I am reminded of the beginning of a relationship. Two people who are trying to find where they are willing to risk making a commitment and where they feel the need to hold back.
Lost Cities is a 2-player card game that puts you and a fellow explorer in competition towards completing several expeditions to famed lost civilizations. Each player draws cards at the start of the game. Most cards feature a value between 1 and 10 and are color coded to correspond to a particular lost city. A few feature colored handshakes (investment cards) that work as multipliers and symbolize a further commitment to a particular expedition.
Each player takes turns. First, playing a card from their hand and then drawing from the deck or one of the expedition discard piles. This reverse play order is an interesting game mechanic that definitely adds to the challenge of the game.
Players need to invest a minimum of 20 points in an expedition. Once they surpass that fulcrum, each point above 20 counts toward their score in the end, while each point below is counted against. Scores are amplified by any extra commitment played on an expedition in the form of the investment cards. Each investment card acts as an incremental multiplier on the scoring of an expedition; the first multiplies the score by 2, then 3 and finally by 4.
The challenge comes in deciding where to commit your attention. It does not pay off to try to play all the expeditions, instead you need to choose a few on which to focus your resources. Also, your investment cards must be played before you can start to lay point cards down. Add in the play before you pick mechanic and the fact that the other player may be working on the same expedition as you and you have one focused game.
Lost Cities tends to minimize the banter as you spend time working out the math in your head trying to make sure you can max out your final expedition above 20 points before the last card is drawn from the deck, thereby ending the game.
Overall, it is a great addition to an upper-middle or high school game library for a few reasons. It is a nice two-player offering, which do not come up as often. It requires the player to be selective about their actions in order to be successful and you really flex your math muscles as you work your way towards scoring positive points in the end.
Library Gamer 
January 31, 2008 at 4:10 pm
My wife and I are big fans of Lost Cities. I love that you don’t really think about the math–I mean, you have to do it to figure out who wins, but it’s not the game. It’s also cool because it can be played competitively or cooperatively.
I recently played Coloretto at a friend’s place, and while the games is different than Lost Cities, it felt a lot like it and can accomodate 3-5 players. No multipliers are involved in scoring, but there are points earned and deducted.
February 2, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I really like the play aspect of this game but I do not think that the strategy and rules of the game match very well with the theme. The idea of going to look for lost cities sounds pretty cool but the game play really has only a surface connection with the theme. It is really about investing in an endeavor – perhaps finding outside investors and then seeking a return on the investment, in incremental amounts, in a specific numeric order.
The game is designed with beautiful pictures of the lost cities and artifacts that you supposedly find in the cities but during game play, these pictures/items are completely irrelevant, as you are only thinking about their number values.
A suggestion, if the were to ever re-imagine this game: both players should be inventors, they both have five inventions but have to choose which inventions to market depending on the opportunities (i.e. cards) that they are dealt. The opportunities follow a logical progression, that account for why you can’t play a 2 after you have already played an 8 – like 2 is sell your product to a local boutique and 8 is market your product on the cable shopping channel.
I know that scenario seems so much lamer, like lemonade stand the card game – but at least it feels more genuine to the rules of the game.
June 29, 2008 at 12:01 am
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