Quick! Run! Dragobert is heading this way! In My Gold Mine by KOSMOS, you’ve got to hold your nerve if you are going to nab the most nuggets!
Publisher: Kosmos
Designer: Dr. Hans Joachim Höh, Michael Loth, Christof Schilling
Artist: Felix Wermke
Release date: 2021
2-6 Players
Age: 6+
20 mins
Favouritefoefunlearning score 9/10
*Card laying* Strategic * funlearning* Easy to Learn * Open Information * push-your-luck *
Quick! Run! Dragobert is heading this way!
Who is Dragobert? Why, he is the fire breathing keeper of the gold mine mountain of course! And you’d better be fast as his fire spreads like, well, wild fire! Because, if you hadn’t already guessed, Dragobert does NOT like greedy-guts miners coming to take his gold.
My Gold Mine is a fast playing push-your-luck card game for 2-6 players where you are miners trying to collect as much gold as you can before Dragobert, the fire breathing keeper of the mountain, catches you!
Set up!
My Gold Mine is super simple to set up and learn.
Each player receives a miner card and a corresponding colour token. The gold cards are shuffled and placed face up on one of the spaces on the inside of the box lid. The exit cards are shuffled and face down on the remaining space. Then the 9 large card mine track is laid out with the exit card on the left, the mine cart in the centre, and dastardly Dragobert on the right side. The miner tokens are placed on the mine cart, and the shiny gold nuggets are placed within reach.
Going for Gold!
Played over 3 rounds, each turn you choose between taking a gold card and an exit card. As well as giving gold, the gold cards will either move your miner 1 card towards the exit, keep you where you are, or, if you go for the two nugget card, move you back 1 card towards the dragon.
Conversely, the exit cards show a combination of options; move 1 or two spaces towards the exit, move everybody one space towards the exit, or swap your miner with another player’s elsewhere along the mine cart track. There’s even one card with a very greedy bonus 3 gold on it!
Whenever a Dragobert card is revealed in the gold deck, the Dragobert track card slides forwards one space and the card it replaces is flipped to show the fiery flame side.
If and when you reach the exit, you can’t collect any more gold, but you are safe! Any greedy-guts miners caught by Dragobert are, however, out of the round, and all their hard earned gold cards are worthless! A round ends when either all the miners are at the exit or eliminated. The winner of each round gets 3 nuggets, 2nd place gets 2, and 3rd place gets 1. The game ends after 3 rounds and the richest miner wins.
Burning Down The House!
This has gone down a storm in our house! We learnt it in under a minute and our son hasn’t stopped asking to play it since! It’s a quick, fun push-your-luck filler game that feels tense but only ever in a super fun, light way. We hesitate for a moment, debating whether to risk mining another gold when the flames of Dragobert’s breath are licking at your heels! And if it doesn’t work out, we actually laugh out loud as our miners gets knocked out.
It also has a tweaked two-player mode where you each play two characters which we have tested and works well. Push your luck almost always works better at higher player counts. But having to make choices for each, and having actions taken against both of your miners by your opponent, does a good job of keeping the tension there
And although the artwork is cute and cartoony, it is also quite clever. With the gold deck face up, you know what’s on offer on your turn. You could be taking it and staying where you are, or moving spaces closer or further away from danger. But you don’t know what’s underneath – is it Dragobert? Is it more gold? If Dragobert suddenly moves closer, the risk that two nugget card you took suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea!
The sliding mine track card mechanism is a great visual – I can almost feel the heat as Dragobert breathes closer and closer! And the race/reverse race to get closer to the exit but not waste potential gold mining opportunities is a really fun tug of war. Especially when your opponent either moves you back towards Dragobert or over to the exit, thereby ending your chances of gaining more gold!
If you’re good at memorising cards, knowing how many Dragoberts have appeared at any stage of the game can help plan your moves. But, honestly, not doing that and just taking the risk is a lot of fun.
If you’re good at memorising cards, knowing how many Dragoberts have appeared at any stage of the game can help plan your moves. But, honestly, not doing that and just taking the risk is a lot of fun.
The components themselves are good overall. The track cards and nuggets are top quality, and the mine cards and gold cards are good stock too, Our stickers are peeling a little on the tokens, but to be fair we have played it so many times already (and you only really need to know which colour you are in any event). My only slight niggle about the My Gold Mine components is that it would have been even nicer for the miners to be a little more representative. But having spoken to the publisher about this (who pointed it out to me before I had even considered it), they were just too late to change it for this particular print run. I really like the fact that this is something they recognised, however, and will hopefully look at going forwards though. So no negative nelly marks for them! I love that the box itself acts as a place to stack the cards (a feature of their new in-box range apparently!), and I am always a huge fan of magnetic catches!
Player elimination can (and does) happen if Dragobert catches you. And some players might not like that. But the time-out only lasts 1 round, so it doesn’t feel mean. Also, the last miner standing has a chance to clean up on the gold front (if they can hold their nerve and not get eliminated for being too greedy and reaching too far!), which can massively boost up their gold by round end. Mini-Meeple was knocked out of one round early into our first few games (and I was expecting a big lippy moment). But he doubled down his efforts on the next one and sent us both into Dragobert’s fiery clutches! He also got the bonus gold card which didn’t exactly make things worse! hahaT
The fact we are playing it at breakfast, after school, and after dinner is a testament to how much he is digging My Gold Mine! Good gamespersonship and learning about risk-taking, not to mention keeping tally of gold hordes with some fast mathematical prowess and simple downright fun makes this an absolute keeper in the favouritefoefunlearning library!
[Please note that a copy of this game was kindly provided by the publishers for review. I am not paid for my comments, however, and all opinions are my own]. I am also not affiliated to or sponsored by any retail store.
