Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game incorporates elements of card deck, dice and board game style play to provide for an exciting and entertaining experience. The multiple aspects of its gameplay keep Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game interesting and challenging; yet the rules are easy to learn and quickly get a grasp on. Playable with 2 to 7 players it is nice that my kids could play it together by themselves or could bring in friends and family to join them.
The goal is to collect as many valuable gemstones from the Seven Dwarfs mine as you can during each round. Turn in your gems to earn pies baked by Snow White. Whoever has the most pies by the end of the game is the winner!
LUCK OF THE DICE
You don't actually roll dice in this game. The dice like aspect of the game is players do blind bag draws throughout the game to mine gemstones. Without looking inside players blindly pull out a variety of six valuable gemstones ranging from ultra rare diamonds to commonly found amethysts from the game's grab bag. Each gemstone has a value based upon its rarity that earns your dwarf pies from Snow White.
Watch out though! If you pull out two obsidian rocks in a round your minecart takes a tumble preventing you from turning in any gemstones and earning pies. Each round a Snow White Challenge Card listing an assortment of gemstones to find is pulled and displayed. The first person to find them all gets bonus pies!
To be successful players want to achieve the Snow White Challenge Card gemstones or the highest value of gemstones they can get without pressing their luck too far resulting in a minecart accident. Get greedy by doing too many blind bag pulls and there is a good chance you'll end up with two obsidian rocks resulting in a goose egg score for a round.
CARD DECK BUILDING
Each player starts the game drawing a deck of five action cards. These cards add an element of interaction between players throughout the game. Action Cards let you do things such as pull three gemstones instead of just one during your turn pulling from the blind bag; steal a gem you want from another dwarf's mine cart, or take an obsidian you've pulled and give it to another player.
Strategically using cards lets players avoid being knocked out of a round from mining too much obsidian, jump ahead of other players to achieve a Snow White Challenge, or catch up if they've fallen behind in gemstones they've mined to get a bunch of pies in a hurry. Toss a monkey wrench into another player's efforts or protect yourself from your own mine cart accident with well played action cards. Players have a limited number of action cards they receive during the game so it is important to be smart about using your deck.
BOARD GAME PLAY
Gameplay for Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game revolves around a central game board. There are five rounds to the game which are tracked on this board as work days in the mine. Each player also gets to pick out a dwarf they want to be and is provided a chip with the character's face on it. The game board tracks which players are in and out of the mine plus the bonuses they receive each round with the placement of these dwarf chips upon it. The game board also displays the Snow White Challenge Cards which are changed each round and serves as the treasury for trading in gemstones for pies.
MINE CARTS
Each player also gets a mine cart that corresponds to the dwarf they are playing as. For our family game night, I was Grumpy, my son was Dopey, daughter was Sleepy and wife was Bashful. Players place the gemstones they've accumulated on their mine cart until turning them in to the game board at the end of each round. Remember though if you get two obsidians in your cart during a round it tumbles over with everything you've mined tossed back into the blind bag and you are done working in the mine for the rest of that day on the game board.
The mine carts also show the pie allocation for each gem ranging from 8 pies for a diamond to 1 pie for a topaz. It also displays gemstone combos you can achieve to increase your pie total. For example if you get three of a kind of a type of gemstone you can also double one other type of jewel in your mine cart. so if you have 3 topaz and a diamond in your mine cart at the end of a round instead of cashing in 1+1+1+8= 11 pies you would instead trade in 1+1+1 + (8 x 2) = 19 pies using this doubler combo. Another strategic element of the game to keep in mind.
FUN TIME
There was a lot of merriment as we enjoyed Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game during Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: A Gemstone Mining Game is available at ShopDisney.com, Barnes & Noble, Hot Topic, and Amazon.com. It is recommended for ages 8+ and average game time is about an hour. For more information about this and the other great games available from USAOPOLY head over to usaopoly.com
