How SETI Solves Arnak's Problems

[@tonybowers9490]

I enjoy, and appreciate, your insight and deep diving. You do a great job articulating your thoughts and opinions.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Thank you!

[@Otherspersons]

Found your channel yesterday via your Elder Scrolls videos. Your channel is real quality, love the clarity and interesting insights. Looking forward to more!

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Thank you and welcome aboard!

[@I_Saw_Stars]

Love this video, your style, and listening to your thoughts. Very informative and interesting.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Thank you! Appreciate you watching.

[@rileygerber5510]

My wife supprised me with this game for Christmas. Was unsure based on some reviews of the 2 player game. Was awesome to see you touch on that! We noticed the same with scanning in our first game. Going to try adding one extra neutral token to each slot and see how that works! Keep up the great content

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Probably a mistype but don’t add one try taking one away. Also don’t sleep on investing in scanning tech!

[@rileygerber5510]

@ got it! So you do you mean play it like the rules indicate? We just found we couldn’t fill the sectors. For some context I was the main one scanning, which made it really hard to complete some end game goals related to scanning in a 2 player

[@rekath16]

One of your best videos!

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Thank you!

[@tonybowers9490]

Arnak is in my Top Ten of all time. Have SETI, but haven’t played it yet. (Playing Elder Scrolls) One big reason I got SETI is that it is from CGE. Fun Fact - The designer spent 6 years designing SETI.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Elder scrolls will clog up the rest of your year :)

[@rolling.reggie]

Love these comparison videos. Fan of Arnak, so I think SETI will be a great one to try.

[@dannyverbraeken7729]

I have both games, and love them both ! Thanks for sharing your toughts.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@@dannyverbraeken7729 good to hear I am not alone…do you play arnak with leaders?

[@dannyverbraeken7729]

@@Neon_Gorilla I won't play without the leaders anymore 🙂

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@ I wonder if there will be a “leaders” for seti? I would love individual techs

[@MDJ0983]

All this SETI talk has convinced me. It will arrive tomorrow and I'm hoping to try it Saturday. Great break down and review.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

I hope you enjoy!

[@Jebusito]

I Totally agree with your thoughts, this game just brings a lot of interesting decitions to the table! It is crunchy!

[@MDJ0983]

I know weight is subjective, but how hard would you say SETI is to teach?

[@Jebusito]

@MDJ0983 for me it is kind of easy, because most of the actions you can take on your turn are printed on your board or on the main board, there are remainders of a lot of things, so all that helps with the teach

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Slightly tougher than arnak…it’s really learning symbols.

[@VinceBL-st2wb]

Even though I fell in love with Arnak at first, dozens of games down the line I am starting to be annyoed by some downsides I couldn't see at first. It does feel very restrictive at this point, you are right. To me, it does end up being a ressource conversion/optimization game to me. I was actually really curious about SETI because it's also from CGE, so this video is right on the mark for me !!

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Leaders is a must for any Arnak fan. If creates personal paths to victory.

[@shelfhelpgaming]

Arnak is my favorite game of all time. I loved it before the Expansions, and they just made it better. I completely passed by Seti cause the theme didn't appeal to me. After your review, I might have to give it a try. It sounds pretty amazing.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Certainly worth a try especially if you like the round to round crunch of trying to do as much as possible as efficient as possible before passing.

[@basdevries2459]

Very nice video of a game I have yet to play, but after watching this I am intrigued to say the least. I've hears many good things, but the quite sprawling table hog has me paused so far to dig in.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

The table sprawl isn’t actually too bad

[@kimklisiak6421]

You sold me... except I don't have room for more games!!!

[@GameOnBoardGame]

Arnak is one of my faves, but SETI? Even through all the hype, nothing about it caught my interest enough to actually check it out. First time I’ve heard this comparison, so might have to give it a 2nd look. Thanks 👍

[@Neon_Gorilla]

That is why I made the comparison I think it might be easy to overlook because in all the reviews it didn't get a sense of how it "feels" if that makes sense. I am confident that if the theme is not a huge turn off and you like the efficiency puzzle or arnak even it it has worn on you I am confident that you will get many of the same feelings without some of the turn offs.

[@dcrbdh]

I played this last night and a guy at the table (who hadn't seen your video) was like "this reminds me of Arnak". I was like "funny you should say that..."

[@Neon_Gorilla]

I thought I was going crazy the first plays. I was getting Deja Vu and had no idea why. Glad someone else sees it and I am not going crazy!

[@thomasboon3626]

Did you know that the designers of Arnak Min & Elwen are also the developers of SETI? (I just read about this on BGG)

[@Neon_Gorilla]

I was wondering since they aren’t listed as designers on the project. Their influence was felt

[@chrisbarley.]

Well said. The linear nature of Arnak is why it has next to no depth - something that slips past the radar of most new gamers and allows it to end up on so many “Top X” lists. I get why you’re comparing the two - I just don’t like it lol. The games are in completely different tiers with completely different mechanics. Keep the discussions coming! Are Molly House or Speakeasy on your agenda for 2025?

[@Neon_Gorilla]

I backed Molly House but not Speak Easy. So yes and no.

[@tahsinshamma2369]

100% @chrisbarley - You hit the nail right on the head.

[@goldsmeeth2771]

If you use ELO as proxy for depth, a master in Arnack has 98% win advantage

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@@goldsmeeth2771not sure this is a valid correlation. A Master knows the broken cards to buy and knows to jump off the guardians and focus on the track and prioritize your assistants. If you have that knowledge you have a big advantage this has nothing to do with depth just knowledge of the meta. Arnak is not shallow but certainly not comprised of a web of mechanisms that make it difficult to understand how one will interact with another. It is straight forward. This is why leaders improves it so much it creates the depth needed to create a dynamic puzzle as opposed to a linear one.

