Arcadia Quest

Players: 2-4

Game Length: 40 – 240mins

Theme

The world was once only inhabited by marauding Orcs and dancing Elves, but the gods got bored and introduced the humans! The humans built the great city of Arcadia and the land was ruled by King David, much to the dislike of the Orcs and Elves and war ensued. The wars were won by the humans and King David set up various guilds in order to keep the peace.

However, the evil Lord Fang (a vampire) was perturbed at the fact that the humans had set in motion the day and night rotation of the world and forced him to have ‘bedtime’. He gradually gathered the support of Orcs, Goblins, Trolls and other minions to form a ‘Dark Council’ and together they eventually took over the city.

As a guild leader it is your job, along with other guilds, to take back control of the city. To do this you must move through different districts, confronting enemies and maybe even opposing guilds. Your heroes will grow in strength until you finally take on Lord Fang in the finale. The guild that proves the most successful in the fight to restore the humans to power will be the winners and become the new protectors of the realm.

Set Up and Game Play

I usually like to give an overview of the rules and how a game plays in order to give readers an idea of whether they will like the dynamics, but it can be tricky to try and simplify a whole rule booklet into a few paragraphs. In the case of Arcadia Quest this is going to prove damn near impossible, as I had to work through a 36-page rulebook/manual – it was bedtime reading for a couple of evenings!

So please understand that this a very, very brief overview of how the game works:

Heroes

Before you start your quest, you need to choose a guild (four available) and three heros to join it. Each character has particular strengths, abilities and life force. You place the card with their details on onto your guild dashboard and add the base of your corresponding guild colour to the three miniature figures for your characters.

Campaigns/Scenarios

A full campaign to re-take the city consists of playing six different scenarios. These are chosen one at a time from eleven different one available – the next scenario is always chosen by the most successful guild in the previous one. If you only want to play a quick game you can just choose to play a single scenario.

Setting up a scenario starts with laying out a map as dictated in the campaign booklet. On top of the map you are shown where to locate various rewards, portals and enemies. You are also instructed where to place your characters at the start of the round.

Quests

Players take turns moving their characters round the map in an attempt to complete quest, whilst also collecting rewards and taking out enemies. Each scenario has various quest cards attached to it which are laid out for everyone to see. To complete a scenario in a two-player game you must fulfil two quests or for three or four players it’s three. 

Combat

Combat with monsters and other guilds involves dice rolling for both damage and defence. Characters individual abilities, weapons they posses and other artefacts they hold, all dictate how many dice they role and even if they are permitted re-rolls. They will inevitably take damage in the form of wounds and maybe even death. Taking a rest turn can help revive your characters and they will always be re-instated for the next scenario, although a ‘death curse’ may linger over them.

Longevity

Arcadia Quest has proven hugely popular, which has led to a variety of expansions as well as additional character/miniatures that can be added in. Here are a few examples:

• Arcadia Quest: Inferno – This expansion of the game is compatible with the original, but it can also be played as a stand-alone game and introduces four new guilds. It adds into the mix new Alchemist and Gladiator heros and a new campaign system that takes the heroes into a fiery abyss.
• Arcadia Quest: Beyond the Grave – This expansion offers all new scenarios to play through as well as new ghost, zombie and skeleton foes to battle.
• Arcadia Quest: Fire Dragon/Frost Dragon/Chaos Dragon – These expansions give you the opportunity to add a new power-up - level (6) - and extend their campaign by adding in another scenario which sees the heroes battle a dragon that terrorises the city.
• Arcadia Quest: Pets – This can be used with the original game or the Inferno base game and it involves new scenarios, monsters, heros and rewards whilst also introducing a ‘pets’ system that is compatible with any arcadia quest version.