Reiner Knizia is no small fish in the world
of board games.
Titles such as the Lord of the Rings and Ingenious
are enjoyed world wide, while Lost Cities,
a 2-player 60-card game has even proven to
be popular enough to warrant an XBLA remake.
Having previously converted Carcassonne to
the iOS platform, The Coding Monkeys have
taken it upon themselves to restore Lost Cities
to its original design, bolstering it with
individually scaling AI opponents and multiple
asynchronous online games.
You and your opponent play the role of adventurers
seeking to plunder the riches of up to five
different temples.
However, in attempting to explore these dungeons
you'll incur an initial penalty - an investment
if you will.
It's your job to play numbered cards in increasing
value to overcome this penalty, hopefully
earning a profit at the end or at least having
a higher score than your opponent by the time
the final card is drawn.
It's an ingeniously simple and fast paced
game where players must make bold moves to
outplay their opponent.
Things are made even riskier thanks to investment
cards that double, triple or even quadruple
the value of the cards played (and thus the
profit earned), but you must waste turns playing
them before making a journey and by that time
your opponent may have all the cards they
need.
Of course a game is only as good as your opponent
and Lost Cities provides four offline AIs
to play with, each scaling depending on your
successes and failures against them.
As you get better and topple harder opponents,
your rating will increase, affecting the relative
challenge of the AI you face.
However the real fun is in challenging other
players via Game Center, having multiple games
up at a time as you wait for opponents to
make their move.
Lost Cities is an elegant title with clean,
sharp visuals and a calming soundtrack that's
perfect for soothing the nerves after a few
bad card draws.
Whether you spend your time knocking over
the game's many achievements or play a round
or three or ten with your friends, it's a
definite must have for fans of board games.
