Lost Temple

Somewhere on this island is a temple full of ancient treasure. You can't see the traps, the piranhas, the jungle that spins you around, or the guardians' catapult waiting to launch the unwary into the eternal fire. The only way to find out where they are is to send someone in and see what kills them.

Lost Temple is a deduction puzzle.  Piece together the clues to find your way through  the dangers and collect the gold from the temple . Choose an explorer and a route,  and then send them off. Most of the time, they die. That's fine. How and where they died is the clue. Your challenge - how many failed expeditions do you need to  work out exactly where the safe route is?

Five explorers give five different ways to gather information:

Archaeologist - the only one who can actually open the temple. Everyone else is just scouting for them.

Scout - shrugs off mountains and cliffs, but reports where they died, if not always how.

Warrior - tough enough to survive almost anything, and reports the dangers that they survived.

Balloonist - flies safely over the ground, reporting on the hazards that they saw, but at the cost of drawing the attention of some extremely territorial eagles.

Researcher - never sets foot outside the library, but scans the hexes around any point with ancient scrolls.  Shame that these scrolls are cursed - so beware of giant bookworms....

Hidden hazards to map out through trial and error: concealed traps, piranha-infested river crossings, disorienting jungle, tunnels that fling you two hexes ahead, mountains that spin you back the way you came, cliffs that block or kill depending which side you're on, and a guardian settlement that would be delighted to direct you to the temple (just a shame that it is via a catapult and into the central sacred fire rather than the front door).

Structure:

A guided tutorial tracks through six certification levels, plus an "insane" difficulty for the fully qualified, each level introducing new explorers and hazards.

Daily challenge islands at every level you've certified for, so there's always a fresh one to solve.

From level 5 onward, different explorers cost varying amounts of gold. Spend wisely, because whatever's left when you find the temple is your score.

No two islands are alike, nothing is marked for you, and every death is a valuable clue. Free to play in your browser.