exploration

Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death is a fast-paced, fully cooperative, dungeon-crawl board game set in the Old West, with a heavy dose of unspeakable horror! Players create characters, taking on the role of a classic Western Hero Archetype, such as the Law Man, Gunslinger, or Saloon Girl. Forming an adventuring posse, the Heroes venture down into the dark mines, overrun with all manner of ancient demons and foul creatures from another world. With tactical gameplay, lots of dice, and a robust card-driven exploration system, no two games are ever the same as the heroes explore the mines finding new enemies to fight, new loot to collect, and new dangers to overcome. Players can even find portals to other worlds, stepping through to continue their adventures on the other side!

An exciting campaign system allows the players to visit local frontier towns between adventures, spending their hard-earned loot and building their characters from game to game! As players find fantastic gear and artifacts to equip their heroes, they also gain experience from their adventures. This experience is used to level up, guiding the hero's path through an expansive, class-specific upgrade tree of new skills and abilities, allowing each player to develop their hero to fit their own play style.

In Swamps of Death, players will encounter portals to the otherworld Jargono, a humid swampland inhabited by sentient reptiles, vicious dinosaurs and a tribe of humanoids, cut off from return to their homeworld untold years after their own portal closed.

So load up yer' six shooter, throw on yer' hat and poncho, and gather the posse as the darkness is coming, and all hell's about to break loose...in the Shadows of Brimstone!

Can be used together with Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients to raise the maximum players to 6.

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients is a fast-paced, fully cooperative, dungeon-crawl board game set in the Old West, with a heavy dose of unspeakable horror! Players create characters, taking on the role of a classic Western Hero Archetype, such as the Law Man, Gunslinger, or Saloon Girl. Forming an adventuring posse, the Heroes venture down into the dark mines, overrun with all manner of ancient demons and foul creatures from another world. With tactical gameplay, lots of dice, and a robust card-driven exploration system, no two games are ever the same as the heroes explore the mines finding new enemies to fight, new loot to collect, and new dangers to overcome. Players can even find portals to other worlds, stepping through to continue their adventures on the other side!

An exciting campaign system allows the players to visit local frontier towns between adventures, spending their hard-earned loot and building their characters from game to game! As players find fantastic gear and artifacts to equip their heroes, they also gain experience from their adventures. This experience is used to level up, guiding the hero's path through an expansive, class-specific upgrade tree of new skills and abilities, allowing each player to develop their hero to fit their own play style.

In City of the Ancients, players will encounter portals to the otherworld on the Plains of Targa, finding an ancient frozen city whose living inhabitants are nowhere to be found. Instead, great mechanical keepers wander the city going about their duties - until interrupted by the arrival of the players' characters!

So load up yer' six shooter, throw on yer' hat and poncho, and gather the posse as the darkness is coming, and all hell's about to break loose...in the Shadows of Brimstone!

Can be used together with Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death to raise the maximum players to 6.

Lost Cities is a card game in the Kosmos two-player series. The game consists of a single deck of cards of rank 2–10 in 5 different colors with 3 special "handshakes" ("HS" in scoring examples below) in each suit. There is also a board which functions only to hold and organize discarded cards and is largely superfluous. Games last around 15 minutes. This is generally considered a good "couples" game and is often recommended for people with non-gamer partners.

The object the game is to gain points by mounting profitable archaeological expeditions to the different sites represented by the 5 colors. On a player's turn they must always first play one card, either to an expedition or by discarding it to the appropriate discard pile, and then draw one card. There is a separate discard pile for each color and a player may draw the top card of any discard pile or the top card of the deck. Cards played to expeditions must be in ascending order but they need not be consecutive. Handshakes are considered lower than a 2 and represent investments in an expedition. Thus, if you play a red 4, you may play any other red card higher than a 4 on a future turn but may no longer play a handshake, the 2, or the 3.

