Mark's #49: Goldland

I was at the Gathering where the buzz began - it doesn't work, it's too long, yadda yadda yadda. As usual, once the rules issues were hammered out and everyone figured out that the game should really be for 2-4 players, rather than 2-5, suddenly there was this nifty puzzle/exploration game sitting their with gorgeous production and multiple paths to victory.

I've found that Goldland intrigues a certain type of gamer - in fact, if they like Sid Sackson's Bazaar, the chances are very good that they'll like Goldland. The underlying mechanism (the puzzle of how to best manipulate your resources) is very similar.