The Lost Expedition: A Game of Survival in the Amazon

I love that this is a solo game. My 6 and 4 year old love to help me. It’s really hard to win and there is alot going on and a lot of stratagy in such a simple game. If you need a game to play by yourself this is THE GAME TO PLAY! it can also be played as 2 player, I’ve only done that a couole of times. My boys love the graphics on the cards. They have a snake and a jungle cat that can give you meat or injure you. They have natives that can be bad, good or indifferent depending on how you play the game. Each game is never the same so you’ve never get bored of it. I have one kid in carge of injuring the people, eating or gaining food and the bullets. The other is in charge of pulling the cards and we decide together how we want to play the cards. We all enjoy it.

I have a pocket sized collection of games, and love Curious Expedition. This is my traditional way of playing it so to speak. It makes me very happy. I wish sometimes there were either more interaction or less punishing mechanics. You can add that with the expansion but I don't think it'll fit in the box right. Likewise, the tokens just go in a baggie bc otherwise they fly everywhere. The box is beau-ti-ful and opens like a fancy box of chocolates or something. It's a good game, but I would look up play-throughs and see if you'd actually like to play it.

I've only made one attempt to reach the lost city of Z. It didn't end well. The art in this game is fantastic. The theme is cool. You play as a group of 3 explorers trying to trek through a perilous jungle and reach Z. But the jungle is harsh. There are many dangers in your path. The trick is in selecting the right cards to play, and in an order that you can survive. I've only played solo mode, but there is also a cooperative mode, and a competitive mode. The cards are huge (80x120mm), which is nice, but means that some people will find it difficult to shuffle. It also takes more table space. But the art is top notch Rin Tin Tin style, so big is nice.... But maybe they should release a pocket version? I can't really comment on the balance after only a single play. Can you usually win with skill? I don't know. Maybe luck plays a large role? I will return to the review if I ever find out. So far, it's fun. It is also really easy to scale. If you find it too difficult, there are several ways to make it easier, from making the path shorter to giving yourself more food, ammo, health, and/or explorers. So I'm saying that it doesn't have to be hard if you don't mind cheating a little.

This game is really difficult, but you can always give yourself additional advantages by increasing the amount of health your characters have at the start, or by limiting the number of movements needed to reach the end goal. I have played the game about five times, and I have only won a single time (no deviation from suggested solo rules). The game is a fairly quick play, and the strategy needed to progress is both diverse and engaging. Do not buy this game, however, if you do not like a challenge or if you believe that there should always be a way to overcome misfortune. I have found myself hopelessly lost, without any reasonable means of salvation and on the brink of disaster over and over again playing this game. Very little happens in the jungle that doesn't kill you, apparently. This really adds a sense of urgency and excitement to this game, even when playing alone. You will lose. . . a lot. The one victory I have had with this game was satisfying as a result of the dire odds. The game is not too rules heavy and the set-up is simple and quick. Gameplay is engaging and offers a lot of different challenges around the management of your few resources. There is even an element of luck that comes with the shuffling of the deck of cards, but the strategy elements do a nice job of giving you some way to balance the random nature of the card draws. In short, this game is a pretty good time without requiring hours of rule study and execution.

I grew up reading Tintin and American superhero comics. As an adult, board, card and miniatures games became a hobby. Within that interest, I grew to appreciate and love solitaire games. The Lost Expedition hits a lot of sweet spots for me in the aforementioned interests and so, this review is from a solo player's view The game plays puzzle-y, tense and challenging, the artwork is superb in the European clean line style and the presentation is gorgeous! The card size is that of Tarot, I believe. The box is a single piece with the box lid as a hinge. The replay value is there as the deck is not only shuffled, but the cards from it and the player's hand are sorted and managed first in numerical order during Morning hikes and, however the player sees fit, in the Evening excursion. A truly entertaining game with exceptional presentation. Nice work to designer Peer Sylvester , artist Garen Ewing and of course, Osprey Games.

The Tintin-inspired art and lettering font used in the box image of this game are what drew me to this game initially, and curiosity took over from there. Indeed, the art on the inside of the box (on all the game materials) is just as spectacular. This is the game that takes place after English explorer Percy Fawcett (recall last year's movie "Lost City of Z") vanishes in the Brazilian jungle at the turn of the century. It is a collaborative game, in which players interactively "control" (to the extent possible) three explorers who are making their way through the jungle to the Lost City of Z, aka El Dorado. Explorers face interesting challenges and must balance food supplies, ammunition, and health. Occasionally an explorer succumbs and dies along the way. If at least one explorer survives all the way to El Dorado, then all the players win. If all the explorers die before reaching El Dorado, then all the players lose. The game mechanics are ingenious, combining random elements with a good amount of player agency, so that players really do feel that they are active contributors to the outcome, not just ruled by chance. There are strategies in this game that become apparent only after a few plays, so the game promises to become even more engaging over time. I have a 9-year-old daughter and from the product description thought this game might be too complicated, but after watching a "watch it played" video on YouTube decided to go with it. The same video was very helpful in explaining the rules to my daughter, and now she's a pro!