[@Schrogs]

I just bought eclipse second edition. Any chance you have played it? I would love to hear your thoughts if you have

[@Neon_Gorilla]

No I have not yet, I have certainly heard of it though.

[@Schrogs]

@ ah dang okay well I’ll try it in a few days when I have my game group. Can’t wait lol

[@thomashantgin5124]

nah dawg. kutna hora is goated

[@Neon_Gorilla]

I have heard, do you think it is an actual comparison or you just want to say its good?

[@eduardoserpa1682]

Interesting comparison. Arnak didn't do it for me (partially because of Dune Uprising), but the comparison does make me more curious about SETI.

[@madprof666]

Its weird. I bought both dune was ruined for me by lost ruins because it just wasnt as fun for me

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Dune is great so is Arnak + Leaders

[@madprof666]

@@Neon_Gorilla yea both great games, but i always reached arnak in the end

[@stormburns]

I actually think its weird people dsgribe arnak as deck buildng worker placement, Its pure ressource conversion managament facilitated by all the other mechanics. Imo no game should have more than 3, maybe 4 ressources. I hope the card play hits as hard as its hyped up for for me when I eventually get to play.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Worker placement and deck building and the means and resource conversation is the end

[@dayoltay]

As a person who sold arnak I'm curious about this

[@Neon_Gorilla]

If it intrigued you and failed at any level it’s worth a try

[@kennychan6645]

So would this game replaces arnak for u…?

[@Neon_Gorilla]

No, arnak with expansions is a different game altogether

[@ilqrd.6608]

I derive exactly zero pleasure from resource conversion. Would go as far as to say I hate it because it feels like completely tedious busy work. That is why Arnak is at best a 5/10 for me. SETI doesn’t do resource conversion but still delivers great gameplay at player counts 3-4. A complete dud with 2 though.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@@ilqrd.6608 I have played many times at 2 and had a blast every time. I don’t understand the criticism. It’s awfully dramatic

[@ilqrd.6608]

@ I disagree, central tension points almost don’t exist anymore at 2p. There are some good reviews on bgg that highlight this. Not sure what is there not to understand, it’s pretty evident when you play or read about it in reviews. Galaxy plate doesn’t spin often and much easier to predict and sector majority is completely lacking tension. You need ages to fill one up, 2nd place reward is miserable and so everyone focuses on different sectors and very slowly fills those slots…it’s just plain bad. Of course the core game actions are still the same so if you enjoy those it’s easy to see why you would also enjoy them in a 2p game but still doesn’t change the fact that 2p is much worse

[@babylonsfall7]

My issue with Arnak is the Artifacts. They are pretty much useless for most of the game (why would you ever buy one early instead of Explore?) and not worth the Explore tokens. There are not multiple ways to win either, which is my second criticism. As such, I think Dune Imperium is much better for this type of game as it solves all of those issues.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Try SETI…some artifacts are incredible but it’s situational. I always hated having to pay a tablet to play it a second time

[@Duaneski]

Yeah I definitely liked Dune more than Arnak. Definitely interested to try SETI. But my favorite game in the Dune / Arnak realm is definitely Scarface 1920

[@LuvzToLol21]

I like Arnak, but I'd always felt like the resource economy was bloated and the research system was pretty dull. You've got money and compasses that you use for all sorts of things like buying cards, accessing dig sites, etc. But then tablets, arrowheads and rubies are just "there". Like they don't really do anything, they're just an arbitrary resource that you should keep in reserve and spend to defeat guardians or advance on the research track. And why are you doing that? Guardians and research can give you all sorts of resources and bonuses, but largely they just give lots of victory points. Meanwhile Seti simplifies the resource economy down to just credits, energy, data and publicity. You've got 3 distinct branches of things which earn you different colors of traces: probe stuff for yellow, scanning for pink, and computer data crunching for blue. But all of these systems feel cyclical and intertwined, like how scanning gives you data which you can then use in your computer. And crucially, all 3 paths give you victory points and publicity which you can then spend on upgrades. Seti's upgrade system kinda acts like the replacement for Arnak's research track, even giving out little random bonuses when you buy an upgrade, but you can choose which which actions you want to upgrade and how.

[@MattWGAllan]

Havent played it yet, but Seti looks a lot less variable and with a lot less interesting powers and abilities, both of which are important to me. Think ill stick with Arnak.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@@MattWGAllan to be clear the comparison is to base Arnak not with expansions. Base Arnak has none of that and SETI tech tiles which is a significant enhancement. Arnak with expedition leaders is still ranked higher for me.

[@MattWGAllan]

@Neon_Gorilla fair, I still think this is the case with base though to be honest, but I've only played Arnak once a few years ago, I've got too many games. Haha.

[@Neon_Gorilla]

@ ok

[@jerryf196]

I didn't like arnark and worried this game being too much of that with a different theme. I think will head towards civolution instead

[@Neon_Gorilla]

What about Arnak don’t you like?

[@jerryf196]

@@Neon_Gorilla Arank is way to simple and after playing 15 games as solo it was to repetative. For a family game with kids it's fine but After playing Ananchrony, Imperium Horions, Gaia Project many more this game felt to flat for me

[@jerryf196]

@@Neon_Gorilla Also for some reason Arnak is the only game I can beat the solo mode...LOL Other gams i play I have a hard time winning. The decision making is not complex. Just go after those resources or artifacts and run through the template track..LOL

SETI is much better game then Arnak

[@Neon_Gorilla]

Have you played arnak with leaders?

[@joeferreti9442]

"SETI" has a lot more problems than "Lost Ruins of Arnak".

[@Neon_Gorilla]

to each is own