Gold Mine is a tile-laying board game for 2 to 6 players, ages 8 and up. It was designed by Chris James and published by Stratus Games.
In the game, players excavate a maze of mine tunnels by placing tiles that represent the features of an underground mine. Players also control miniature miners who traverse the mine collecting gold. In addition, miners can traverse secret passages, challenge other miners for gold, and direct bats toward other miners to chase them away from their current position in the mine.
The object of the game is to be the first to collect a certain number of gold nuggets and exit the mine.
Contents
Components
100 game tiles
1 Mine Entrance tile
28 Gold Chamber tiles
67 Mine Tunnel tiles
4 Cavern tiles
28 Gold Nuggets
18 Gold Challenge tokens
18 Bat Challenge tokens
6 Miners
2 dice
The Miners are plastic miniatures that are roughly 11⁄8 inches tall and 1/2 inch in diameter. The Miners consist of various colors (red, green, blue, yellow, black and white) and depict a pudgy, faceless miner complete with overalls, large boots, pickaxe and helmet with a head lamp.
The Gold Nuggets are durable plastic gold nugget-shaped pieces that are roughly 1/2 inch long in all directions.
Each game tile is 1.75 inches square and 2 millimeters thick. The Mine Tunnel and Gold Chamber tiles contain various configurations of tunnels, with each side having zero, one, or two exposed mine tunnels. The Cavern tiles depict a natural cavern, complete with stalactites. Gold Chambers depict a large room with golden floors and walls to represent a gold vein. The Mine Entrance tile depicts an open space, similar to a Cavern, with a ladder leading out of the mine and an 'Exit' sign. All tiles share the Gold Mine logo on the reverse side, except for the Mine Entrance, which depicts an exterior mine entrance with an "Enter" sign and a ladder leading down into the mine.
Both types of Challenge tokens are 3/4 inches in diameter and 2 millimeters thick. Gold Challenge tokens depict a Gold Nugget placed in front of two criss-crossing pickaxes. Bat Challenge tokens depict a group of attacking bats.
Setup
Game setup consists of shuffling all of the tiles and forming several stacks of tiles, face down. A stack of exactly 20 tiles is used first for the Development Mining phase of the game. Each player chooses a Miner and is dealt three of each type of Challenge token. A starting player is then chosen and the game begins.
Gameplay
Players begin the game by placing 20 tiles to form the initial mine configuration. The Mine Entrance tile serves as the starting tile. Valid tile placement consists of placing tiles along a grid formation so that mine tunnels and walls on all adjacent tiles connect properly. Cavern tiles can be placed adjacent to any tile, regardless of the tunnel formation. Any tile with a single or double mine tunnel configuration may be placed next to the Mine Entrance tile, as long as none of the tunnels are blocked or form a loop.
Whenever a Gold Chamber tile is placed, a Gold Nugget is immediately placed on the center of the tile for later collection by a Miner.
After the first 20 tiles have been placed, players place their Miner on the Mine Entrance tile and try to collect the required number of Gold Nuggets (which ranges from 5 to 10, depending on the number of players). A valid turn consists of a Miner Movement phase and a Miner Action phase.
During the Miner Movement phase, a player may choose one of the following movement options:
Place a tile and move one space
Roll a single die and move up to that number
Traverse a Secret Passage
Miners move through connected tunnels on adjacent tiles, with each tile boundary costing one movement point. Miners may pass each other during movement, but may not jump across gaps between disconnected tunnels.
Water-carved Secret Passages are found on 15 different tiles and are represented by a crevice and puddle of water. A Miner must be standing next to a Secret Passage at the beginning of a turn in order to attempt to traverse it. To traverse a Secret Passage, both dice are rolled. If doubles or a sum of seven is rolled, the Miner may traverse safely. If not, the Miner may move up to the lower number rolled in the usual manner.
Winning
The first player who collects at least the required number of Gold Nuggets and returns to the Mine Entrance tile wins the game. For 2 players, 10 gold nuggets are required; for 3 to 4 players, 7 are required; for 5 to 6 players, 5 are required.
Optional rules
Several rule variations are included in the Gold Mine instructions (Mud Puddles, 5 Tile Strategy, and Alliances), with many other official and community-submitted rules collected on the publisher's website.
Awards
2010
Fifty Best Products Award[link removed] - The Toy Man Product Guide
Q4 Top Ten Award[link removed] - The Toy Man Product Guide
2011
Parents' Choice Recommended Archived 2012-01-08 at the Wayback Machine