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Arcana Rising invites up to six spellcasters to participate in a competition to acquire arcane artifacts and cast mighty spells in an effort to gain knowledge and power. As they gather their mystical relics, they note the passing of the moons, which amplify the power of certain schools of magic, allowing wizards to cast spells at the peak of their power!
Arcana Rising is a drafting and engine-building game in which players compete over three rounds to craft a magical engine that will power their collected artifacts and generate points for them at the end of the game.
On a turn, players select a single card from the pile they are passed. Once a card has been selected, players pass the remaining cards clockwise, then choose whether to add the newly acquired card to their tableau OR to discard the card in order to run their engine and cast their spells. Randomized moon tokens tell players which of their spells may be cast. Therefore, the timing of executing your powers is nearly as important as the powers themselves.
The cards fall into schools of Charms, Herbology, Blood Arts, Potions, Alchemy, and Artifacts. Only a single type of spell can be cast each turn, depending on a randomized order for that round.
After three rounds of drafting, players calculate their scores based on the unique set of artifacts they have collected, and the player with the most victory points wins!
—description from publisher
Solo Playthrough | Arcana Rising
- Unique gameplay
- Engine building and drafting are enjoyable
- Creates interesting dilemmas for the player
- Good for smaller collections
- Satisfying score achieved in solo mode
- Doesn't have enough staying power for a large collection
- Oversized box for the game content
- Theme is okay, but 'nothing to write home about'
- magic spell casting
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- artifact cards — Special cards that provide end-game scoring bonuses, such as gaining points for disciplines with no spells.
- Card drafting from a pyramid — Specifically for the solo mode, the host describes drawing cards from a pyramid structure, taking one from the first row, then the next, and so on.
- drafting — The host mentions drafting as a core mechanic, explaining that in multiplayer, players get a hand of cards, choose one, and then proceed. In solo, this is replaced by taking cards from a pyramid.
- engine building — Described as a core mechanic where players build up an engine through card combinations and activations.
- Resource management — Players spend various resources like gold, alchemy, charms, herbs, and potions to activate cards or gain other benefits.
- set collection — Points are awarded for collecting sets of certain resources at the end of the game (e.g., three of charm, herbology, and potions for one point).
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I enjoy the idea of you having to choose like do you always have to draft a card or in this case you take one from the pyramid from the lowest row um in the solar mode and then you have to decide okay do you actually um like extend your engine or do you cast two spells or like all of them the lowest ones um here and I like that idea.
- I don't think this has enough staying power to stay in my collection um in the long run just because I have just a lot of games and there's just other games that I enjoy more.
- But I think this is a really good one if you have a smaller collection and you like engine building and drafting and stuff. This is a really good game to have.
- It's very unique. I don't think I have any comparable games in my collection.
- The box is not small for such a small game, right?