Gold! Fire breathing dragon! The race is on!  

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 dragon catches you!  

Set up! 

This game is really simple to set up – in fact the box itself unfolds as a platform to place both decks. Each player receives a miner card and a corresponding colour miner token. The gold cards are shuffled and placed face-up on the platform and the exit cards are shuffled and face down on the remaining space. Then lay the 9 large card mine track with the final exit card on the furthest left space, the mine cart card in the centre, and the dastardly Dragobert card on the furthest right space. The miner tokens are placed on the mine cart, and the shiny gold nuggets are placed within reach.  

Playtime! 

This game lasts just 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 space towards the exit, keep you where you are, or move your miner back 1 card towards Dragobert  

If you choose an exit card instead, these 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 as the top card of the gold card deck, the Dragobert 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 miners caught by Dragobert are, however, out of the round, and all their hard earned gold cards are worthless! When every miner still left in play reaches the exit, the round is over and the winner of gets 3 nuggets, 2nd place gets 2, and 3rd place gets 1. The game ends after 3 rounds and the richest miner wins!

Final Thoughts! 

We love My Gold Mine. We learnt it in under a minute and our 7 year old 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 close. But if it doesn’t work out, we laugh out loud as our miners gets knocked out. The decision space is small and isn’t likely to overwhelm young players. It’s also a great space to see how decision-consequence plays out. So recommended age-wise, it’s on the button!

Although the artwork is cute and cartoony, it is also clever. With the gold deck face up, you know what’s on offer on your turn. But you don’t know what’s underneath – is it Dragobert? Is it more gold? If Dragobert suddenly moves closer, the risk from your two-nugget card suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea!

The sliding mine track card mechanism is also a great visual. I can almost feel the heat as Dragobert breathes closer and closer! And the race/reverse race to get 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 Dragobert cards 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 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), so I’m not worried about durability. I really love that the box itself acts as a place to stack the cards (a feature of their new in-box range apparently!). Oh and I am always a huge fan of magnetic catches! 

Player elimination does happen if Dragobert catches you. And some very young players might not like that. But the time-out only lasts 1 round and it doesn’t feel overly mean. Our son was knocked out of one round early into our first few games. But he just laughed and was determined to send everybody else into Dragobert’s fiery clutches!  The fact we are playing it at breakfast, after school, and after dinner without grumble is a testament to how much everyone in our house is digging My Gold Mine!  

This blog was written by Favouritefoe