Last updated on October 1st, 2025 at 05:20 pm
Lost Cities – Card Game Review
Lost Cities is a Card/Board/Entertainment game from TheCodingMonkeys, first launched in 23rd August 2012.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 178+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Lost Cities Stand Out
Lost Cities by the world-renowned board-game author Reiner Knizia takes you on a journey to undiscovered countries and mythical places. Compete against a friend, a stranger or one of 4 different computer players, in what has been called a "two player Solitaire with an extra portion of suspense". Designed and polished for the iPhone by TheCodingMonkeys, makers of Carcassonne for iOS.
• online matches against game center friends
• voice acted interactive tutorial
• comprehensive rules section
• 4 different AI players with emotions
• full-length atmospheric soundtrack
• a plethora of single- and multiplayer achievements
• fully playable via VoiceOver
This Card game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Lost Cities is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 24th November 2021
Recent improvements include:
Maintenance update for iOS 15 / macOS 11 on Apple Silicon.
Download & Availability
Lost Cities is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Im blind. Its fun to play with our sighted mom. Lately, we have been going against computers.
We love this game. It is lots of fun. We will say, whenever we turn the music up if you will or turn it on, as a voiceover screen reader user, we wish that when we would swipe across the screen, the music would not cut out as voiceover is speaking. Im not sure why it does that. If theres something technical that you are not able to get around, we can understand. But if possible, perhaps this could be fixed in a future update. Nevertheless, it is a great game. Here is a cool suggestion. We wish that people can send voice clips online. So not only do you send emoticons before drawing a card, you can send a voice clip. That way, people can make taunts to each other or what not. It would be really cool. And maybe, perhaps, it would be cool to make your own computer player. Just for fun. Dont know how possible that would be to implement, but there are some thoughts for you. Again, great game.
We love this game since our first time playing it! Please add the 6th Expedition. Great game.
Love this game, play it daily with a bunch of regulars across the world. Simple concept thats a mix of strategy and luck with each game taking less than 15 minutes to play even asynchronously. Lovely design and music that enhances the gameplay. We have two wishes for the app. 1) The game should add the ability to poke another player who has been inactive for sometime in order to remind them that its their move. 2) Make it for android as well.
This has been one of the longest games Ive played on our phone. Entertaining against the computer but the real fun is competing against other players. We keep about 8 games going and play every day or two. Others complain about the timing but we dont think they understand how the online play works: each player has three days to play your turn; afterward the opponent can end the game and it counts as a victory for them. So its fun for the long game.
We were intrigued when we saw in the app description that this app was voiceover friendly. We are legally blind and have not been able to play the physical version this game as easily as we used to be able to. Playing on a tablet enables us to zoom in on card numbers. When we tested this game with our screen reader, we were expecting the buttons to be read, and maybe our cards. But we were astonished when our screen reader read EVERYTHING, including the lanes and the opponents plays, moves and scoring! We could play this game in the dark, which is to say, when our eye is in a lot of pain, we can still play because we dont have to strain to look at the screen. Thank you so much for making this game truly and completely accessible. ONLY suggestion for the app itself would be to include a pass and play option.
Been playing for a long time but recently the app has developed some niggles. There are ghost notifications that dont have anything to do with moves. Starting a new game after the current one finishes is unreliable. Sometimes the new game starts immediately and sometimes it takes up to a day for it to start. Solving these issues will make this the perfect casual game.
The game is becoming slower and slower when trying to open it on iOS 18.5. Will there be any updates in the near future? Please, please update the app. We play this game quite frequently, so please dont let it slip down into the App Store graveyard.
Great game but it needs notifications. We would like a badge option so that we would know when one of our opponents has played. Seems like thats pretty basic and common on most games. As it is, we have to just check randomly to see if its our turn and the app is a bit slow compared to others when we do that. Maybe a quick update.
We would have given a 5 but it just needs to be a little smoother and have iPad support. Also, there should be a replay of the opponents last play so we can see what they did. Great overall though! Thanks.
We love this app! We would gladly pay good money for a new version that works better. The version in the store today prevents us from creating games with our two friends who still play, which is super sad :(.
