Ark Nova | Rahdo's Final Thoughts
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- Help Rahdo Run: / rahdo ❤️ Code of conduct: conduct.rahdo.com 🙂 And now...
A video outlining gameplay for the boardgame Ark Nova.
For info about Jen's Ukrainian fundraiser, head over to ukraine.rahdo.com
For more game info, boardgamegeek....
Part I: Gameplay Runthrough
• Rahdo Runs Through►►► ...
Part II: Final Thoughts
• Ark Nova | Rahdo's Fin...
I love how one of the best games of the last year is:
1. From a first time designer,
2. Retail and not from crowdfunding,
3. Crunchy but so easy to teach.
Cheers for the great video as always!
Is anyone else like me in that they appreciate good euro games that have that epic length feel to them? Terraforming Mars and Underwater Cities being two that come instantly to mind. My wife and I play mostly 2p together and games like these seem to be exactly "our thing" ...
All 3 are in my top 10 of all time (AN, UC, and TM). I’m not a person who cares about length or use the phrase “table hog” so I like games that can go 3 hours with teach. However, games that go longer than 4 can push it for me… but that’s rare with how I teach and aid players.
TM and UC are both in my top 10 games of all time and I think AN will be there too. Me and my wife love those games.
As a long-time fan of your show, I'd like to thank You and Jen for your kind words, attention and care about the situation in Ukraine. That was REALLY touching when Jen came in and gave you the WITWITs. When we win the war, I promise I'll order some of the Jens works of Art for myself as well (here it's not the best time now for shopping accessories really). Greetings and please make sure to say hello and thank Jen for her work! We appreciate your support!
I lo-lo-looove the energy Rahdo!
I'm glad you mentioned Corrosion. That game was long, and I came up with a great variant to speed up the middle to late game. It's on BGG. There hasn't been too much traction on it because a lot of folks believe it's the early game that requires speeding up. This is definitely not the case. Those early turns are crucial, and giving someone extra parts at the beginning weaken the take cards early strategy. Anyway, my variant got it down to 1.5 hours for a 2p game which is perfect for me.
This game is amazing! I understand your point on the river - though this is one of those games that even when I lose I feel like I have built something unique. I find the mechanism and building very rewarding.
Can’t wait for the game since Tom reviewed it. Glad you like it as well. 😊
Love your support for Ukraine. Greetings from Poland.
I'm never the guy who says "but I can play it in half that time!". My group is regularly no less than 1.5x the upper bounds on a box. But after 5 games our 4 player times are down to 2 to 2.5 hours every time. We're not usually "that group". As you found, the solo game teaches you to race to the end.
We can do a 1 hour 15 minute game for 2 with mostly ease after our many plays. I have spoken with Matthias and we arent playing wrong. I am cool with that time for a game of this weight and size.
Always appreciate your enthusiasm and animation in your videos. They are an absolute joy to watch.
Props to you and Jen for the charity work!
That luck of the draw critique you were talking about reminds me of wingspan and all of its unique bird cards. Some player could draw a raven and have the easiest most exciting game, but their opponent has dead weight in the hand. I've seen that happen many times playing wingspan and it's not fun. I hope that that issue isn't too disheartening in this game. Watching you play it in your run through made me very excited to get it to the table.
Always love your videos! Just paused to go to Jen's page and order a set. Huge fan of Everdell, what a lovely little bonus!
It is a very long game (and you completely lose track of time because you are so engaged) but the game is a-ma-zing! I have played it 7 times at all player counts and I am in love with it! This is my favorite game of all time now despite its length! I really hope they are already thinkibg about expansions
The first Expansion is coming soon and is Name aquarium
Great review, but four hour games? Even with new players we have it down to 90 minutes, two hours tops.
i think they might take a bit longer if they're rocking on only 2-3 hours of sleep over the preceeding 24 hours :)
@@rahdo oh I've been there after nightshifts, everything does go slower then, but that's not the game's fault ;)
our first play at 2 took almost 3 hours, and I don't tend to AP in games.
I am glad you pointed out the random luck of the draw factor. Great review!
this is a non issue. You can draw 3 or 4 and discard 1 let's you cycle cards.
