Fast-paced action
Playing Arcadia Tenebra doesn’t require a DM. We have cut the downtime as much as possible. Therefore, there is almost no waiting in Arcadia Tenebra. When your turn is over, you play next turn as a monster against the next player in a row.
Easy to learn and simple to play
The basic playing mechanism is simple and intuitive, hence players that have very little board game experience get to know how to play in just a couple of rounds. Experienced RPG adventurers jump in the game in a matter of minutes. Confirmed by numerous playtesters during five years of development.
A great tale and high replayability
We believe that if you do not have a compelling story, memorable characters, good background, and credible world setting, you’ll just have another RPG in the genre. We wanted to tell the whole story in one game session and we did that. Now, that may imply that the replayability rate isn’t high but that’s not the case. We never ever played two same games and we have been playing Arcadia Tenebra for quite some time.
Boardgame with a twist
We wanted to move away from the mythological stuff (as much as we’re all fans of Tolkien et.al.) and offer something a little bit different. Our aim was to explore what happens when the mythological and rational world(view)s collide. This question acts as a sort of game’s DNA. Every player will feel the echo of this conundrum every time his/her plans or imaginations crumble with every new drawn Unluckie. That’s why we call Arcadia Tenebra a board game with a twist.
Dark but funny
Arcadia Tenebra is a bit on the dark side but doesn’t take itself very seriously. In the end, games are supposed to be fun! So, there is a lot of typical Balkan humor in Arcadia Tenebra: often dark one, and yet not cynical or sarcastic.
WHAT KIND OF BOARD GAME?
Before creating Arcadia Tenebra we didn’t have game design experience. Some of us were, so to speak, average boardgame players. We played: Chess, Ludo, Monopoly, Cluedo, Risk, and World of Warcraft Board Game. But, on the other side, we had a lot of experience in playing computer RPGs (Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate: Shadows of Amn, Fallout, Fallout 2, Dragon Age: Origins). So, it is not surprising that Arcadia Tenebra may feel like a computer RPG played on board. As we were developing our game, we begun to play board games that we believed would be more or less on the same track with Arcadia Tenebra, such as Arkham Horror, Folklore: The Affliction, Descent 2.0: Journey in the dark, Fallout: Boardgame, Machina Arcana… However, we found out that although we have some things in common with these – truly great – boardgames, Arcadia Tenebra somehow turned out different. We believe the reason for that is twofold. First, we were new to boardgame design. Second, half of our core team are writers. For these reasons Arcadia Tenebra comes across as a bit of a mutant game in terms of gaming mechanism, knitting the story, building replayability, etc.
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COMPONENTS
CARDS
80 Luckies
50 Unluckies
30 Creatures
30 Intelligence / Charisma random events
25 Tesla’s prototypes
20 Clues
10 Specials
TRACKERS
1 Blood Moon tracker
20 Blue movement trackers
20 Red movement trackers
20 Yellow movement trackers
20 Green movement trackers
80 Statistic trackers
10 Character markers
BOARDS
1 Board (400 x 400 mm)
10 Player boards
10 Creature boards
DICES
1 Blue d20
1 Red d20
1 Yellow d20
1 Green d20
STANDS
1 Blue plastic stand
1 Red plastic stand
1 Yellow plastic stand
1 Green plastic stand