This is definitely a fun to play game, but needs a few improvements. There are also glitches that were found by our friend where in the screenshot she has two blue eights, and we have played a silver to while there is another silver two in the discard pile. So this jeopardizes the integrity of the game. Developers, please feel free to respond, and we will send you the screenshot with proof.
Plays well against computer. Quick easy game, wish it had the option for 3 rounds. Also a glitch when online opponent withdraws, the record goes against us! Wish there was a better way to initiate a game that requires an online opponent to finish out immediately.
Easy to get disconnected from a game when someone is taking 10 minutes for each move.
Does the system automatically forfeit you if you dont play in a versus game for a week? Ive been waiting on people to take a move for 2 weeks.in multiple games. However, the only way we can get them out of our pending games is for us to forfeit, which doesnt help our stats at all. Maybe an update that could be made? Otherwise – love this game! Would also like to see more challenges introduced.
We are currently playing a game in versus mode and our opponent takes a minimum of 45 minutes to make a move. At this rate it will take more than a month to finish the match and we will also point out that our opponent has a skill level of 70%, so we imagine its high because people have forfeited/surrender their game. As such, this abuse highlights the need for a timer and technical or customer service contact to report such sportsmanship. Other than these flaws the game is great.
We want to play this with our wife or kids or a friend but we cannot because they need their own device.
Neat game! Easy to learn, fun to play VS computer or taking turns with opponent in Game Center. As in any card game theres the luck of the draw, but also skill and strategy too. Great game.
We’ve quickly become addicted to this game. It seems as if the AI opponents each use slightly different tactics, and we find auto-matched players fairly often who are interested in playing through a game in one sitting. Very enjoyable, and we appreciate the effort to make it voiceover-accessible. It’s working beautifully for us.
The devs actually reply to reviews. And the game is actually fun for a long time. Better than fortnite.
App is buggy, it will not let us surrender a game.
Why is it that when we were winning a game with 2 cards left, the other player quit, and yet it counts as a loss for us? Also, there seem to be players who never take their turns and wait for you to quit so it counts as a win for them. Its ridiculous. This player masced seems to be spamming the auto-match with new game requests. Could the developers please address these issues? It would be nice to get to play the game with other people who actually want to play and not just grief.
Been playing this for a few months. Played HUNDREDS of times. We open the app and all our play history is gone. The AIs have stats on how many wins/loses you have against them, so starting over feels like a huge burn. We wrote an email and have never heard back. We are disappointed.
It is hard to put into words just how rigged this game is. After close to 200 games against the computer we were top five in the world. In other words Im no slouch at this game. After that we went on to lose 24 out of 30 games against the computer. It was laughable how many times we would wait on a card until we just could not wait any longer…and as soon as we played- the card we were waiting on would MIRACULOUSLY appear from the deck. At one point over the course of a few games we counted this happening nine out of nine times It got to the point that it was hilarious! Not even maddening anymore. RIGGED If we were you, we would only play against real people online. At least in that situation both sides would be Rigged, ha ha.
Any chance of an update for larger sceeens.
Please add support for XS Max. Would love to have this game full screen. Thanks.
We can not select a card to play. Does not respond to touch. We can still select the chat bubble however.
We love the analog version of this game, but the app version is unplayable. We are not able to select and play the cards in our hand (which is the very first thing you do in the game). Whats even worse is that the tutorial dialog becomes inpatient because the player is seemingly not playing, and the lines are: Come on! Get on with it! You can also tap the cards! Youre having trouble. sighs Okay. You have… (continues to explain the obvious rules) we hope this will be fixed soon.
We cant even drag a card into the board.
Cant even drag cards – we demand a refund! Update: we have contacted the developer and they were still unable to fix the bug.
Worthless without pass and play.
Love this card game, but the APP IS A DIFFERENT STORY. The App starts up fine, but as soon as we choose an opponent and start the actual gameplay, it freezes up and wont let us select any cards or play the game at all. Developers please help!!! Thanks.
Game works well. Played several against the AI to get gang of it. Online Star Fox started game never played second turn wanting us to surrender so they have a win. Another poor online experience but game fun on its own.
Please, support iphone x resolution. And provide continuous connection for players.
