How to Play

The Lost Expedition

1-5 players 30-50 min 7.0 Board Game Geek Rating

In The Lost Expedition, you lead a team searching for missing explorer Percy Fawcett in the Amazon jungle. Manage limited resources like food, ammunition, and health while navigating treacherous paths. Choose routes wisely to avoid deadly hazards. Play cooperatively to survive your escape or competitively to see which team exits first.

Published 2017

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Select difficulty mode

Decide whether to play in easy, normal, or hard mode

Lay out expedition cards

Place the nine numbered expedition cards number side down

Place the pawn

Put a pawn on the starting card at the opposite end from the lost city

Create supply

Set up a supply of health, food, and ammunition tokens

Select explorers

Choose three explorers with different expertise: jungle, navigation, and camping

Distribute health tokens

Place four health tokens on each explorer

Take starting resources

Take four food and three ammunition tokens

Set time token

Place the morning/evening token with "morning" side up

Assign leader

One player takes the leader token

Prepare deck

Shuffle the adventure deck

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Deal cards each round

Each player receives four adventure cards

Handle empty deck

If the deck becomes empty, shuffle discards to create a new deck and spend one food or lose one health; the second time this happens, players lose

Morning phase card play

Starting with the team leader and going clockwise, players play one card at a time face up until everyone has played two cards (three in two player game)

Morning phase resolution

Arrange cards in ascending numerical order, then resolve from left to right

Pay morning food cost

Players spend one food or lose one health, then flip token to "evening"

Evening phase card play

Play cards the same way as morning phase

Evening phase resolution

Resolve cards in the order they were played (not numerical order)

Pay evening food cost

Players spend one food or lose one health, then flip token to "morning"

Pass leadership

The leader token passes to the left