And he explained it VERY well! This is the main reason i won't invest 4h of my day for this game. That, and too many mechanisms mashed up, and doing stuff without advancing game is not my cup of tea.
8:31 Yes, I am completely with you! I like games which “hold your hand” a little (lol) by guiding you in a direction. Otherwise, there are a bajillion different things I could do, so how do I know what is worth going about doing? Because otherwise I would not feel like I have a chance to win - and then the game isn’t fun, since part of playing games is all about being on the “edge of your seat” knowing that you are competitive and have a chance. That is why over time I have become less and less intrigued by heavy games. I actually want to understand the strategy - a reason to go about doing X, Y, Z action(s) when I am playing games!
Great to see you support Ukraine!
I am going through an up and down relationship with this game, just as I did with Terraforming Mars. Super excited before first play, slightly underwhelmed after the first play, growing to appreciate it over a few plays before having a bad play (this was a game hurt by AP), but then as I continue to play I grow in appreciation of it even more. There was a TM game I played where I declared I would never play again, and now it is my 3rd favourite game despite not owning. Such an emotional roller-coaster.
Wouldn't say clean and elegant design. So many things get overlooked and forgotten about.
The length comment is interesting. I heard 4+ hours stories at DTW. I played it also at DTW with a teacher/expert and three newbies, including me. It took us 2 hours, 45 including teaching. So I had a much shorter experience. The only reason I can think of is that our teacher was able to run tru scoring pretty fast and beat us pretty bad :)
Similarly, I can finish a marathon in 2.5 hours if the race ends when one runner crosses the finish line. It's definitely easy to forget you're racing in Ark Nova, though.
There is not a lot of shifting in Rahdos top-10. You could almost call it nostalgia. :-)
Thank You! Long time watching your reviews^ good help in my purchases, especially old. Good luck.
It’s funny how you were considering using the solo mode rules to speed up Ark Nova two player because that’s exactly what I do with Terraforming Mara which suffers from similar issues. I’ve found it’s pretty effective, obviously I can’t speak to how well it will work in Ark Nova.
I came back to this now after playing the game 5 times, it's very interesting to see the final thoughts now.
We've ended quicker than 1 hour per player every time we have played I believe. I think the second issue you had probably goes a ways to explaining why.
I've not seen it as a card driven game. Every time I've played I've focused on other things a lot more. The cards are the least of my concern. I go heavy on associations to race to flipping cards as much as possible, and building for good bonuses at the start and I tend to play sponsors a lot, which is card dependent but I haven't much cared about specific sponsors, they're generally good for game building.
With all this set up, the animal cards I play generally just fall into plan where there's always a good number of at least decent options.
honestly the length was not an issue, it's such a good game.
Great video Rahdo! It was wonderful to meet you at DTW. Our four player games are getting down to 3 hours now. And two player games to an hour and a half. You make a great point about building vs moving the game forward and we may try the game with only 27 rounds as we get more players comfortable with the game. We've been enjoying the game as well, noting I'm terrible at it, I don't seem to get the 'moving forward' part :(. While I greatly enjoy the game, it's not my number one game of 2021 either, that'd be Imperial Steam which is not in your wheelhouse. Again thanks for the video I really enjoyed watching it.
imperial steam and ark nova... 2021 was capstone's year!
Thanks from Ukraine.
5:22 Yep… It was in Sid Meier’s Civilization: A New Dawn.
We played our first 4 player game i 3h. we also played a 3 Playergame in 2.5h with one new player. I honestly don´t know what ppl are doing to take 5-6h for this game.. maybe if they count lunchgames into the game time.... (We are not particular faster then avarage in most other games)
What's your current number 1 of the year?
for 2022? hmm, i'm mostly still catching up on 2021 games, but so far my initial top game countdown would be:
5. Get on Board: New York & London
4. Pessoa
3. Free Radicals
2. Zapotec
1. Dog Lover
need to play some more vivid memories and verdant, plus get three sisters, isle of cats explore & draw, founders of teotihuacan to see how those rate :)
my #1 for 2021 is mentioned in this final thoughts :)
@@rahdo Zapotec #2. I like it.
