Who doesn't like a little swashbuckling between cute cat pirates and corgi navy officers?

Take the Gold (2017)
Designer(s)	Ali Hajighafouri	Artist(s)	Andrey Modestov	Publisher	CardLords
	2-6		8+		5-15m

There is a time for heavy card games with deep strategy leading to minutes of analysis paralysis that makes your opponent uneasy much like reading this long sentence. Other times, you just want something cute, quick, and fun to play; this is where Take the Gold comes in. Take the Gold has players drawing and playing cards with the goal of one player collecting four gold coins in their hand before their opponents. With a little light strategy and thievery, you may be the pirate for the job. 

Box and Components

The box is a very nice sturdy plastic card style box and feels great. The artwork is very nice on the material and is easy to read. The back of the box provides a clear idea of what the game is. 

The game comes with the following components:

• 54 Cards: There are 7 Unique types of cards; each type of card has the same illustration and ability text. Most cards have an ability that is triggered when played; follow the simple text provided on each card.  
  • 13x Pirate: Take one random card from another player. 
  • 10x Officer: Stop one pirate from taking one of your cards. 
  • 4x Two Pirates: Take two random cards from another player. 
  • 4x Two Officers: Stop one or two pirates from taking your cards. 
  • 14x Gold Coin: Collect 4 to win.
  • 5x Kraken: Make a player discard all of their cards. 
  • 4x Pirate Captains: Stop the Kraken. Take a Coin from another Player; if that player will not pay the gold coin, take two random cards instead.
• 1 Page Rule Sheet: The rules are compact on a narrow paper that is a little longer than a standard sheet of paper.  

The cards are pretty good; a little thin perhaps but still fine. The box probably would support card sleeves so it could be worth investing in some sleeves just to help thicken the cards up a little bit. It did take a little time for the curve of the cards to go away, but they did overtime. The artwork looks great on the cards, and I love the cute illustrations. I just want to pet the little puppies and kitties ears! 

Mechanics

Setup

Shuffle all of the cards together and deal each player two cards. The remaining deck should be placed within reach of all players. 

The first player is who ever has the best pirate impression. 

Player Turn

Players will take turns performing the actions in the following order:

1. Draw one card from the deck. 
2. Play one card OR Pass. 
   • When playing a card, perform the action on the card. When playing Pirate (Pirate or Two Pirates), the target player may play an Officer or Two Officer cards to counter the effects; when playing the a single Officer against a Two Pirate, the Pirate still takes a single card instead of two. 
   • Similarly, when the Kraken is played, the target player can play the Pirate Captain to counter it. Successful Kraken attacks that are not countered should be sat away from the discard pile and remain in sight of all players. 
   • The Officers have no actions to use as a "play" card. Officers are only used for countering.
   • Gold Coins are not played from your hand and are only collected for the win condition. 

If at the end of your turn you have more than five cards, you must discard down until you have only five remaining. If anyone has zero cards, they immediately draw two cards. If the deck ever runs out, shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck; do not shuffle in Kraken that were not countered. 

 Continue to the next player clockwise around the table. 

End Game

The game continues until one of the following end game continues are met:

• One player has four Gold Coins in their hand, which they reveal. They win!
• Three Kraken cards have been played successfully without being blocked by the Pirate Captain (throughout the entire game). At that point, players reveal their coins in their hand, and whoever has the most is the winner! In the event of a tie, tied players go into a bit of a showdown round to race to two coins after discarding theirs.  

Final Thoughts

Take the Gold is a cute card game that will be a perfect fit for families with children. It is super easy to learn and takes virtually no time to setup. It is not the most strategic game so it will not be a fit for your traditional gaming mid-age gaming crowd, but that is also not the target market for the game either. I think it is a perfectly fun game for children and priced as such. Be sure to check out this game for your children and CardLords' other titles that may be more suitable for traditional gamers such as Lucky Luau, which we did a Kickstarter preview of in 2020 and will be doing a follow up review of once the final game is delivered later this spring. 

Links/Media

Take the Gold Board Game Geek Page 

Publisher Product Page

Disclosure

We received the product in order to write an honest review; all reviews reflect the honest opinions of the writer.