Next Lost Ruins of Arnak expansion is a solo campaign
The Search for Professor Kutil continues.
The next expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak will be based on a free solo campaign that was released online earlier this year.
During Essen Spiel 2021, the largest board gaming convention in the world, Elwen - co-designer of Lost Ruins of Arnak, alongside wife Min - told Dicebreaker that they were currently working on the next expansion for the deckbuilding game, which would be based on the solo campaign Lost Ruins of Arnak: The Search for Professor Kutil. Featured on the website for Czech Games Edition, the publisher responsible for releasing Lost Ruins of Arnak, The Search for Professor Kutil has players attempting to discover the whereabouts of a famous scholar who has since vanished whilst exploring a mysterious island.
Using a web browser app provided for free by Czech Games, players are able to experience a solo game mode that will have them looking for the lost expedition team, in a race against a former student-turned-rival who is also searching for the professor and their findings. Alternatively, players can download and print out the instructions for The Search for Professor Kutil, however they still require a copy of the base game to play.
The new expansion will follow the base game, which was released last year and awarded the 2021 Deutsche Spielepreis - a prestigious German-language award - and its first expansion called Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders, a title that made its debut at Essen Spiel earlier this month and adds playable characters with unique abilities, as well as new guardians, tools, artefacts and a fresh research track.
In Lost Ruins of Arnak one to four players compete to gather the most points possible by exploring an island filled with artefacts and long-forgotten knowledge. Using their hand of cards, players can travel to the island’s dig-sites to uncover resources and antiquities, braving the fearsome guardians that stalk its ruins in the process. Players can also acquire points by purchasing new tools and artefact cards from the marketplace or by progressing on the research path. Whichever player has the most points by the end of the game is declared the winner.
Besides Lost Ruins of Arnak, Czech Games Edition is most renowned for publishing the party board game Codenames, alongside Galaxy Trucker and Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization.
Elwen did not confirm whether the upcoming expansion would add anything new to the solo campaign it’s based on, nor when players can expect it to be released. Dicebreaker has reached out to Czech Games Edition for further comment.
Update: Czech Games Edition has responded to Dicebreaker's inquiry regarding a new expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak - "We’re really happy with the positive response and overall enthusiasm for Lost Ruins of Arnak and the new expansion, Expedition Leaders. That said, we have not finalized what our potential plans might be for Arnak beyond Expedition Leaders and cannot confirm that a physical solo-focused expansion will be released. We need to take some time after the release of Expedition Leaders to get some rest, process things, and discuss future plans.
We are closely monitoring interest in both the free downloadable solo content we released earlier this year and the newly launched Expedition Leaders expansion, but we have not solidified any concrete plans beyond that at this time.
Designers Mín and Elwen have a lot of exciting ideas for possible directions that could be explored in the future, but nothing has been decided yet."