Go for Gold
Go for Gold Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setup
Place the die in reach and each take a pencil and a game sheet from the pad. The game sheets have a side with a yellow island (A) and a side with a green island (B). Make sure that you are all playing with the same side. We recommend playing with the yellow island (A) for your first game. The green island (B) uses extra rules, which are explained later.
The last person to have visited an island becomes the active player and crosses off 1 of the 4 harbour spaces on their game sheet. Then, all the other players, in clockwise order, cross off the next harbour in clockwise order on their sheet. This means that every player starts on a different space. This is where your ship is anchored, and where you begin your expedition.
You move around the island through the hexagonal jungle spaces. You can collect shovels or footprints on some of the spaces to help you out during the game. Keep track of how many you've collected on the trackers to the right of the island (shovel tracker, footprint tracker). You always start the game with 2 shovels and 1 footprint.
On other jungle spaces, there are different types of sites where you can dig up treasure or explore temples. This scores you points, which you note down in the scoring spaces on the right of your game sheet.
The harbours are special spaces that you can use to quickly travel to another side of the island.
How to Play
You play the game in rounds that always consist of 2 phases:
1. Movement
As active player, take the die and roll it exactly once. The roll always applies for all players. Then you all move exactly as many spaces as shown on the die.
Starting from the space you ended on in the previous round (or from your crossed off harbour in the first round), draw your movement as a line on your sheet. Make sure that your line always connects the centre points of the spaces. You don't have to move in a straight line. After each new space, you can decide on a new direction to continue your movement in. However, it's important that you only move to spaces that you haven't already visited.
If you move onto or over a space that has a shovel or a footprint on it, you collect it as soon you pass over it. Draw circles around the symbols you collect on the corresponding tracker.
You can use a circled footprint to ignore a die result for your movement and choose a distance between 1 and 6 spaces to move instead. Cross out the circled footprint after using it.
You can use circled shovels to help you with searching for treasure. This is explained later.
Example: in the first round, Anne moves 4 spaces from her harbour, collecting 2 shovels. In the second round, she moves 3 spaces onto a treasure space. In the third round, the active player rolls a 5, but Anne uses a footprint to move just 1 space onto a temple instead.
Special harbour spaces
If you move onto a harbour, your movement ends immediately, even if you still haven't used all of the die result. Cross off another harbour that you haven't used yet. You'll start your movement in the next round from this space.
You can only do this once per game. This means you can't move onto the last, unused harbour.
If you ever can't move any further, the game ends for you immediately!
2. Searching for Treasure
After everyone has moved, you begin searching for treasure.
You can (but don't have to) search for treasure if you end your movement on either a treasure or temple space. The active player goes first, followed by the other players in clockwise order.
The search works differently, depending on the type of space you're on:
Treasure
Grab the die and roll it exactly once. Compare your result to the number on the treasure.
Struck gold! If you roll a number equal to or higher than the treasure number, you find the treasure! Note the treasure number as points in your topmost free scoring space.
The wrong spot! If you roll lower, you can still use circled shovels to retrieve the treasure anyway. Each shovel adds 1 to your die result. Cross off each shovel as you use it. If you can't or don't want to use any shovels, you score no points.
Temple
You can only explore a temple if no other player has already successfully explored it!
Note: if multiple players want to explore the same temple in the same round, they attempt it in turn order.
Grab the die and roll it exactly once. Compare your result with the number of circled shovels you currently have.
An entrance appears! If you roll a number equal to or lower than your shovels, you successfully explore the temple! Note down 9 points in your topmost free scoring space. At the same time, cross out all your circled shovels.
Let the others know which temple you've explored. They all cross out this temple on their sheets. They can still move onto this space, but can no longer explore the temple. This temple continues to act like an empty jungle space.
The spirits stir! If you roll higher, the temple curses you. Note down -1 point in your topmost free scoring space. You keep your circled shovels. The other players can still explore this temple.
End of the Round
Once everyone has finished searching, the active player passes the die in clockwise order to the next player. This player becomes the new active player and a new round begins. Continue playing like this until you trigger the end of the game.
End of the Game and Scoring
The game ends as soon as either a player has filled all 6 of their scoring spaces, no one can score any more points, or no one can move any further. Play to the end of the current round and then add up your points. The player with the most points wins! If there is a tie, the tied players share the victory.
Side B
On the green island (B), you use all the same rules as described above. However, this island also features lagoons and smugglers' camps.
Lagoons
You cannot move onto or over spaces with lagoons.
Smugglers' Camps
If you end your movement on a smugglers' camp, you can gamble in the searching for treasure phase. To do this, first cross out 1 circled shovel and 1 circled footprint. Then roll the die exactly once. Note down the result as points in your topmost free scoring space.
Instead of noting down the result, you can also decide to roll again. To do this, again cross out 1 circled shovel and 1 circled footprint. You can do this as many times as you like, as long as you still have shovels and footprints to cross out.
Note: you can only keep your final roll. Note down this die result as points.