Lost Cities board game review

Full disclosure: I only managed to play this game once at the UK Games Expo so this review is just my first thoughts on Lost Cities.

You are explorers. Questing into the unknown for great treasures that you can (slightly problematically) take home to earn great fame, fortune and prove to your family that you aren’t a disappointment just because you didn’t become a doctor.

Lost Cities is a two player board game where you aim to collect the most points by the end of the game. To do this you must place down different coloured numbered cards (from 2-10) in rows of ascending order with the total of the cards you placed being your score. However, each new row of different coloured cards gives you -20 points so you need to think carefully before committing to a new row. Some special cards can actually multiply all the cards in one column by 2 to give you the extra boost you need to win.

If you are asking yourself how the rules, I described above, even vaguely resembled going on an expedition… I’ve put some thought into it… And I still have no clue. This games theme is so lightly smeared on that, take away the mediocre artwork, you’ve got a game about putting different coloured numbers into rows which sounds about as dry and unexciting as my Grandmother’s chocolate cake.

However, to give this game credit where credit is due, the rules are very simple. Even at a convention
when I had spent the last couple of hours running after my little cousin (who I think secretly drinks 542 cups of highly caffeinated coffee in the morning before anyone else gets up) I could still push through a tiredness induced haze to easily understand the rules.

Unfortunately, that is where my praise for this game comes to an end. For this game commits a cardinal sin so massive that I think it may be the most sacrilegious board
game I have ever seen. What heinous crime is this game guilty of? What foul act has it performed which shocked me so much?

It made me do maths.

The end scoring for this game feels actually like I am back in school and slaving over some complicated maths equation. I think you could probably get a good chunk of the next game in before you have finished adding and subtracting all the numbers you need to just find out who won.


So, although the rules may be simple, there are many more, much better two player games out there (for example the excellent Patchwork) that don’t require you to crack out your calculators.