Boom, Bang, Gold Board Game Review:

In the game Boom Bang Gold, you throw dynamite sticks into the mine, revealing large veins of gold. All players rush to collect the gold. The player that collects the most gold after 12 rounds wins.

How to Play

To set up the game, place the cardboard insert inside the box. Then place the rubble in the box, boulder side up. This creates a trampoline effect allowing the rubble to bounce and flip. Then each player picks a character. Each character has immunity to one creature found in the mine.

At the start of a round, 1 or all players shout, “Boom, Bang, Gold!” Then, each player throws a wooden stick of dynamite into the box. This will cause some tiles to flip over, revealing their opposite side. Each player will rush to grab as many face-up tiles as possible, placing them on their shelf. When grabbing tiles, you may only grab 1 at a time, use only use 1 hand, and not flip over any tiles.

Each tile has a unique effect. There are 4 main types of tiles. The first type of tile is a Boulder tile. This tile has 2 backs, and it will never be collected. The second type of tile is gold; each gold tile picked up gives 1 point. Gold has both a legal version and an illegal version. Next is the action tiles. These tiles allow you to do a specific action during the action phase. Finally, there are 4 creature tiles, a bat, snake, rat, and a ghost. When a player is immune to a revealed creature, they shout out “watch out ___” followed by the creature revealed. Then all other players must put their hands on their heads and say “help” before continuing to grab tiles from the mine. Creatures cannot be taken from the mine.

Once all the face-up tiles have been taken from the mine, the action phase begins. Any players who collected action tiles activate them in the following order. Pickaxe: flip over 5 tiles and keep any flipped gold. Dynamite: throw your dynamite stick into the mine again; you may collect any revealed gold. Sheriff’s Badge: all illegal gold other players collected this round must go back into the mine. Revolver: a player of your choice holds their fists out. One of their fists contains nothing, while the other hand has 2 gold from their supply. If you guess the hand with the gold in it, you get to keep it.

Repeat this process until 12 rounds have passed. Then each player counts up their gold. The winner is the player with the most gold. The player with the most legal gold wins if there is a tie.

Pros

This game is exciting and chaotic. Boom, Bang, Gold will have you rushing to grab every piece of gold. There is never a dull moment when playing this game.

Boom, Bang, Gold is incredibly physical. It has you throwing sticks of dynamite which launch the tiles into the air. It is a particularly immersive experience.

Cons

This game gets slower as the game goes along. As the game continues, it becomes rarer to gain more gold from mining. The game starts to slow down at the end of the game. You may want to play only 6 rounds and play the game twice instead of 1 full game.

Throwing wooden dynamite against cardboard makes a lot of noise. This makes the game tough to play in public or with other people nearby.

Accessibility

Color Blind: You may have a slight disadvantage at quickly identifying the pieces

Reading: no reading is necessary to play Boom, Bang, Gold.

Children: Boom, Bang, Gold includes themes of explosives, ghosts, and gun duels.

Who would love this game?

Boom, Bang, Gold is a perfect kid’s game. It is full of high action while also being simple to understand. Boom, Bang, Gold is ideal for any age, as long as they won’t eat the tiles. It is just as fun to bypass most rules and just throw dynamite and grab gold with younger kids.

Final Thoughts

Boom, Bang, Gold is an action-packed game that will have you on the edge of your seat. If you want a dexterity game with thought and care, Boom, Bang, Gold may not be for you. If instead, you just want to blow things up with a high-action dexterity game that is as chaotic as it appears, you should get Boom, Bang, Gold.