Incan Gold

3rd October 2021

​It's time for more Sunday gaming goodness on Board Game Arena.
The first game of the night was Incan Gold.

Brave the temple, get the gold, avoid the traps, escape!
Indy never had it so easy! He should something really frustrating - like Incan Gold.

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 Caveat: We've only ever played Incan Gold digitally.

What's in a game?

• Temple cards: There are 5 of these, they are used collectively to represent the temple, they also act a timer for the game's 5 rounds.
• Treasures: These are collected by intrepid explorers and come in 3 denominations, turquoise, obsidian and gold, respectively worth 1, 5 & 10 points. 
• Torch and camp cards: Used to determine a player's actions.
• Tent cards: In the physical game, these cards unfold to look like tents. There sort of a non-thing in the digital version.
• Artefact cards: Artefacts have special value in the game and there are 5 of these cards.
• Quest cards: There are 30 quest cards.
  15 are beneficial and confer treasures on to the players.
  15 are hazards, there are 5 different types of hazard, 3 cards of each type.

Incan Gold's utilises good, evocative art that suits its theme.

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How's it play?
​Set up

• Temple cards: Set out the 5 temple cards to form the picture of the temple.
• Artefact cards: Shuffle the artefact cards and place 1 under each temple card.
• Turn counter: Turn over the temple card for the current round.
• Quest deck: Take the artefact card from under the current round's temple card and shuffle it into the quest deck. Place the quest deck into a face-down stack.
• Torch and camp cards: Give each player a torch card, camp card and tent card.
• 1st player: Determine a first player.

On to play
Incan Gold is played over 5 rounds of varying turn lengths, in each round players decide whether to continue exploring or run away! Cards are drawn from the quest deck by the first player until everyone has chosen to flee or the game goes bust.

• Stay or go: At the start of each turn, every player secretly decides whether they want to continue exploring the temple or retreat back to camp. This is done by playing a torch or camp card face-down, a torch to continue exploring or a camp to return to camp.
  All players then reveal their cards simultaneously. Anyone who chose a camp card is now out of the round, but can score whatever treasure they have collected in this round. Remaining players continue exploring the temple.
• Explore: If any players played a torch then the exploration continues.
  Turn quest card over: A card from the quest deck is revealed. Cards from the quest deck are played in a row starting next to the deck, thus creating a path.
  Treasure: If it's a treasure card, it will list what treasures it contains, this is then split up equally amongst whichever players are still exploring, any treasure(s) which cannot be equally divided is placed on the card that was revealed.
  Player keep the treasures they acquired to hand, they are not banked yet.
  Artefact: If an artefact card is revealed, nothing immediately happens, only 1 player may collect an artefact and this happens at the end of the round (More info below.)
  Hazard: Hazard cards can spell disaster for explorers.
  When the 1st card of any of the 5 types of hazard is revealed, nothing bad will happen. However when a 2nd card of any type of hazard is revealed, all the explorers must flee, the round has busted and is over. The following then occurs:
  Any explorer still in the temple loses all treasures they've acquired this round.
  Any treasures on the path are also discarded.
  Any artefact cards that were drawn are also discarded.
  The 2nd hazard card is removed from the deck for the remainder of play.
  Play proceeds to the next turn (See below.).
• Return to camp: Any players who played the camp card, must immediately return to their tent, they are no longer participating in exploring the temple and the following occurs:
  Treasures: Any treasures that were left on the path are now equally divided up to the retreating players, again, treasures which cannot be equally divided up remain on the path.
  Artefact: The artefact card(s) in the path is collected by the last player to retreat who is also the only player retreating. If 2 players are the last to retreat, the artefact is not collected.
  The first 3 artefacts that are found are worth 5 points each, the last are worth 10 each.
  Tent: Players who retreated many now bank any treasures they acquired, these are safe and cannot be lost.
  End of round: If the round did not bust and all the players escaped. The round is over and if for any reason a revealed artefact was not collected by a player, then it is discarded from play.
• Next round: Flip over the temple card to mark the start of the next round and shuffle the next artefact card into the quest deck. The first player moves to the left

Endgame
Play continues until 5 rounds have been completed.
Players count points from the 3 types of treasure they might've acquired and any artefact cards they collected.
​Points are tallied, highest score wins.

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Overall
Incan Gold is a very focused push-you luck game, a couple of cards may be added or removed to the quest deck every round, but broadly speaking the quest deck is split 50/50 between treasures and hazards, flipping a card is like flipping a coin. It really is pushing your luck.

There are also some other interesting things going on in Incan Gold.
At the start of a round, the length of the exploration into the temple will have already been determined by shuffling the deck and there's no way for players to alter this. It means the game's 'luck' affects all players equally, if one player got further into the temple than all the others, it because they had the guts to push their luck further. Conversely, if a player went bust when others got back to camp, then they foolishly pushed their luck too hard!

Of course, there will be occasions when both approaches may prove beneficial and players will have to judge when it's a good idea to return to camp or not.
The artefact rules add a wrinkle to the game; acquiring an artefact can earn a lot of points, especially in games with higher player counts where treasures are split between more people. This of course means outlasting all the other players and surviving, adding a game of 'chicken' to Incan Gold.

Using cards to secretly choose whether to continue or retreat is the final interesting rule for various reasons.
Treasure on the path is split between all retreating players, so sometimes, retreating when it's obvious to retreat may not be the optimal strategy, as those treasures will get split amongst all retreating players. Pushing your luck here may prove beneficial, depending on how much treasure you've already got, but other players are thinking the same thing...​
When an artefact appears, it can add an extra element to this, how far is a player willing to push their luck to get the artefact? Is it worth retreating to collect treasure on the path instead? Can an opponent be bluffed into going too far. Are the other players going to fold? If a player's behaviour and motives can be predicted, it can be exploited.
While a round will have a limited number of turns before it busts, a player doesn't have to reach the end, they need to be last explorer exploring.

Incan Gold is a game with just 2 decisions, but there's always risk and reward behind those decisions, it can give players tricky and meaningful decisions to make.

We've only played Incan Gold digitally and it's a game that employs a significant amount of randomness, something which computers are not very good at handling. It can lead to weird or erroneous results appearing in games, so it's hard to discern if our experience of the game was influenced by this not.

We found Incan Gold to be a frustrating experience. The push-your-luck element of the game felt too harsh, too punishing to be fun. The 2nd hazard card seemed to pop up far too often and players frequently busted very early. Eventually we ended up barely turning over any cards before returning to camp, it seemed the most efficient move to make.
It felt like the risk far outweighed the reward and it made for an unexciting experience, one we didn't feel like repeating.