Gold Mine is a push-your-luck game inspired by Diamant(2005)/Incan Gold(2006). The players venture into an underground cavern looking for precious gold, but the cavern can collapse at any time! The key is to get out with your loot before the roof comes down.

At a glance:

2-8 players

15 minutes

Complexity: low

Components used:

All cards

All cubes

Setup:

Shuffle the cards and place them in a face down draw deck. Place the cubes in a common pile on the table.

Play:

Each turn, a new card is turned up on the table. The number on the card denotes how many gold nuggets are to be found. Divide this by the number of players, and give each the corresponding number of cubes from the pile. Fractions that can not be divided equally are left on the card.

Now each player must decide whether to continue or flee, before the next card is turned up. Each player stick out their hand, with the thumb pointing outwards horizontally. On the count of three, each player decides whether to turn their thumb up (“I continue”) or down (“I run away”). (As an alternative, players can use one tile each that they place on the table hidden under their hand. Brown side up means “run”, green means “stay”)

Players that run away get to collect and divide all the treasure left on the cards. They are then out of the game for the rest of the round.

Play continues until all players have left, or until three cards with identical symbols have been placed on the table (not necessarily in sequence). Then the cavern collapses, and any players remaining inside will lose all the treasure they collected this round.

Winner:

After 4 rounds, count the total gemstones each player has collected. The winner is the player with the most gold.