Can’t wait to pick this game up!
One of the first videos I've seen where somebody has Roll Camera on their shelf! How do you like it? I was a little more disappointed in it than I originally thought I would be, but I still thoroughly enjoy it every time it gets to the table.
we LOVE it! it's my #1 highest ranked game of 2021, and the b-movie expansion makes it even better IMO :)
No reason to implement the solo time limit, you just have to play at that pace regardless of player count. If you play to trigger the end game in less than 30 turns and no one else notices that they're playing a race game... the other players will notice the difference when the game ends and they all have -40+ points 🤣
After a couple plays we have the playtime down to a constant 90min with two players 😊
that's good to hear. I just played it for the first time this weekend and it took us almost 3 hours at 2 . I really like the game, my only negatives are mostly related to the length of play, and well, the deck definitely does not cycle as much as I would want, and early in the game, no matter how much I drew I could not get a card relevant for my strategy! I need to play it more to see if the latter is definitely an issue at lower player counts, but pretty good to hear that the game can be played below 2 hours (at 2).
@@Nain1982 Both in this game and in Terraforming Mars, you should play more tactically rather than strategically. You should build a strategy around the cards you draw, instead of try to draw the cards you need for the strategy you built.
I can't wait until April 19th!! (expected release date)
Played a 4 player game (all 4 have played the game at least 4 times) in 2.5 hours. We definitely pushed to finish quick though.
Was wondering when you'd mention Ukraine cause we know you are that type of people. Good on you both! You could also set up a new CZcams fundraiser. Great review. My neighbour got it so it will be fun to try. Zoos are not my theme at all, but it also does Conservancy so I can't pass up the gameplay. Seems like it will burn our brains though lol
So, does anyone know what was the game of the year according to Rahdo ? He points to a box behind him, I'm not sure if he is referring to Pessoa ?
roll camera was my fave game of 2021 :)
It gets shorter Rahdo, I play 2p with my wife and after a couple of games we gotten down to 80-90mins a game (without setup). Our first games were 2.5h +
yeah, we're SLOOOOOW players, even when we know a game relaly well. so when someone else says "we're experienced and have gotten down to 90 minutes!" that generally means that we can get it down to 2+ if we get the same level of experience :)
@@rahdo have you played on the advanced boards? Some have nice bonuses which give you a bit of "push", a nudge in a direction which reduces some of the AP
@@filiplazov5895 yup and i demoed a 'normal' board and talked about them at the beginning of final thoughts and how they provide direction :)
I've played this 3 times so far. First learning game for all, 4 players, took us 3 hours. Second game at 3p, one new player took us 2.5hrs. Third game, 4p but with 2 new players, took 3hrs.
I just don't get how it's taking people 4 hours.
first learning game with 4 at 3 hours is impressive. We just played it for the first time saturday and with all 4 of us being experienced gamers, it still took a bit over 4 hours, but we loved every minute of it. we're all anxious to play again.
Thanks a lot for good words about Ukraine!
when I heard you say you wanted to speed up the game, I thought the same thing (that the developers told you) about Terraforming Mars.... start your production higher. It's not in any rulebook, but if everyone starts the same, it's fair.
Time to do a Top 20 of all time again!!
Ark Nova looks awesome but that is a super longgg playtime.
review starts at 3:25
Such a great game.
This is fun to me...Rahdo and all the people from the comments saying that they would use the solo rules for limiting rounds for this and for Terraforming Mars to shorten the game. I actually dislike the solo play in Terraforming Mars specifically because it uses round limits, and speeds up the game. For me and most of the people I play TM with, the game is an engine building card game, and the terraforming part is kind of just the secondary game timer. It feels like adding the round limit in solo play "rushes" the end for me, and takes away the fun part of the game by making you focus too much on the actual terraforming part. That's also the reason I hate the Steam App version. The AI opponent uses too many Standard Projects and rushes to the end before I have the chance to play all the cool cards I'm getting. All the people I play TM with love the fact that it's a 4 hour engine builder with a slight terraforming board game added on. :D I'm absolutely positive Ark Nova would be the same, and if the round limit were part of the rules, I'd probably house rule it OUT to allow the game to take as long as we want and get all that engine building goodness and all the awesome card play going. lol. Great review, and I look forward to picking this up for the loooooong game it is!
