buffer now :)

Nothing about this game has me interested. I don’t like limited communication games and not the biggest poker fan. Stinks that this was a let down for Mike.