Gold Nugget [Preview]

• What's Eric Playing?

Base price: $XX.
2 – 5 players.
Play time: ~45 minutes.
BGG Link
Check it out on Gamefound!
Logged plays: 2

Full disclosure: A preview copy of Gold Nugget was provided by 2Tomatoes Games. Some art, gameplay, or other aspects of the game may change between this preview and the fulfillment of the campaign, should it fund, as this is a preview of a currently unreleased game. 

Alright, last of the previews for a little while. There’s another one coming, but I think I can handle that one after I move probably maybe. We’re all works in progress. It’s weird, but I think I’m going to strike my photography setup tonight or tomorrow night and start packing it. The move is happening! It’s very real, now. Though by the time you’ve read this, I might actually be reviewing again in my new place. Moving states is a lot of effort. That’s neither here nor there. What is here is another game to preview, so let’s check out Gold Nugget, from 2Tomatoes Games!

In Gold Nugget, all of the animals of the forest have gotten together for a thrilling adventure. The Great Raven has left, and they all want to find the Raven’s hidden gold nugget before it returns. Naturally, nobody can let just one animal run off with the gold, so there’s going to be a bit of a fight to claim the nugget if you want it for yourself. So deduce its location, hide it from other players, and don’t let them steal it! Will you be able to end up with the gold nugget?

Contents

Setup

To start, place the board:

You’ll place the leaf token in leftmost quadrant, somewhere in the middle (it corresponds to the morning). Then, place the Great Raven token on the remaining days spot corresponding to your player count:

  • 2 players: 2 days
  • 3 players: 3 days
  • 4 – 5 players: 4 days

Shuffle up the Leaf Cards, dealing five to each player:

With two players, return two copies of the following cards to the box before shuffling:

  • Gold Nugget
  • Faithful Helper
  • Tribute
  • Beg
  • I Got It?!

Then, shuffle the Wind Cards into the Leaf Card Deck to create the Forest Deck.

If you’re playing the Advanced Mode, deal a secret Victory Condition card to each player:

Set up the Great Raven’s Nest, adding feathers based on your player count:

  • 2 players: 5 feathers
  • 3 players: 7 feathers
  • 4 players: 9 feathers
  • 5 players: 11 feathers

You’ll also shuffle up the Stones, Trap Stones, and Gold Nuggets:

  • 2 players: 10 stones / 2 trap stones / 1 gold nugget
  • 3 players: 13 stones / 2 trap stones / 1 gold nugget
  • 4 players: 15 stones / 3 trap stones / 1 gold nugget
  • 5 players: 17 stones / 3 trap stones / 1 gold nugget

Shuffle the Animals and deal two to each player; they keep one:

Shuffle the time of day cards based on player count:

  • 2 – 4 players: 1 of each
  • 5+ players: 2 of each

Each player gets one, placing their Animal Token on the corresponding space.

Give the white feather to the starting player. Then, starting with that player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes two stones and can examine them, ignoring the effects of any trap stones they find. You should be ready to start!

Gameplay

The various animals of the forest want to get their hands on a gold nugget! Try to claim it before the Great Raven arrives. Each day consists of a few rounds, phases of the day. To start the Hello! phase: each sleeping animal wakes up (opening their eyes). They can discard as many cards as they want and draw back from the forest deck until they reach five.

Now, the animal(s) with their token on the same time of day as the leaf token go to sleep, unless they have the white feather. If they do, they can go to sleep by passing the white feather clockwise. The animals that go to sleep close their eyes and cannot use their abilities or play cards unless otherwise stated. If they must do something, they do it with their eyes closed.