The game continues in this fashion with players alternating turns until the final card is taken from the draw pile. The rest of the cards in hand are then discarded and players score their expeditions. Each expedition that has at least one card played into it must be scored. Cards played into an expedition are worth their rank in points, and handshakes count as a multiplier against your final total. Expeditions start at a value of -20 so you must play at least 20 points of cards into an expedition in order to make a profit. If you are left with a negative value and have a handshake, the multiplier still applies. A 20-point bonus is awarded to every expedition with at least 8 cards played into it. The player with the most points wins the game, but it is typical to play 3 matches and add your score from each to see who wins.

Scoring example 1: an expedition has a 2,3,7,8,10 for a total of 30. This expedition is worth 10 total points: 30 minus the initial -20.

Scoring example 2: an expedition has 2 HS, and 4,5,6,7,8,10 for a total of 40. This expedition is worth 80 total points: 40 points for cards, minus the initial 20, ×3 for the 2 multipliers, plus the 20-pt bonus for playing 8+ cards.

Scoring example 3: an expedition has 1 HS, and 4,6,7 for a total of 17. This expedition is worth -6 total points: 17 minus initial 20, ×2 for the multiplier.

Plan a route to complete your own secret mission before the other players do. Your explorer needs to travel over roads and sandy plains, through woods and rivers, to arrive at the next coordinate using the most efficient or tactical route. Once arrived, you'll receive a new coordinate or clue where the treasure on that rout can be found. But watch your opponents explorers! They will try to sabotage your activity with fallen tree trunks, damaged bridges, or other obstacles. Given the right action cards and perseverance, you could be the first to accomplish your mission and reach the greatest treasure of all: Victory!

There are several ways to play the game. The following variants are possible:

Basic Game
The basic game is played with 2 to 4 players and 2 explorers per player. Each player can move one explorer on his turn. The die thrown depends on which type of land the explorer is standing on. Changing type of land results in ending the players turn. During each players turn, action cards can be collected by moving to one of his own marked coordinates, Reaching a marked coordinate, a new coordinate and action card is received. The action cards are a collection of information, obstacle and help cards. Ending a route means saving the coordinates and the treasure belonging to the route. These coordinates and the treasures are the key to accomplish your own secret mission first.

Young players
To play the game with young players, the game can be played with only one explorer and without using the hiker. All other rules are the same as in the basic game.

Teams
This variant can only be played with 4 players. The 2 players sitting diagonally opposite each other are working together as a team. Both players work on one mission together. Each player will use a set of two explorers. In the team, it's allowed to move each others explorers. It's allowed to discuss the strategy and to give hints to each other during the game.

Game material:
- 4 board segments with a coordinate frame
- 14 mission cards
- 26 treasure cards
- 60 coordinate cards
- 42 actions cards (11 obstacle cards, 11 help cards, 20 information cards)
- 4x2 explorer tokens with 3 accompanying tokens with route symbol
- 28 obstacle and help attributes (8 hikers, 10 fallen tree trunks, 6 damaged bridges, 4 shortcut tokens)
- 20 'single'-tokens and 10 'multi'-tokens
- 4 dice
- rules of the game

In Archipelago, players are Renaissance European powers competing in the exploration of a Pacific or Caribbean archipelago. They will explore territories, harvest resources, use those resources in markets both internal (for their use and that of the natives) and foreign (to sell it in Europe), build markets, harbors, cities and temples, and negotiate among themselves (and maybe betray each other) – all this to complete their secret objectives. They will also need to guess the secret objective of the other players to be able to benefit from them.

But players also need to be careful of the natives; if they make them too unhappy or if too many of them are unoccupied, they could revolt and declare independence. Then everyone will lose!

According to the author, what he's tried to create is a "German" economic worker-placement game, but without the two things he dislikes in them: the superficial theme and the lack of interaction. Indeed this game includes a very present theme and a lot of negotiation and potential backstabbing.

The game includes three sets of objectives, enabling players to choose between a short, medium and a long game. Solo play is also possible with an expansion.