Two players. Pass one device back and forth, or take a device each by room code.
Goal. Mount profitable expeditions in five colours. Each colour is scored separately; your round score is the sum of all five.
Deck. 60 cards — per colour, the numbers 2 to 10 plus three handshakes (shown here as Y·§).
Turn. Play or discard exactly one card, then draw exactly one — from the deck, or the top of any discard pile except the pile you just discarded onto.
Playing. Cards go onto your own expedition of that colour, and numbers must strictly ascend. Handshakes must be played before any number in that colour.
Scoring. An expedition you never started scores 0. Otherwise add its numbers, subtract 20 for the cost of the expedition, then multiply by 1 + the number of handshakes. Eight or more cards in one expedition adds a flat +20 after the multiplier — so handshakes on a doomed expedition multiply the loss.
End. The round ends the instant the last card is drawn from the deck. A standard game is three rounds, with the starting player alternating; highest total wins.
Lost Cities is a game by Reiner Knizia, published by Kosmos. This is a non-commercial fan implementation of the rules; no artwork or text from the published game is used.
Four independent toggles on the setup screen, all off by default. With all four off this is plain Lost Cities, card for card.
Jobs. Before anything is dealt you are offered two jobs, pick one and reveal it, and keep it for the whole game — a bigger hand, a cheaper expedition, an earlier bonus. Your opponent can see it, so it is an asymmetry you can plan against rather than an ambush.
Skills. You gain a charge every time you discard, which turns the limp move into a resource. Spend them before your play: Radio (1) shows the top two cards of the deck, Airlift (2) lets your next play ignore the ascending rule, Sabotage (3) shuts one discard pile to your opponent for their next turn. One use of each per turn; charges do not carry between rounds.
Objectives. Two secret cards each round, +25 apiece, revealed at scoring — finish a seven-card expedition, start all five colours, keep every expedition in the black.
Endgame mixups. In the final round only, with eight cards left in the deck, one rule card flips face up and applies to the rest of the round: the bonus moves, expeditions get dearer, every discard pile unlocks. You get three or four turns to scramble — it is loud on purpose. None of them can ever forbid a move you could otherwise make.