How to Play

Lost Ruins of Arnak

1-4 players 30-120 min 8.1 Board Game Geek Rating

Players lead expeditions exploring a mysterious island to uncover ancient artifacts and secrets. This hybrid game blends deck-building with worker placement mechanics, where cards serve dual purposes—triggering effects or placing workers. Victory comes through strategic exploration, resource management, and discovering the island's hidden civilization while competing against other explorers for limited actions.

Published 2020

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Select main board

Bird Temple is for beginners, Snake Temple is for experienced players

Set up research track assistants

Deal 1 random assistant per player, creating two stacks of 4 and one stack of remaining assistants (3/4/5)

Place blocking tiles (2-3 players)

Use wave tiles to cover double-boot basic site spaces

Prepare temple tiles

Each stack (2/6/11 points) has only as many tiles as there are players

Set research bonus tiles

Stacks remain facedown, single tiles flip faceup after setup

Choose Expedition Leaders (optional)

Assign with random-role tokens; ranked by complexity: Captain (grey archaeologist), Falconer (eagle tile), Baroness, Professor (suitcase), Explorer (3 snack tokens)

Build starting deck

Take 4 basic/starting cards plus 2 fear cards for a 6-card deck

Distribute starting resources

Player One gets 2 coins; Player Two gets 1 coin + 1 compass; Player Three gets 2 coins + 1 compass; Player Four gets 1 coin + 2 compasses

Monkey Temple overlay setup

Deal a random face-up artifact with 3-compass cost

Lizard Temple overlay setup

Deal a random face-down guardian and place 4 leftover idols facedown nearby

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Draw cards each round

Draw until you have 5 cards in hand at the start of each round

Handle newly acquired fear cards

Place them into your play area, not into your hand

Handle newly acquired artifacts

Play immediately without paying a tablet; pay a tablet on subsequent plays

Handle newly acquired items

Place under your deck to hopefully draw next round

Manage empty deck

If your deck runs out mid-round, you're simply out of cards; don't shuffle your play area

Note discard rules

There is no discard pile in this game

Pay travel costs

Must be paid every time an archaeologist moves to an action space

Discover new sites

Pay compass cost only once as the discoverer; subsequent players pay nothing

Advance on research tracks

Your notebook can never move above your magnifying glass

Advance to random assistant tier

Pay 1 non-slotted idol, privately choose 1 assistant from the stack, return stack in same order

Exile cards

Choose from already played cards or from cards still in your hand

Refill card row

When a card is bought, immediately slide and refill the row

Use lightning icons

These are free actions that don't count as your main action

Handle Lizard Temple guardian

No research token may pass until guardian is overcome; gives 1 fear per research token present at round end (max 2)

Activate Lizard Temple tier 6

Activate any discovered unoccupied level I site, trash it and associated guardian, place top leftover idol face-up to be discovered again

Winning

How to claim victory.

End each round properly

Shuffle all played cards and put them under your deck

Exile cards at round end

Before moving the moon staff, exile 1 card on both sides of the blue staff (2 cards on both sides of the red staff)

Score temple tiles

Collect 2/6/11 bonus point tiles by advancing on the research track

Score from Monkey Temple artifact

Your magnifying glass activates the shared artifact for free when reaching that tier; artifact remains for others to activate later

Score research bonus tiles

Earned by advancing research tokens to designated spaces

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