Designers | Reiner Knizia |
---|---|
Publishers | Kosmos Rio Grande Games |
Players | 2 |
Setup time | 2 minutes |
Playing time | 30 minutes |
Chance | Medium |
Age range | 10 and up |
Skills | Strategic thought |
Lost Cities is a 60-card card game, designed in 1999 by game designer Reiner Knizia and published by several publishers. The objective of the game is to mount profitable expeditions to one or more of the five lost cities (the Himalayas, the Brazilian Rain Forest, the Desert Sands, the Ancient Volcanos and Neptune's Realm). The game was originally intended as a 2-player game, but rule variants have been contributed by fans to allow 1 or 2 further players, causing Reiner Knizia himself to later provide semi-official 4-player rules. [1]
Lost Cities is a fast-moving game, with players playing or discarding, and then replacing, a single card each turn. Cards represent progress on one of the five color-coded expeditions. Players must decide, during the course of the game, how many of these expeditions to actually embark upon. Card-play rules are quite straightforward, but because players can only move forward on an expedition (by playing cards which are higher-numbered than those already played), making the right choice in a given game situation can be quite difficult. An expedition that has been started will earn points according to how much progress has been made when the game ends, and after three rounds, the player with the highest total score wins the game. Each expedition that is started but not thoroughly charted incurs a negative point penalty (investment costs).
Interaction between players is indirect, in that one cannot directly impact another player's expeditions. However, since players can draw from the common discard piles, they are free to make use of opposing discards. Additionally, since the available cards for a given expedition are finite, progress made by an opponent in a given color can lead to difficulty making progress in that same color.
The game's board, while designed to supplement the theme, is optional and consists only of simple marked areas where players place discards. If Lost Cities had four expeditions instead of five, it could be played with a standard deck of playing cards. When doing so, the face cards would represent investment cards, with numbered cards two through ten serving as the expedition progress cards.
At GenCon 2016, The Lost Cities: Sixth Expedition promo pack was given away. It contains a set of grey cards that are added to the base game as an additional expedition. The sixth expedition has the same rules as the other five.
In 2018, some newer international versions of Lost Cities were expected to also include Expedition 6 as well as two-sided boards. One side with five expeditions, the other side with six. Starting from 2019, the game now includes this extra expedition, for a total of six colored suits with a two-sided board. [2]
The 2008 game Keltis was re-themed and published in the U.S. as Lost Cities: The Board Game. The game supports up to four players and is a more complex version of the original card game.
Lost Cities was published by Sierra Online for the Xbox Live Arcade platform on April 23, 2008. The title supports both online play against other humans and solo play against computer-controlled opponents. It was delisted on 20 February 2009 after a merger between Activision and Vivendi. [3] It is currently not available for purchase.
Catan: Cities & Knights, formerly The Cities and Knights of Catan is an expansion to the board game The Settlers of Catan for three to four players. It contains features taken from The Settlers of Catan, with emphasis on city development and the use of knights, which are used as a method of attacking other players as well as helping opponents defend Catan against a common foe. Cities & Knights can also be combined with the Catan: Seafarers expansion or with Catan: Traders & Barbarians scenarios.
Tigris and Euphrates is a tabletop eurogame designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 1997 by Hans im Glück. Before its publication, it was highly anticipated by German gamers hearing rumors of a "gamer's game" designed by Knizia. Tigris and Euphrates won first prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spielepreis. A card game version was released in 2005.
Reiner Knizia is a prolific German-style board game designer. He was born in West Germany in 1957 and earned a doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Ulm before designing games full time. He is frequently included on lists of the greatest game designers of all time. Many of his hundreds of designs are considered modern classics, and many have won or been nominated for significant gaming awards, including the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis. His notable designs include Amun-Re, Blue Moon City, Ingenious, Keltis, Lord of the Rings, Medici, Modern Art, Ra, Taj Mahal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Through the Desert. Many of his designs incorporate mathematical principles, such as his repeated use of auction mechanics.
