Ruins of Lamur

Description

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!

I’ve been working on this game since 2018. I recruited my friends, family, work colleagues and strangers to play hundreds of test games over years, with cards printed with no art and cut out by hand. I revised the rules more times than I went outside over the pandemic times. I personally drew, over a year, every piece of art on the box and every card. Now, finally, it’s ready for you to play!

Ruins of Lamur is easy to learn, simple to play, but can be very strategic. It’s best played by 2 to 4 players, but includes rules for playing a single-player variant of the game. Multiple copies of the game can also be combined to allow more than 4 players. A typical game with 2 players lasts around 20-30 minutes. With more players, the game moves faster. The whole game including box is 60x60x40mm (2.4×2.4×1.5 inches), so easily fits into a backpack or purse (or even a coat pocket) to take with you and play anywhere.

Included is:
– 4 Player Piece meeples in different colours, which represent your explorer within the buried city
– A deck of 50 Tile cards (Blue backs) which you use to build the layout of the city as you explore
– An Entrance Tile (Red back) which you lay at the start of the game, and is where your Player Pieces start
– 4 Info Tiles which remind you of the actions you can take each turn, and which Discovery cards are strong against which others
– A deck of 56 Discovery cards, which represent the Creatures, Artifacts, Treasure, and Weapons you might find on your adventure
– A rule sheet, detailing the full rules of the game, plus optional variant rules you can use to make the game more challenging

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 I encourage developing house rules!

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.

This is a first-edition test-run of the game. All the pieces have been professionally produced to my designs. Please be aware however that the game is SMALL. The Discovery cards are 44x31mm (1.75×1.25 inches). This makes it extremely portable, and ensures the city will fit on a tabletop when the tiles are laid.