The different pieces of Lost Cities

 This is a weird thing to be thinking about but I have found myself thinking about the compass on the reverse side of the card in at least some editions of Lost Cities. Not the actual artwork on the faces of the cards but the art on the boring sides of the cards.

This has led my rambling brain down three different paths. Memories of first getting the game; wondering how it would hold up now; and the power of effective artwork.

Lost Cities was an early acquisition for me. A watershed game. I read the rules and was totally underwhelmed. I played a hand against myself and my opinion did a 180. I ended up playing the game regularly for the next few years. Which, for someone who was trying as many different games as they could, is impressive.

And I think Lost Cities would still hold up if or when I go back to it. Because it is so gosh darn simple. Doctor Knizia loves playing with math and Lost Cities is one of the most fundamental examples of that. There are variants on the idea like Celtis or Emu Rangers that I enjoyed a lot because they were more flexible but I can’t help but wonder if the remorseless  and unforgiving simplicity of Lost Cities is one of its strengths.

As for theme and artwork... mechanically, Lost Cities is 100% abstract. You can and people have played it with regular playing cards by dropping a suit. But the theme does make sense for the mechanics and I know that the theme and pretty artwork helped the game have traction for me. Theme is more than just pretty pictures and it more than even creating stories. Theme creates a context for mechanics. It helps our brains put all the pieces of a game together. Lost Cities doesn’t need a theme but the theme makes it that much easier to get engaged with it.

Two games I find myself comparing Lost Cities in this ramble (I can’t really call it an analysis) are Take It Easy and the 10 Days series. I have seen a lot of ‘Bingo with Strategy’ games that use Take It Easy’s paradigm but few are as unforgiving. One mistake can ruin your whole game. And that brutal simplicity keeps me going back to it. And while many people have said that the 10 Days series is Racko with a map, that map makes the game so much more interesting and engaging (and educational).

On paper, Lost Cities doesn’t seem like much.  It in practice, it’s addictive.

Lost Cities as a reference point

I can't seem to escape Lost Cities :D I was recently talking with an old gaming buddy and we began discussing low key, easy to teach two-player games. And Lost Cities inevitably came up.

While we both agreed that Lost Cities has been superseded in our own experiences, it's place as the go-to couples game/girlfriend game/ room mate game/ etc seems to be still going strong.

Personally, I would rather reach for Morels or Jaipur or Battle Line, just to name a few. Lost Cities no longer interests me but boy did I play a ton of it in years past. I can't think of a lot of games that got as much play for me.

While it is now the poster child for the style of game, Lost Cities certainly didn't create the niche. I have absolutely no idea what game you could give credit for doing that. I can see arguments for games like checkers, which means that casual two-player games go back to the dawn of time.

The worlds of two player games is a different than multi-player ones.  The games that you play with only one other person are different than the ones you play with a group. 

And it is such a diverse world as well. Classic abstracts like Go or Chess, not to mention the vast majority of modern abstracts. Two player war games are the rule, not the exception. And that's not counting casual games like Lost Cities.

My own world of gaming has been increasingly focus on two player games. I may not be playing Lost Cities right now, but in many ways, it has become my guiding light.

Voltage, one of Mattel's experiments

Voltage came out about ten years ago, a strange experiment by Mattel where they put out a couple games that were basically German Family games aimed at the American mass market. Voltage wasn't a bizarre experimental game. It was just in a weird experimental place.

Voltage is a two-player game where you are engineers fighting for control over a power plant that's on its last legs. Players take turns playing cards on either side of a board.  

The game is firmly in the world of Lost Cities-style play. There are four suits or colors of cards and the board has four spaces for players to make columns in each color. Players can play cards on either their side or their side. When there are five cards total, it gets score, with the current position of a plastic fuse token  determining if low or high will get the point. First player to four points wins.

(As usual, I've glossed over a lot of rules. Like players get two actions per turn, which can either be drawing or playing cards, or some cards let you flip the switch token.)

Earlier, I wrote that Voltage was an experiment for Mattel but not as a game. That's practically an understatement.  Voltage is very much a simplified/streamlined version of Balloon Cup/Piñata (yes, known both versions). Voltage has a simpler deck with the random element of the transformers that flip a token immediately. It also has a much simpler scoring system compared to Balloon Cup/Piñata's set collection system.

Between Balloon Cup/Pinata's more deeper decision tree and lower random factor, I think it is fair to say that it is a better game than Voltage. Not that Voltage is bad. It's pretty good. Just not AS good.

However, that simplicity is why I have kept Voltage. In addition to the fact that you know, I really enjoy Lost City-style games. It isn't that it's easier to teach. Frankly, Balloon Cup isn't that big a jump.

No, it is actually the _physical_ simplicity of Voltage that has made me keep it. A tiny board with a score track and four plastic tokens instead of tiles, score cards and a bag of cubes. The end result is a very small footprint with minimal housekeeping.

After all, I enjoy playing the style game to relax and mellow out. The physical elements of Voltage adding to the ease of play are really nice for that purpose. 

I have a feeling that if Voltage was released for the American mass-market audience now, it would be a lot more successful. German family games have been making definite inroads. Unfortunately, I think it came out too soon and sank.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24082/voltage

Lost Cities continues to be a good game

Since I've found myself reminiscing about Reiner Knizia, I have asked myself where to start. Over the years, I have played a lot of his games and I'm sure I'll play plenty more in the years to come. And he has made so many games I've enjoyed.

So I've decided to start with the first game I ever played by him, which has to be Lost Cities. 

I'm not going to try and summarize how to play Lost Cities. Lots of people have already done that. Come to think of it, I've been one of those people: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/76880/simple-yet-deeply-rewarding-game

Wow. I wrote that over ten years ago.

There are two things I remember about my initial impressions of Lost Cities.

First of all, it was one of the first German Family Games I ever got and I remember how impressed I was by the components. Honestly, it would not be so cool today but a board that had been cut to lie perfectly flat and large cards with detailed, mature artwork in full color that look like they could have come out of an illustrated edition of a Jules Verne novel. That was a step into a whole new world of production values for me.

The other memory is one I mentioned in that old review. I read through the rules and found myself thinking that's it? This is the game I have read people rave about on the Internet? Then I dealt out two hands and tried playing Lost Cities against myself. And even playing the game click for me. I went from underwhelmed to impressed.

That was one of my first lessons in how simple rules can still create tough decisions. How simple rules can create complex situations.

(A few years later, when I spent some time playing Go, I realized that on a whole new level)

Over the years, I have played literally hundreds of hands of Lost Cities. I'll admit that the game doesn't interest me as much now. There are other, similar games that interest me more now. Emu Ranchers, Balloon Cup and Keltis the Card Game are three that come to mind.

But two of those games were openly influenced by Lost Cities and Balloon Cup at least owes some popularity from Lost Cities. Some of these games wouldn't exist without it. More than that, I don't know if I'd have played them without my Lost Cities experiences.

More than that, all three of those games offer more flexible choices. I do wonder if the greater restriction and card placement in Lost Cities creates a more tense game or just a more luck sensitive game.

Lost Cities isn't just a good game to introduce folk to the broader spectrum of games. It's a good game that also happens to be very accessible. After more than ten years, I'd still play it.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/50/lost-cities