This is one of the first iOS board game adaptations we even bought, and still one we come back to often. A great game, and an excellent conversion to digital. And yes, you can beat the computer.
We’ve had this game on our phone for a couple of years now, and over time it has become one of the two or three games we play the most. Very easy to learn, simple rules, but challenging to win consistently, and thus, a satisfying game experience. The games are short so when we lose, we feel compelled to give it another try. We find the AIs pretty good and am constantly refining our strategy to beat them more frequently. Luck is an element but solid tactics and prudent gambles make all the difference. We love it.
We think the devs did a great job of adapting Lost Cities for iOS. Like others, we have some Game Center connectivity issues. We frequently restart our phone so that our games will update. It is a minor inconvenience but is worth it to us.
We actually find this to be more enjoyable than playing the board game, because the pace can be faster. Please make a full screen iPad version. It is still enjoyable on the iPad, but if you dont have an iPad version, people searching the App Store will probably not see the game listed.
A good idea, very well presented. Our only criticism is that the emojis to not mix at all with the rest of the look and feel. We’d remove them entirely. They "cheapen" the rest of the nicely detailed graphics.
Game Center connection failure often happens during game with opponent Please update.
A really fun, quick, easy to learn two player card game. Online multiplayer works really well, but a couple times we’ve had to power our phone off and then back on to get it to register another player’s turn. Minor issue, stellar app.
We enjoy this game quite a bit. It’s fun to play against other people. But the game freezes on our iPhone quite a bit. We have to turn the phone off then on again to make it work properly.
We bought this specifically to play solo, and we love it! Easy to learn, and its perfect for mobile because each game only lasts a few minutes. And even though luck is involved, you do have to plan and strategize. Its not too easy or too hard, and it keeps us coming back for more. Thank you, developers, for pricing it fairly, up front, with no IAP. It works well on our XS Max on iOS 13, even though it hasnt been updated in two years, which is why we docked it one star, because for the premium price it should be updated once a year to keep up with the current iOS. We do hope they at least keep it running as time goes on, because this is indeed a clever concept and more fun to us than most other solitaire games Ive played. Im glad we bought it.
This is a really fun game but needs an update to support the latest iPhones.
We really like this game, but often the app badge notifications get…confused?…when iOS updates come out. Usually the badge just doesn’t clear when we’ve taken our turn, but right now it is straight up backwards. The notification disappears when it’s our turn, and stays on when it isn’t. Luckily, we play another game with the same friend and we both tend to take our turns in the games at the same time, so we rely on that game’s app badge to let us know when it’s our turn in Lost Cities. A minor bug to be sure, but still an annoyance in an otherwise wonderful and very enjoyable app.
We play this game on both an iPhone 6s plus and an SE. It doesn’t seem to be optimized for larger screens, but plays flawlessly on our SE. No iPad support.
This used to be super fun. We used to be able to play with friends we invited but now the game constantly loops in an endless "accept invite " even though we or the other person have played our initial card…it won’t register either of us have played. All different friends and all different phones so it’s not just ours. Tried for the last few months and not able to play outside a random auto match or the computer.
Fun game but has been buggy. We cant play with friends and when we try it keeps auto matching us with strangers. Please fix.
We are seriously thinking of taking this off of our phone we hate games that are fixed for the computer and this one tops the line we played many games with the computer and this is definitely the worst Ive ever played . We were quite disappointed because it is difficult to find games that we can play as blind people. Except for the Blindfold Games. We are most disappointed with the people who have developed this app shame on you making it always so easy for the computer to win we are very disappointed in this game. If you really care about this game app developers contact us. Thank you This game is fixed for the computer. It is not so bad when you play with a person, however when you play with the computer it is totally fixed we would give this a one ratings.
We own the card game and love it, so we were excited to try to the app. We even gifted it to someone so we could play together. Little did we know the online play function does nothing. It says to Tap here to log in to play online, but nothing happens. The app was $3.99. Theres no excuse for non-functional aspects. Please fix it.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.94
- Size: 55.63 MB
- iOS: 12.4 or later
- Languages: EN, DE
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: TheCodingMonkeys
Last updated: 24th November 2021 | Genre: Card, Board | Developer: TheCodingMonkeys