Enjoyable solo and coop gaming experience. Game presents itself as a tactical puzzle - where you're faced with difficult decisions. You are a team that is trying to reach the lost city of city, facing many obstacles a long the way. The game structure is straightforward - each round has a morning and evening stage that dictate the order in which cards will be played to the communal tableau. Afterwards the cards are resolved. Each card typically presents some combination of action that you are forced to take, several choices from which you have to pick one, and optional actions. You are juggling between gathering resources, spending resources and moving your team to the finish line. Fun game that can be played in 30min, great vehicle for story telling (e.g. today the explorers went on a morning hike and encountered a jaguar. Unfortunately we had ran out of bullets so the long and strenuous detour caused Yves exhaustion, -1 health... Etc) There is a little random element due to luck of the draw with the deck, but the game isn't long enough to feel like that's a horrible punishment... Overall, easy to teach and fun to play experience.

A fun little game. It's quick playing but in cooperative mode really makes you think about your decisions and how you interact with your fellow players to make it safely to the end with at least one explorer still alive. Finding your way out of the predicaments imposed by each round can be surprisingly stressful. Love the artwork (it's the reason I impulse-bought the game) and glad the gameplay lives up to it! For extra verisimilitude we played while watching the movie "The Lost City of Z" on Prime video.

Es muy entretenido para jugarlo en solitario. El juego viene en inglés pero es facil de entender las instrucciones, si se tiene dificultad ver los tutoriales en español que hay en Youtube. Aunque la dependencia del idioma al jugarlo es casi ninguna. Llegó muy bien empaquetado y en perfectas condiciones, sin retraso ninguno.

Muy clever. Jirnbilsyrado. Y con un destacable modo de un jugador. Es una gran experiencia para jugadores nuevos y experimentados.

The product, packaging and the concept of the game is great

Very easy to learn, hard to master game in which you lead your team through the jungle to find the lost city of el dorado. Basically you've got a some food, some bullets, a bunch of hp and other survival skills, and you deal from the deck of card 6 encounters in the morning, and 6 in the evening. These are things you'd encounter in the jungle. For example, if you encounter a snake, you could lose a bullet but gain food. Or if you had no bullet....you'd lose an HP. The whole game is oriented around you managing your resources so that you can deal with these encounters, while hoping to get the encounter card that allows you to move forward in your travel. Survive long enough to find 8 of these, and you will find El dorado. Simple, right? Its very addictive. You try your best to save your resources or your teammate so that you can live to see the next morning. Best yet, takes 1 minute to setup, and 1 minute to take down. Great game. The cards and components are top quality, and I love the art style - as someone else said, Tintin art style. Now can we get a mini version of this game so i can pocket it on the go?

This review is for the SOLO play variant only. The same game can however be played 'head to head' by two players competitively, or by 2 to 5 players cooperatively. First of all the packaging and artwork on the cards are superb. The whole thing just feels 'quality' and, in my opinion, has lots of atmosphere. The game itself is very compelling and, whilst there is a 'luck of the draw' element when it comes to the cards, the player does have some control over the order in which they're played. This requires careful thought, strategy and planning which makes the game challenging and interesting. Every game is different and I never get bored. If you spend time reading and thinking about each card as it's played you can really get into the atmosphere of the game. This is what really makes it for me. In standard [solo] set up the game is extremely difficult to win. Infact, in my experience, it's near impossible. I've found that increasing the starting amount of health per explorer (from 3 to 4), ammunition (from 3 to 4) and food (from 3 to 6) balances the game up a lot better and brings a near even (50%) win rate. For me this makes playing far more enjoyable as you feel 'in with a chance'. The game comes with a comprehensive instruction booklet. Additionally I found watching a couple of independent 'how to' YouTube videos very helpful in terms of enhancing my understanding of exactly how to play the game. An expansion pack called 'The Fountain of Youth' is available to buy separately. That said, even without this, the base game is superb, challenging and has a real 'just one more attempt' allure. I do have the expansion pack but have not yet used it. However, having looked through it, I'd say it will definitely add some very interesting extra dimensions to the game which can only increase it's already compelling playability. Overall 5 stars, all day long.