I am by no means a great Ark Nova player but I have played a lot of games including some very highly rated players. I have learned that this game is a lot more complex than it appears. The choices are fairly simple, 5 action cards, but there is so much to consider with every move. What are my end game goals? Will my appeal leave me susceptible to attack? Can my opponent trigger the break before I get to use these cards I'm drawing? Can I draw my opponent off my scent by building a larger enclosure than I need right now. I am usually thinking 2-3 turns ahead with every move and if you watch the best players on You Tube, they are also doing this. It takes more than 20 seconds to plan something like that. I have also made enough mistakes to learn that 15 seconds of thinking time before completing your turn can be a life-saver. The best players in Ark Nova usually take a minute or so per turn and sometimes restart a few times and go down under 1 minute. So can Ark Nova be played in 20 minutes? Absolutely. But I don't think it's meant to be played in 20 minutes. I've seen top players expel a player over their time limit with the justification that with an extra 30 seconds earlier in the game, they would have been in a better position. In short, time is an advantage and if you are rushing through your turn, you are giving your opponent an advantage. I play most of my games asynchronously because my kids distract me too much to play live.
