You are a world famous adventurer and explorer. The entrance to the buried ruins of the ancient city of Lamur have been discovered, and you’ve rushed to put together an expedition. After long weeks of travel, you crest a mountain pass at the head of your caravan, and look down on the lost valley. As you near the ruins, other groups approach from other directions, and who should be leading them but your greatest rivals! None of you are the type to share glory, so one of you suggests a wager: whoever manages to leave the city with the greatest collection of discoveries will take everything, including all the fame!

You start the game by placing the entrance tile. Each player chooses a Player Piece and places it on the Entrance. Each player gets 5 Discovery cards to start the game, which represent the equipment & supplies you bring with you into the ruin. On each turn, a player can:
– Explore by placing a new Tile card next to the Tile they’re on. If the Tile is a room with a number, you place that number of Discovery cards face-up on the Tile to represent the things occupying the room.
– Move by discarding a card from their hand. You can move a number of tiles up to the value of the discarded card. You then draw a card to represent discoveries you made along the way. Every player should always have 5 cards in their hand.
– Claim the top card from the pile on the Tile they’re on (if there are any). In order to do this, you need to discard a card from your hand that is worth the same or more than the card being claimed. Each type of card is worth double against one other type, and half against another.

The objective is to have the highest-scoring hand when the game ends. The basic scoring system, and a few optional variants, are laid-out in the rules included with the game, but house rules are encouraged! The game ends when the last card is drawn from the Discovery card deck. It’s also possible for a player to deliberately end the game if no more Tiles can be placed, and they can get to the Entrance tile.

-description from the designer

Games