How about if the discarded cards would form a new type of draw deck?
actually there are some cards that let you dig through the discard pile to get stuff :)
In my ideal parallel universe it is impossible, by some type of magic, to make a comment on how short your plays of game X are unless you also state how many plays you have under your belt. "The playtime will go down with more plays" is true, but it's true for every game, so it sort of disqualifies as an argument.
When someone asks "How long does the game take to play?", for some reason what the most vocal people hear is "How quick are your fastest plays of the game?". Since it has become a prestige thing (regardless of which game, btw), you'll hear an unproportional amount from those who have 20, 30, 40, 50 plays under their belt even though those numbers are FAR from what the average player will ever reach.
I might hold off and just hope that it gets the condensed treatment similar to gloomhaven with jaws and terraforming mars with the card game etc. It’s very tempting though as it looks so good! With my wife my daughter and myself it would be cool to play half one night and half the next night.
thx from Ukraine!!!
Ark Nova :) After tom said it was his number one i started to panic.
I had already made up my mind i wanted the game lol (i got a preorder maybe coming around the 15th)
like your videos.. thank you
we thought you didn't actually have a wife named jen after watching abunch of your vids and never seeing her
Then finally..lol seen her playing with ya the other day and... hehehe wish you both the best
Game on
Thanks for the video, Rahdo.
Anybody could tell me if it feels similar to Dinogenics. I want to buy Dinogenics, but wondering if this one is a better one? thanks
How do you feel about the negative player interaction on some cards (e.g. poison)? I was sure you would comment on that ;)
i forgot to talk about it here, but i did during the runthrough mention how great it is that you can completely ignore the negative effects and opt for positive ones instead. i should have mentioned it in final thoughts though
Rahdo you are my best but you should play INIS
maybe someday :)
Dunno...the criticisms of the game this time feel like a little overly weighted. Luck swings happen in every game, and a blind draw magic occurs in almost everything with a deck of cards involved, or a lucky roll with dice. Game length is not a criticism if it's worth the journey...I'll take a 2 hour game of meaning over a 15 minute game of emptiness.
Glad you love it, i know it's destined for a residence near the top of my list when I can finally get to play it. I haven't gotten to play Roll camera but kickstarted the expansion to get the base game...I'm hopeful I'll get that one some time in the next 5 years lol...
i woudl say the only criticism i put to the game is that at lower player counts, the card river should cycle more to replicate a higher player count game. the rest was me just explaining the personal issues i have that keep it out of my top 10 or 20 of all time. not criticisms, but explanations :)
@@rahdo I like your thoughtful innovations and might incorporate some for this! Your great, simple but elegant, idea for Ares Expedition really elevates it. A card refresh mechanism would be easy to build in and could be employed without it being maliciously executed.
The criticisms are not isolated to just rhado. Check out comments on bgg and threads, the luck of the draw is a real criticism.
My group and I play games double the time mentioned on the box. So this will take 8 hours with 4 players. :(
I agree with having a "Prelude" implemented into the game.
Do the donations and proceeds gathered include the women and children of the Donbas who have been devastated by the Ukrainian military for almost 9 years? Just want to make sure that's what you mean by helping Ukranians before I buy these cool add ons. All Ukranians, right?
here' s some details about care.org's ukrainian initiative: www.care.org/our-work/where-we-work/ukraine
we went with them on the recommendation of ignacy trzewiczek of portal games, who knew a lot more about the situation on the ground than we did
whelp this game won't ever be in stock again lol
3 player (first) game, 7 hours long... But I had to translate to our language (2 and 3 times) every single card that made an appearance, because the other two players don't speak english, at all.
Good game but he is way overselling it imo
i think the majority of players disagree. it's risen to #11 on the boardgamegeek best of all time list afterall. fastest rising game since gloomhaven!
🤡