Campfire Union is announcing a new Gear VR title today based off of the popular Reiner Knizia board game Lost Cities. The Lost Cities VR Experience incorporates the classic rules and gameplay of the tabletop adventure into an immersive, multiplayer video game.
Based on the award-winning tabletop game Lost Cities by world-renowned board game designer Reiner Knizia, Lost Cities Virtual Reality Edition is a card game that takes place in unexplored regions and mythical realms in search of Lost Cities. The Goal Of this two player strategy game is to make the most profit and outwit your opponent.
Can you lead the most profitable expedition?
Lost Cities Virtual Reality Edition allows you to either play against AI foes in various archaeological environments, or test your skills online against opponents from around the world. The online mode also provides full voice chat and head tracked avatars just like Oculus Trivia or other Oculus Social applications.
The essential gameplay of Lost Cities revolves around placing color coded numbered tiles onto one of the five game sections with the corresponding color. When you place your first number on one of these sections you subtract 20 points from your overall score – this is the cost of beginning your “expedition.”
You then attempt to turn that debt into profit by placing more and more numbered tiles onto that same color coded section. You can only place tiles in chronological order which forces some tough decisions about whether you should play that six right now, or wait and see if a four or a five will make its way into your hand.
10 is the highest tile possible. Once the 10 tile of any color is played, that expedition is considered over and you had better hope you played enough other tiles to either break even or turn a profit on that initial 20 point investment. There is also a wager system and a discard mechanic for even more strategic play.
This all may sound complicated, and there is a bit of a learning curve to the game, but – like all board games – you’ll pick up the mechanics and strategy as you play.
Reiner Knizia is a German-born legend for the board games industry. He used to work for a huge international bank, but he gave that up and has now published over 600 board games of nearly every size and genre.
Some of his most well known titles are: Lord of The Rings, Pickomino, Keltis, and Ingengious.
Knizia employs an abstract style of game design in his projects. This means that his games do not attempt to directly recreate their theme through very clear real-world mechanics.
For example, in Risk you are attacking other countries and gathering armies in a way that does its best to emulate real world combat with board game elements. Lost Cities, however, uses mathematical gameplay to force the strategy of risk management and the thrill of achieving a profit upon the player, but in a much more abstract way.
Lost Cities Virtual Reality Edition is available for download today through the Oculus app on your Android smartphone and is compatible with the Samsung Gear VR headset.
