Goldland is a game of exploration by Wolfgang Kramer, a name that is not a new one to exploration games. Released in Nuremberg in 2002, it has been the focus of a lot of talk on the 'net, but its debut was overshadowed by the release of Puerto Rico. It's been compared (both favorably and not) to Africa, Entdecker (old & new), Expedition and Samarkand. As I've not played any of those, I can't really give an opinion on the matter one way or another.

It has only been released in German, but the game components are completely language-neutral, and they are of top-notch quality. The only bad thing about them is a propensity for the color brown and the similarity in appearance between the mountain & gorge tiles, and the rifle & fishing rod equipment tokens. The rules are very well written and have been translated into English. Someone has integrated the translations with scans of the original rules to create a full-color, fully illustrated PDF of the rules in English. It's available at the Geek, of course.

Play is on a 7x7 grid of tiles, with only 13 of them being known at the outset. These 13 represent the coastline, and are laid out in a V-shape, 7x6 (or 7x7 with one in common, depending on how you look at it). The remaining 36 inner tiles are revealed during the course of the play. The object is to get the most gold, and gold can be had in one of three ways:

1. finding/acquiring Treasures and Amulets;
2. completing Adventures; and
3. the Temple bonus.

On a player's turn, he or she may do 3 things in any order: move, acquire and explore. Movement is on a simple movement point system, with each tile costing one movement point to enter. You may not enter the same tile twice in a single move, so a little thought is involved in how to get from where you are to where you want to get, doing everything in between that you wish. A simple mechanism determines how many MPs you have. You have a backpack with 12 spaces in it for equipment, and the more equipment you're carrying, the slower you go. Your base movement is 12, and each backpack space occupied reduces this by one. For these purposes, Treasures and Amulets count as equipment, and as such will affect your movement (gold is, after all, very dense).

Movement is carried out along roads, with each tile costing 1 MP to enter, regardless of "terrain" (there really is no concept of terrain in the game). Each tile has a road leading off 3 edges of the tile, and normal movement between two tiles must have roads on both tiles along the adjacent edge. If only one of the tiles has a road, or neither do, movement is still possible by doing an "ordeal". To do an ordeal, you must give up 4 articles of equipment (of any kind). The decision to do an ordeal must be take with care, as you can easily find yourself stuck in the new tile with no roads out and no resources for another ordeal. Thankfully, the designer provided a way out, though it can be costly (see the section on "Exploring" below).

Equipment is representative of the things you would need in a typical exploration setting: food, rope, wood, shovel, guns, a fishing rod & pearls. Most tiles let you acquire other equipment, assuming you have the requisite equipment in your backpack already (e.g. having pearls in a village will allow you to acquire either a shovel or a rifle, and having wood in another tile lets you acquire a fishing pole). You don't have to give up the equipment in order to acquire; you merely need to have it in your backpack. You may acquire either before or after your move, but not during. This forces you to think several turns in advance, to make sure you have the needed resources before you reach your destination.

So what do you need equipment for, you ask? Adventures. There are seven different kinds of Adventures, and whoever has completed the most in each category receives the gold (VPs) for the Adventure (represented by an Adventure token). I've found that these are often the deciding factor in who wins and who's sent packing. You're not allowed to enter an Adventure tile unless you can pay the specified price in equipment (and unlike with acquiring, here you actually take the equipment out of your backpack and return it to the common supply). If you had to perform an ordeal to enter the Adventure tile, then part of the ordeal payment may be applied to the Adventure (assuming the equipment is of the required kind). Once you complete the Adventure, you may place a camp in that tile, allowing you to enter it freely in a later turn. Fighting the Puma in one tile, though, will not help you against a Puma in another tile, so if you want to enter a second Puma tile, you'd better have more guns in your pack (or know of a way to get some more).

Eight of the Adventure tiles have Treasures on them. These must be dug up by paying two provisions, which is over and above the cost for completing the Adventure itself (so digging up a Treasure in a desert, for example, will cost 5 food; 3 to enter the desert tile, and 2 to dig up the Treasure). Treasures are worth 3 gold at the end of the game, and take up a space in the backpack. These account for just under 50% of the fixed gold/VPs available in the game, with the Adventure tokens comprising the rest. By fixed, I mean the amounts are constant from game to game. The variable amount of gold is determined by the number of players, and is only available at the Temple.

Ah finally, the Temple. Where would we Adventurers be without a Temple to plunder? In the far corner of the board, directly opposite from the starting tile, is the Temple. Once that far corner tile is placed, and someone then occupies it, the Temple is considered to be found. The first player to get there receives 2 bonus gold, and anyone else that can get there before the current turn is over also receives two bonus gold (see note below). Everyone who visits the Temple receives an Amulet, regardless of whether or not they received the bonus gold. Like Treasures, the Amulets are worth 3 gold in the end, and occupy a precious space in your backpack (the bonus gold, however, does not take up space in the backpack).

[There was some very heated debate over whether or not the first player got an advantage, as it was originally thought that the bonus gold remained at the Temple until the person discovering it took her turn again. This would give the first player a marginal advantage, giving him an extra turn to reach the Temple and claim the bonus gold. Herr Kramer has since clarified this, as described above. Our group likes the "original" rule, though, so that's how we play.]

After visiting the Temple and receiving an Amulet, on each subsequent turn, a player with an Amulet receives one additional gold from the Temple stock (the total amount available is determined by the number of players). When this gold runs out, the game is over. Alternately, once everyone possesses an Amulet (and you can only have one), the game ends. In either case, the last turn is played out completely, so that everyone gets the same number of turns.

The last action available each turn is to explore. This is done by drawing a tile and placing it in any open spot orthogonal to the tile that the player is currently on. Each time the player does this, they get an exploration token, and sets of these can be turned in for a piece of equipment of the player's choice. You can also receive an exploration token by skipping your turn entirely (no movement, no exploration, no acquiring), something you don't have much of a choice on when stuck after an ordeal. The usual use of these tokens is to trade them in at a key time for one (or more) key pieces of equipment, to swoop in and steal a Treasure or perhaps control of an Adventure token. Timing is key, and the use of this trade-in can often be vital to winning a close game.

So how does it play? Very well, indeed! It has a very puzzle-like quality to it, trying to figure out what to do, and how to get the equipment needed to do it. It plays best with 3, in my experience, and is quite excellent with 2 and good with 4. It bogs down a bit with 5. Given the puzzle-like quality, it is subject to analysis/paralysis. However, with quick players even 5 is an acceptable number.

Bad tile placement can cause the game to drag. In over a dozen games, though, this has only happened once or maybe twice. It's more likely (though still infrequent) that someone will find themselves stuck after an ordeal. Once that happens, it's hard to recover, and that can sour the game for that player. It's something that's easily avoided, though, so being stranded should be taken as more of a learning experience.

Although there's no direct player interaction, there should be some serious contention for the Adventure tokens and Treasures. Figuring out how to steal them away from your opponent is most satisfying!

There were two initial complaints with the game: 1) it's too simple/light; and 2) the game is simply a race to the Temple. I think there's a lot more to this game than at first meets the eye. It can surely be simple and light if you want it to be, but there's lots of tactics and a decent amount of strategy to be had.

As for being just a race to the Temple, there's much more to winning than just this. There are 49 VPs to be had from the Treasures and Adventure tokens, and at most 17 from the Amulet, Temple bonus gold and per-turn Amulet gold (and that only in a 5-player game). Clearly this is not the sole way to get a win; you have to take a portion of the Treasures and Adventure tokens to win.

Bottom line: I heartily recommend this game!