The player with the white feather at this point enter the Manipulate phase. They can play as many basic leaf cards as they want, but only one special (leaf-lined) card per turn. The rest of the players can only play an instant card (with a lightning bolt) and / or use abilities that say that they can be used. Cards and abilities have various effects, from letting players examine stones to steal or trade stones to stealing cards to all kinds of things. Some will even let you win the game, if you’re lucky! You can examine stones as you take them, but watch out! If you reveal a Trap Stone, you take a black feather, and if you take three, you have to discard them back to the center along with revealing all your stones and returning them to the center as well. One thing to watch: you can’t examine stones you’ve taken once you’ve placed them in your player area. When the player with the white feather is done, they pass the feather clockwise and no more cards can be played. If any player has more than five cards at this point, they discard down to five cards.

Now, the day advances! Move the leaf token a space to the right. When it moves to the end and advances from night to morning, move the Great Raven token one day forward.

Once the night of the last day ends, the Great Raven arrives! A special round begins with a Hello! phase for every player, but no abilities can be used this round. Starting with the player holding the white feather, each player can play one card or pass, or each player can play one instant card instead of playing a card on their turn. One thing to mind: if a player gets caught by the Great Raven this round, they lose.

After each player has played or passed, they cover their eyes with both hands, keeping them open. Once everyone has done this, the player with the white feather counts to three and each player grabs a stone from the center or any player’s area. All others are returned, and then all the taken stones are revealed. The player with the Gold Nugget wins! If nobody grabbed it, everyone loses!

Player Count Differences

It’s not too different at various player counts, just because you typically only have one player taking actions at a given time. There are a few interrupt cards which, you know, not ideal with an increasing player count, just because players can keep doing that. Still only one card per player per turn, but still very annoying. With fewer players, there’s a bit less chaos, but there will likely be a fair bit of theft regardless of the player count (as players find the Gold Nugget and keep messing around with it). I actually think I do prefer the game with more players, though; the increased chaos makes it a bit simpler for you, the player, to hide the Gold Nugget (or trick players into a trap). With more people, however, comes more stones, so it’s harder to find the particular nugget. Best of luck!

Strategy

  • Do not get caught by the Great Raven in the final round. If you do, you lose. Obviously, you don’t want to do that, so make sure you’re going into the final round with as few feathers as possible. That said, if you can make another player lose during this final round, that’s a very helpful and efficient way to eliminate competition.
  • Try your best to keep track of the Gold Nugget. Ideally, you know where it is by the end of the game so that you can steal it. But keeping track of it during the game is important, too. That’s why they add the sleeping phase, so there’s a period of time where your eye is extremely off the ball, so to speak. Just because you know where it is when you go to sleep doesn’t mean it will still be there when you wake up.
  • Messing with sleeping players is mean, but effective. I’m not saying you should rearrange their dens, since, you know, you’re not allowed to do that, but you can definitely tell them they’re grabbing something that’s the wrong thing while they have their eyes closed. No rules against it (and frankly, it can be pretty helpful to do that).
  • Try to use cards to keep players from knowing exactly where the Gold Nugget is, if you have it. Anything that moves it around or allows you to rearrange your den or shuffle up tiles is great, especially if you can do that while they’re asleep. Stealing the nugget is also a good idea while another player is sleeping, especially if other players have also gained stones. Everyone will point to each other taking the stone and nobody will know for sure.
  • Generally, you should try to steal cards and accumulate a fair amount, but doing so might put a big target on your back. One player can mess with you a decent amount, but if every player tries to mess with you at the same time, you might be in a spot of trouble.
  • Your abilities are pretty good! Try to make as much use of them as possible. You usually have pretty intensely useful abilities; use them to your advantage to see stones or steal cards or stones or just sleep all the time. They’re all pretty busted, so try to keep them busted to your advantage.
  • You’ll want to sleep pretty regularly so that you can get more cards in hand. Sleeping is one of the few ways to refresh your hand of cards, and cards make the game. You can’t do much without them. You’ll want to avoid skipping sleeping too much, otherwise you’ll just end up with no ability to fight back against other players and their machinations.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