Sorry! is a board game that is based on the ancient Indian cross and circle game Pachisi. Players move their three or four pieces around the board, attempting to get all of their pieces "home" before any other player. Originally manufactured by W.H. Storey & Co in England and now by Hasbro, Sorry! is marketed for two to four players, ages 6 and up. The game title comes from the many ways in which a player can negate the progress of another, while issuing an apologetic "Sorry!"
Golf is a card game invented by Elias Clark of Brighton, England. Where players try to earn the lowest number of points over the course of nine deals.
Sequence is an abstract strategy tabletop party game. Sequence was invented by Douglas Reuter and Hamish. They originally called the game Sequence Five. He spent years developing the concept, and, in June 1981, granted Jax Ltd. an exclusive license to manufacture, distribute and sell the board game Sequence and its subsequent variations. The game was first sold in a retail store in 1982. In 2017, Goliath Game Company bought Jax, and in early 2018 also bought all licensor rights and now owns 100% of the game Sequence. Doug Reuter is acknowledged as the inventor of Sequence on all newly produced copies of the game - both on the box and in the printed rules.
Gother Than Thou: The Most Pretentious Card Game Ever Made is a card game that parodies the goth subculture. It was first published in 2000 by Savant Garde Entertainment. Gother Than Thou appeared on the 2001 Games magazine Games 100 list, and was nominated for the "Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game" category of the 2002 Origins Awards.
Lord of the Rings is a cooperative board game based on the high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Published in 2000 by Kosmos in Germany, Wizards of the Coast in the U.S., and Parker Brothers in the U.K., the game is designed by Reiner Knizia and features artwork by illustrator John Howe. In the game, each player plays a hobbit in the party, and the party will aim to destroy the One Ring. Upon its release, the game received a Spiel des Jahres special award. A slightly revised version was later published by Fantasy Flight Games.
Amun-Re is a game designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 2003 by Hans im Glück in German and in English by Rio Grande Games.
Blue Moon is a German collectible card game (CCG) designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Kosmos and Fantasy Flight Games in 2004.
Schotten-Totten is a card game designed by Reiner Knizia, first published in 1999. The name is a portmanteau of the German words "Schotten" and "Hottentotten" (Hottentots).
Curse of the Mummy's Tomb is a pulp fiction board game published by Games Workshop in 1988. It features a three-dimensional board, representing an Egyptian pyramid, with two consecutively smaller playing areas above the bottom board. The aim of the game is to reach the top of the Pyramid of Khonsu, complete the tasks within and obtain the Elixir of Life. In addition to traps, creatures and treasures, there can be encounters with the deadly Mummy itself.
Lost Cities is card game for the Xbox 360, based upon the popular card game of the same name by game designer Reiner Knizia, published by Vivendi Games under their Sierra Online division and developed by Sierra Online Shanghai, formally known as Studio Ch'in. The game was released on April 23, 2008. It has since disappeared from Xbox Live Arcade.
Keltis is a board game designed by Reiner Knizia that won the Spiel des Jahres for best game of the year in 2008. In the US, it has been marketed as Lost Cities: The Board Game, though there are some subtle rules differences.
Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game is a survival horror board game that was first published in 2007. Players can play on the Hero team or as the Zombies. A modular board randomly determines the layout of the town at the start of each game and there are several different scenarios to play. Seven supplements have been released.
Jungle Speed is a card game created by Thomas Vuarchex and Pierric Yakovenko in 1991. First self-published and now published by Asmodee Editions, it is played with non-standard playing cards. An expansion and all-in set have been published.
FITS (Fill In The Spaces) is a Tetris-like board game published by Ravensburger in 2009.
Cabo is a 2010 card game by Melissa Limes and Mandy Henning that involves memory and manipulation based on the classic Golf card game and is similar to Rat-a-Tat Cat (1995). The game uses a dedicated deck of cards with each suit numbered from 0 to 13, and certain numbers being marked as "Peek", "Spy" or "Swap". The objective of the game is for each player to minimize the sum of their own cards, four of which are played face-down to the table at the start of a round. Face-down cards may be revealed and swapped by card effects.
Uno Flip! is an American shedding-type card game produced by Mattel. The cards from the deck are specially printed for the game. This game is a variation of Uno.
High Society is an auction card game designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Ravensburger in 1995. Players bid against each other to acquire valuable items while avoiding undesirable cards.