Gamehelpunearthed

Unearthed Overview

In Unearthed, players lead archaeological expeditions, carefully uncovering artifacts while trying to avoid worthless rubble. Each player builds a grid of excavation sites and gradually reveals what lies beneath.

Rare discoveries reduce your score, but careless digging can leave you with piles of debris. Timing when to reveal your final site is crucial — end the expedition at the right moment to avoid a costly mistake.

The archaeologist with the lowest total score wins.

Setup

Shuffle all cards to form the excavation deck.

Deal 12 cards to each player.

Each player arranges their cards face-down in a 4 × 3 grid.

Each player flips two random cards face-up in their grid.

Flip the top card of the deck to start the discard pile.

The player whose two face-up cards have the highest total value takes the first turn.

Card Values

The deck contains:

5 cards of value –2

10 cards of value –1

15 cards of value 0

10 cards each of values 1–12

Negative cards represent valuable discoveries, which reduce your score.

Turn Structure

On your turn, perform the following steps:

1. Draw a Card

Choose one:

Draw the top card from the draw pile (you may look at it before deciding what to do).

Take the top card from the discard pile.

2. Choose One Action Keep the Card

Place the drawn card into your grid by replacing any card (face-up or face-down).

The replaced card is placed face-up on the discard pile.

Discard the Card

Place the drawn card onto the discard pile, then:

Flip one face-down card in your grid face-up.

Ending the Round

A round ends when a player reveals their final face-down card.

After this happens, each player takes one final turn, including the player who revealed the last card.

Once these turns are complete, the round ends.

Scoring

At the end of the round:

All remaining face-down cards are revealed.

Each player adds together the values of all cards in their grid.

Negative values reduce your total score.

Expedition Bonus

The player who ended the round receives a bonus:

If they have the lowest score of the round, their score becomes 0.

If they do not have the lowest score, their score is doubled (unless the score is 0 or less).

End of the Game

Play multiple rounds until a player reaches 100 points or more.

At that point, the game ends and the player with the lowest total score wins.

Strategy Tips

Revealing cards early helps control your grid.

Valuable discoveries (negative cards) are rare — protect them.

Ending the round at the right moment can avoid dangerous high-value cards.