Greedy Greedy Goblins

Greedy Greedy Goblins is a simultaneous play, strategic tile placement and bluffing game.

Players lead a clan of goblin miners who want to gather the most valuable collection of gems. Coins are scored for gem tiles on the mines you have claimed, with bonuses for dynamite tiles — but if there is too much dynamite, the mine (and all the riches within) are destroyed!

In more detail, players sit around a circle composed of cave game boards and the guildhall game board, with sixty mining tiles placed face-down within this circle. Each round, while playing at the same time, players use one hand to look at one mining tile at a time, then place it on one of the cave game boards. At any time, a player can claim the guildhall or a cave by placing one of their three goblins on the board, after which no more tiles or goblins may be placed on this board.

Once everyone has placed all of their goblins (or decided not to place them), players resolve the boards. The goblin on the guildhall draws a minion card that provides a special ability, while each goblin in a cave scores coins based on the gems, diamonds, dynamite and monsters found there; these goblins can also take minion cards if minion tiles have been placed in the cave. Dynamite multiplies the value of a cave, but three or more sticks blows the place up, costing you coins.

If someone has one hundred or more coins, the game ends and whoever has the most coins wins; if not, set up another round and go digging again.

Quinns: For this review, I want you to imagine blackjack in a blender.

Picture a table of spilled drinks and creased tuxedos. Picture a group of players all trying to go as high as possible without going bust, but there’s eight different hands going on at once, anyone can claim any hand as “theirs”, and you’re all the dealer, there are no turns and you can play as fast as you like. Oh, and none of you can see anything. Except when you can.

Does that sound like fun? Of course it does. Let’s talk about Richard Garfield’s new game, Greedy Greedy Goblins.

Quinns: Hello everybody! Shut Up & Sit Down is still four sheets to the wind this week. Paul’s off to Board Game Geek Con, Matt’s recovering from Fantasy Flight’s World Championships and I’m just back from New York University’s Practice gaming summit. These are important trips! If you don’t check up on Americans they’ll be marrying cobwebs and getting stuck behind radiators before you know it.

Fun fact! At Practice I saw a talk by Leslie Scott, inventor of Jenga. Did you know that as Jenga is manufactured, they make sure the bricks are all of varying sizes and weights to make the game work better?

Ah, but you’ve been waiting so long for your Games News! Not to worry. I may have spent five hours asleep in a cold corner of LAX this morning, but I’ve fetched some black coffee and classic rock (won’t you do the same?) and I’m ready to get to work.

Greedy Greedy Goblins

Review: Greedy Greedy Goblins

Games News! 16/11/15

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