Lost Cities: Roll & Write

About this board game

Lost Cities: Roll & Write is a roll-and-write game for 2–5 players that takes about 30 minutes. Roll colorful dice, develop six expeditions, and try to build the highest-scoring collection of paths before the game ends.

Each player has a score sheet with six colored expedition columns, an artefact column, and a dice column. On the active player’s turn, three six-sided color dice and three ten-sided number dice are rolled. The active player chooses one color and one number, while the other players select from the two remaining dice of each type.

Numbers are recorded from the bottom up, so every expedition requires careful planning. A new path can begin with a low number, but later entries must be the same value or higher. A zero counts as 10 when written in a column, while a zero used to begin an expedition can mark a double point circle instead.

• Acceleration fields: Repeat the number currently at the top of any color column, with further arrows allowing another acceleration.
• Artefacts: Fill artefact spaces or gain an artefact when a completed color column would receive another number.
• Dice column: Refuse a number-color combination and mark a die instead.
• Bridge bonuses: The first player to cross each bridge earns 20 points.

Every choice can help an expedition grow, but a stalled path can lose points just as quickly as it earns them. The game ends after a turn in which everyone is exhausted or all eight bridges have been crossed.

In Lost Cities: Roll & Write, players score their color columns according to their filled spaces, doubling a column’s result when its double-point circle is marked. Artefact and dice columns also provide points, although an exhausted player scores zero for that column. Add bridge bonuses, and the highest total wins.