exploration

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.

This is a game for two treasure hunters in ancient Inca ruins. You are both looking for the same relics. But first you put together your exploration team out of archaeologists and soldiers of fortune by drafting cards from the central pile.
During the game you can poach staff members off your adversary or salvage a staffer from deadly traps.
You do all this to meet the required conditions to find those rare treasures. And because they're rare you'd better not miss them.

In Relic Runners, each player takes on the role of a character keen to exploit and acquire relics that have been unearthed in a long lost part of the jungle. Each would-be archaeologist has a colorful past — retired university professor, former army captain, etc. — and wants to be the first to get their hands on the precious loot to earn the most victory points.

Players must navigate a series of paths in order to visit temples. The archaeologists are restricted in their movement by their access to rations, but thankfully they can place markers on paths to allow them to travel for free in future turns. The players also have a toolkit that can be upgraded in three particular ways to break the rules in some way or offer them an advantage as they move around.

Each time a player visits a temple, he takes a token. Initially the temples offer up victory points or some form of in-game bonus. When the final token is taken, a relic is placed there to be collected. The players earn large victory points for collecting relics of different types (set collection) and players can also earn bonus points for creating long routes and traveling along these to collect relics.