Stats:
No. of players: 3-8
Amount of time to play: 20 minutes
Age requirements: 6+
Set-up time:  3-5 min

Description:

Incan Gold is all about risk and reward. You are an adventurer exploring an Incan Temple for treasure. Will you continue on the path to collect more treasure or head back to your tent with the treasure you’ve already collected? This game is light, quick and easy to play. I have even taught my 6 year old nephew to play.

The game consists of five rounds. Each player has two cards, one shows you exploring and the other returning to your tent. At the beginning of the round everyone shows their card at once. If you decide to venture on a card is flipped and added next to the last card flipped. If the card shows a treasure value that value is divided evenly among all the players that decided to venture on. Treasure is placed in front of players’ tents and any remainder gets placed on the card. If a hazard is flipped over no treasure is collected by those who venture forth. There are five types of hazards (snakes, spiders, a mummy, fire and a collapse). Once the same hazard card has been flipped over twice all those who stayed in the temple must flee returning the treasure in front of their tents to the supply.

If you show your card that indicates you want to leave you may place any treasure in front of you inside your tent. You also pick up any treasure remaining on the path and place it inside your tent. If more than one person leaves at a time the treasure on the path is divided equally between them. Again any remainder stays on the path. Treasure inside your tent is kept secret so it may be hard to tell just how far ahead (or behind) others are.

Lastly there are 5 artifact cards. One is added to the deck each round. Artifacts can only be collected by a player who leaves the temple alone. The first three to appear in the game are worth five treasure and the last two are worth ten.

All card except for artifacts are reshuffled between rounds and after five rounds the player with the most treasure wins.

A Quick Review:
Incan Gold is another great game night starter, especially if you have a large group. It is light on strategy, but high on tension. There is a good bit of luck involved, but some number crunching can be done to help limit risk. It even helps if you know the people you are playing with. I always know when my wife and her siblings are going to leave as they have similar views on risk vs reward.

The only negative about this game is the ability to come from behind. If you get behind in the early rounds you find yourself having to stay in the temple longer. This usually ends badly and just gets you in a deeper hole. I think the artifact are there to help alleviate this, but they don’t always come out and if they come out early in a round they may only help the front runner more.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 2 out of 6
Replay Value 5 out of 6
Complexity 2 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6