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Author: Reiner Knizia Published by: Out of the Box Players: 2-5 Game Length: 10-15 minutes Reviewer: Scott Kammerer Reiner Knizia's Gold Digger is a lightweight family card game from Out of the Box ("Apples to Apples") with mildly entertaining graphic design and illustrations that unfortunately cannot overcome its shortcomings in playability – a game where success relies more on luck of the draw than the ability to play strategically. The game includes six color-coded "Mine" (as in Gold Mine) cards; 30 Character cards (5 color-matched to each mine); 15 Gold cards depicting 1 to 8 bags of gold each; 15 Fool's Gold cards; and 15 Claim Tokens (3 each for up to 5 players). The Character cards are where the fun is; they are illustrated by John Kovalic and have that familiar "Dork Tower" look. Each drawing is captioned with a themed character name like lawman "Wyatt Burp" or barkeep "Jack Daniel." The game is played by setting out the 6 mine cards in the center of the playing area and shuffling the remaining Gold, Fool's Gold, and Character cards, dealing 3 to each player. On your turn, you may play any one of your three cards on one of the six mines – Gold and Fool's Gold on any mine; Character cards on the mine of the corresponding color. Once a mine has five Gold or Fool's Gold cards on it, that mine is "full" and no more cards can be played on it. After playing a card, the player replenishes his hand from the draw pile. Play continues around the table until all the cards are played – in the end, each mine will have five characters and five Gold or Fool's Gold cards. Scoring is accomplished by staking claims on mines. Each time a player lays down a Character on a mine, the player may use one of his or her three Claim Tokens to stake a claim. At the end of the game, the total number of bags of gold in each mine is divided by the players with claims in that mine. Players who stake their claims to mines early in the game will find their mines quickly stacked with worthless Fool's Gold or joined by competing claims from the other players. The early game, therefore, consists of players dumping characters or low-value Gold and Fool's Gold into unclaimed mines. As mines start to fill, a lucky player with one of the few high-valued Gold cards will place it in a nearly-full mine for which he holds a character card – guaranteeing him at least a share of the jackpot. And that's the main problem I have with the game – the player fortunate enough to draw the six- or eight-bag Gold card has a big advantage while the poor soul pulling the Fool's Gold each turn has little hope of a big payday – the most he can hope for is to divide the wealth, and even to do that he has to have held on to the right Character. The game box says "Ages 7 to adult" and it's probably a game that younger players will enjoy. It provides an opportunity to learn basic card-counting and the colorful illustrations are attractive. Older gamers might chuckle at some of the wordplay in the character names but would probably get more enjoyment from reading through the deck once instead of spending 15 minutes playing the game.
Scott Kammerer, 9/6/02 | |||||||||||||||
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