The Armchair Empire
Danny Webb
October 2003
USA

Two of the best light card games released recently are English language additions of solid, enjoyable German card games. On top of that similarity, Loco! from Fantasy Flight and Gold Digger from Out of the Box are both designs of respected game author Reiner Knizia. Most importantly for our purposes, both games are light, quick-playing and a good deal of fun.

In Gold Digger, a line of gold mine cards is dealt out horizontally on the table. Players take turns playing two types of cards either above the mine or below it. Gold nugget cards and Fool's Goldcards are played below the mine and at the end of the game the number of gold nuggets played on each mine will be the basis of the scoring. The trick to playing Goldcards is in the fact that only five cards can be played on each mine, so any Fool's Gold cards that are played on a mine mean one less valuable Gold card can be played. This is important because during the course of the game players will play claim tokens on the mines that they expect to be worth the most gold by the end of the game. So, the game becomes a struggle for the player to maximize the points in the mines he or she has invested in and limit the points in the other player's mines.

Gold Digger's components are high quality. The card stock is above-average and holds up well through excessive play. The art on the cards is cartoony, but attractive. Everything comes in a nice, sturdy box that travels well.

Gold Digger plays quickly (about fifteen minutes on average) and is engaging throughout. It provides a lot of opportunity to make decisions considering how light a fast-playing it is. Armchair Empire gives Gold Digger our highest recommendation as both a fun family game and a light opener or closer for game night.

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