The Lost Expedition
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Description
The Lost Expedition is a hand-management, card-driven co-op game by Osprey Games. Up to five players can play across varying difficulty levels. Together, you’ll place hazardous ‘event’ cards in an order that hopefully benefits your team of explorers through the jungle, and at least one of them will survive to make it to the hallowed El Dorado! Designer Peer Sylvester became fascinated with cartographer-slash-explorer Lieutenant Colonel Percy Fawcett’s ambitious – albeit ill-fated – trip into the Brazilian rainforest to find the lost city of ‘Z’, circa 1925. Tragically, Fawcett and his team of fellow adventurers disappeared and we’ll never know if they did locate that hidden jungle city. Hand-management lies at the heart of The Lost Expedition. All players work together to make it through the jungle to reach ‘Z’ before the deck is exhausted, or your explorers fall foul of the Amazon’s brutal conditions. Players have a hand of event cards that they must play one at a time into a public, shared timeline of sorts. Rounds are split into Day and Night. During the Day phase, player take turns to add a card to the public ‘path’. Each card has a number, and cards have to be aligned (and tackled) in numerical order. During the Night phase, players do not have to obey the numerical order; instead, the cards are placed in a row chronologically and tackled as such. Once all of the players have added the designated number of cards to the timeline, you, as the intrepid explorers, then have to face and overcome the hazards before you. Each card has a different hazard on it of some variety, such as encountering a crocodile, a rockslide or a native tribe. In order to overcome a card, you’ll have to complete the optional tasks attached to it, such as, say, either spending a bullet token to shoot the crocodile to earn food tokens, losing two health tokens to gain jungle knowledge, or spending knowledge to move forward a space in the jungle. Sometimes you can (or have to) do multiple tasks per card. If you fail, there’s a price to pay – usually health points. The fantastic thing about The Lost Expedition is that you cannot directly state what you have in your hand, but you can drop hints as to what order you should all try and play cards. You can, of course, all see the public ‘path’ in which you’re going to tackle events, and what resources you have left. You can try to work out what might be the best card to play. However, the (perhaps unappealing) cards you decide not to play during the Day phase will be the only ones you’re left with for the forthcoming Night phase, so it’s all about trying to manage the perils, keeping your head above water! The artwork by Garen Ewing on the cards is fabulous. It’s like something straight out of Hergé’s Tintin comics – wonderful colours and strong lines, certainly homage to that familiar ligne claire style. The Lost Expedition is a tough co-op, but an adventure you and your friends will want to go on time and time again. There’s also a solo mode, and a team-vs-team variant, too. Player Count: 1-5 Time: 30-50 Minutes Age: 14+
A brilliant, brutal game in a neat and beautiful package, The Lost Expedition is a fantastically fun card layer that can be played co-operatively, competitively or solo. Inspired by 1930's explorer Percy Fawcett, who vanished into the South American rainforest while trying to find El Dorado, it provides a Boys Own Adventure in a box, complete with glorious artwork and some truly agonising decisions.
Set-Up
First, players must choose a group of three intrepid explorers, balancing jungle, navigation and camping skills, before picking up a number of tokens to represent their health, food and ammo. Between seven and nine expedition cards are then laid out, representing a route to the fabled Lost City of Z.
The players must try and keep their meeple moving, working to keep at least one of their explorers alive long enough to reach the city, where they can enjoy fame, glory and the untold riches of a vanished civilisation.
It's just waiting there in the jungle, waiting for… OH MY GOD! CÂNDIDO! HE’S COVERED IN LEECHES! THEY’VE BLED HIM DRY! OH, I CAN’T LOOK! IT’S HORRIBLE! HORRIBLE!
Playing The Lost Expedition Board Game (Credit: The Innocent BGG)
Lost Expedition Gameplay
Gameplay in Lost Expedition revolves around the party’s attempts to navigate through the jungle, undertaking two marches a day: one in the morning and the other in the evening. Each player must take it in turns to play one of the cards in their hand, combining them into a series of encounters and incidents that make up each march.
In the morning, cards are arranged in numerical order, in the evening they remain in the order they are played - such is the added confusion of a journey in the dark. Each card is resolved in turn, with coloured boxes to show…THERE’S A SPIDER ON MY NECK! IT’S THE SIZE OF A DINNER PLATE! FANGS SINKING INTO MY FLESH, OH SWEET BABY GROOT! THE PAIN!…to show whether players face a compulsory, must-play event; a choice between often unpleasant alternatives, or a play-if-you-want-to option.
To move along the path to victory in Lost Expedition, you must resolve a card with a progress icon on it. They can be hard to find, and when you do, there is rarely gain without a large dose of pain. An example? Here’s a rope bridge: You can now progress at the cost of a navigation point. Not got any? Well, Isabelle is your navigation expert, so you can take a health off her instead. She’s already dead? Well, you can still progress if you KILL ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE PARTY. No? Fine. You can choose not to progress and add an extra card to the march, which might be better - or might KILL SOMEONE.
The meat of the game is in the interaction between players: choosing the best (or least awful) order for the cards to be played in, making hard (often appalling) choices and husbanding health and resources. Is it fun? Oh, dear me, yes.
Ending the game
The game ends when all the cards have been played through twice (you lose), when someone staggers, half-mad and starving into the city, or - and this is most likely - they all die.
Final thoughts on Lost Expedition
What Lost Expedition does really well is… THE RIVER - IT’S BOILING! NO, WAIT, THERE’S SOMETHING COMING UP. CROCODILE! SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! TOO LATE! ARRRRGH!…is to simulate the brutal hostility of the jungle and it’s unforgiving attitude towards anyone unschooled in its many hazards.
It prompts fevered debates, often hysterical laughter at the impossible choices and somehow keeps you coming back for more punishment. Whether you play solo, against an an opponent, or as a team, you’ll be lucky to win - but what a challenge. What a thrilling, atmospheric little game.
Zatu Score
You might like
- The sheer, unforgiving brutality of this jungle journey.
- The pleasingly large cards and evocative artwork.
- The feeling of triumph when you arrange the cards for the best possible outcome - never has advancing a meeple once space felt so good!
Might not like
- The sheer, unforgiving brutality of this jungle journey.
- The tendency for the slightly fiddly tokens to go missing at a crucial point.