  • The art style is quite fun! It’s sort of Disney-esque but distinct in its own way. I like the kind of sketchbook style of it, too! There’s a lot of great color work happening, and it seems animated and fun while also being a bit dark.
  • I like the chaotic deduction of this game. There’s a lot happening, but if you’re leaning into the chaos, it can be quite fun. It helps that the game plays fast, so any take-that tends to roll off players’ backs and be a bit less anger-inducing. Things are moving pretty quickly during the game, so make sure you don’t get too far with an incorrect assumption.
  • Each player having a broken ability is kind of entertaining. I like it, personally; it means that every character plays wildly differently and presents new strategies and ways of playing. It also means that every character has to be countered and figured out in a different way, so you need to use your head if you want to come out on top.
  • The game plays pretty quickly. 20 minute game if you know what you’re doing (though it can be shorter with certain cards or plays).
  • The Trap Stones are pretty fun! I like that there are stones you don’t want to examine; it can lead players to not look at a few of their stones, which means that you’re now basing deductions off of information that almost no player actually has. That’s my favorite kind of deduction: are they lying, or do they just not know?
  • There’s a lot of hectic player interaction, which is pretty fun. Some of it is aggressive, granted, but some of it is just hilarious, like misdirecting players or telling players about things that definitely happened while they were asleep or making noises to make them think things have been moved around. There’s a lot of opportunity to mess with players.

Mehs

  • The game can end kind of prematurely and randomly; depends on whether or not you’re cool with that. Some players might find that a bit frustrating. There are literally “the game ends” cards under certain circumstances, which can be a bit intense.
  • Similarly, the player abilities are pretty intense, too. The player abilities all break some nontrivial rule of the game or stretch it to their advantage, which may be great if you like that sort of thing or may rub you the wrong way. Either way, the player powers are anything but subtle.
  • Setup kind of takes a bit. It’s another one of those times where shuffling a lot of cards can be a bit irritating. There are a bunch of cards and it’s not always easy to shuffle a big deck. There’s also a few steps to work through and a bunch of things that depend on player count. It’s not the worst, but it can be decently time-consuming.

Cons

  • Oh, right, I hate interrupt cards. There are both cards that can be played at any time (one of my least favorite type of cards) and cards that explicitly cancel the effect of other played cards. I don’t like these cards since they push the game into a state where you’re not sure if you should play a card or wait for someone else to play the same card or play a card to counter the card that someone played on you. It’s just an annoying back and forth in games. Not my favorite.
  • There are a few skills that do the “this would be better as an app” thing that a lot of board games do. The one that particularly pops in my mind is one player has the ability to look at any and all of the stones in the center nest at any point, consequence-free. It’s a good ability, but they can use it constantly. This means that they might be doing it at any point when other players are placing or removing stones, which can junk up the game’s flow. It makes me wish that that ability were app-based or something, since then they just wouldn’t appear face-down to one player. Naturally, this isn’t an app, so, not possible.

Overall: 7.5 / 10

Overall, I think Gold Nugget is a neat little game! I think that the chaos of the deduction makes it a bit less my scene than more calm deduction games like Cryptid or The Search for Planet X, but folks looking for a highly interactive and hectic game will almost certainly enjoy this one. Here, the deduction of what is where matters a bit, but the game is much more of a memory game of remembering exactly where the one thing you care about is as the various stones shift around. To make matters worse / funnier, you’ll likely have your eyes closed for a chunk of it, and who knows what is happening while you’re doing that. Why animals are looking for a gold nugget is a bit beyond me, but I do enjoy the art style; it’s fun and Disney-esque while still being its own distinct vibe. I’m also a fan of getting to lay traps for your opponents and occasionally messing them up; since this is a short game, the actual take-that components of it aren’t quite as grating as I find them in longer games (especially longer deduction games). The one thing to note is that the player abilities are large and take up a lot of their own space since they each break the game in their own way. This makes for a wildly varied experience from game to game and can cause big swings. That may not be what you’re looking for; it may be exactly what you need. If that sounds up your alley, you enjoy a bit of chaos with your deduction, or you just identify with animals that need to sleep, you’ll likely enjoy Gold Nugget! I had fun with it.

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