Let’s Dig For Treasure Review

Here it is, our Let’s Dig For Treasure review. Is this little game deserving of your time and money? Or is it a bust?

For our Let’s Dig For Treasure review, I rated it a Buy. It’s based on art by Steven Rhodes, and it’s easy to understand, play, and teach. It’s got a great Halloween feel since it’s about digging for treasure in a graveyard, and it has a push-your-luck mechanic with whether or not you continue to draw cards after the first one.

Some Background About Let’s Dig For Treasure Before The Review

Let’s Dig For Treasure is one of (as of November 2022) six games in the Dynomite Games sub-brand of Cryptozoic Entertainment. It also features art and ideas by Steven Rhodes.

What Is Dynomite Games?

The idea driving Dynomite Games is bringing the core mechanics of games in an easy-to-understand and easy-to-play way to casual board game players. For those who don’t know, casual board game players are people who either haven’t played board games or do play them, but not with the same passion and experience as other people do.

They’re not as deep into the hobby, let’s say.

Dynomite Games seeks to provide fun little games that will give them enjoyable experiences in short timeframes while also showing them what getting deeper into the board gaming hobby looks and feels like.

And I think that’s pretty cool.

Who Is Steven Rhodes?

Steven Rhodes is, as his site puts it, “a graphic artist and illustrator best known for his offbeat reimagining of children’s activity books from the 70s and 80s.” On his site, you’ll find such dark delights as a Yoga For Beginners T-shirt which shows two blissful kids doing yoga with the Devil. You can also find a T-shirt of My Family Portrait, which shows a lady with a bunch of cats (AKA a crazy cat lady, which I say with all due respect since I have four cats myself).

It’s a really neat fusion of a retro look with a wicked sense of humor, and I definitely recommend you check out his work.

Let’s Dig For Treasure Overview

Alright, now that you have a little background about Let’s Dig For Treasure, let’s talk about what this game is all about, starting with the back-of-the-box facts.

Back-Of-The-Box Facts About Let’s Dig For Treasure

• Player Count: 2-5
• Time To Play: 10-20 minutes
• Age Range: 12 and up
• Difficulty: Beginner/Easy
• Price Range: $15-$25
• Release Year: 2021
• Publisher(s): Cryptozoic Entertainment
• Designer(s): Ben Stoll
• Artist(s): Steven Rhodes
• Where To Buy: Amazon, Cryptozoic Entertainment

What Comes In The Box?

Let’s Dig For Treasure comes with the following:

• 120 cards
• One rulebook

Theme

The theme of Let’s Dig For Treasure is irreverent and twisted. It doesn’t get much explanation in the rulebook, but basically, you’re kids digging for “treasure” in a graveyard.

Like I said, twisted, haha.

I put the word treasure in quotes because sometimes you get the treasure and sometimes you don’t. That’s part of the fun of the game, but we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s talk about how to play it.

How To Play Let’s Dig For Treasure

To set the game up, you shuffle all 120 cards together and put them out in three equal stacks of 40 cards each. The stacks should be face down.

On a player’s turn, they must draw a card from one of the stacks. If the card says, “When You Dig This Up,” then you immediately do what it says. If it says anything else, you don’t.

Regardless, you now have a choice to make. You can either stop drawing and keep the card (called scoring) or you can draw another card from any of the three stacks.

If you stop, you do any, “When You Score This,” abilities on the cards you kept. If you don’t stop, well…then hopefully you get something good. Sometimes when you draw though you’ll get a card that makes you bust, which means you don’t get to keep any cards this turn.

It’s all up to you.

How To Win/How The Game Ends

Let’s Dig For Treasure ends when one of the stacks runs out of cards. Afterward, each player counts up all the points they got from their cards (which are indicated on the cards), and the player with the most points wins!

Let’s Dig For Treasure Review

I kind of gave it already, but I really dig this game. Yes, I did that on purpose. Now, let’s get to why.

Art

The art was what initially drew me to Let’s Dig For Treasure. It reminds me of old Nintendo games, those simple ideas, titles, and art back when video games were barely a thing. Plus, I liked some of the mechanics in the games, such as Let’s Dig For Treasure’s push-your-luck mechanic, a favorite of mine.

For me, the art also feels like a twisted take on those classic coming-of-age stories like Stand By Me, Stranger Things, and so on. It’s also not often you see cards with a completely black background, which gives it a cool Halloween kind of feel.

Overall, I enjoyed the art quite a bit.

Components

There’s not much to speak of here, but the cards are great quality. They have rounded corners and are a linen finish. Love it.

Theme

There really isn’t much theme to Let’s Dig For Treasure, but what’s there works well. You do kind of feel like you’re digging for treasure in a graveyard. Kind of, but the theme is there to emphasize the dark humor, and it does its job well with the things you dig up.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Let’s Dig For Treasure is fast and fun. Do you draw again or keep what you already have? It’s always hilarious to see someone else bust, and it’s always amazing when you push your luck way past when you should have and you don’t.

Replayability

Let’s Dig For Treasure will eventually run its course. What that means, for those who don’t know, is that Let’s Dig For Treasure will eventually start to feel stale. There are only 120 cards, after all.

This game will not get expansions either. Still, I think you’ll get a lot of plays out of Let’s Dig For Treasure before it starts to lose its freshness. What I would recommend is only bringing it to the table every once in a while, especially around Halloween. It just has that feel.

Plus, the game isn’t designed to be played forever. If you do, great, but ultimately it’s intended to bring more people into the hobby, which it does excellently.

Let’s Dig For Treasure: My Rating

On a scale of Don’t Buy, Wait For A Sale, or Buy, I rate Let’s Dig For Treasure a Buy.

This is an easy one for me. Currently (as of November 2022), it’s my favorite game in the Dynomite Games line. I have all six but the only other game I’ve played in the line is Let’s Summon Demons. I like both, but I like Let’s Dig For Treasure more.

Let’s Dig For Treasure is faster and feels like it has just a bit more variety when you replay the game. It’s easy to understand, easy to play, looks amazing, and can be set up and replayed quickly.

Overall, this is a great game that is well worth your time and money.

Did You Know?

(Each time you refresh the page you will get a new “Did You Know” fact!)

Did you know that the biggest board game convention in the world is in Germany? It’s called Internationale Spieltage SPIEL but is usually called Essen Game Fair. It takes place in Essen, Germany, and features over 1,000 exhibitors from lots of countries. It has also regularly had over 100,000, or sometimes over 200,000 people attend.

Conclusion: Let’s Dig For Treasure Review

So, yeah, I love Let’s Dig For Treasure. I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favorite games ever, but it’s going to stay in my board game library for a long, long time. I hope it finds its way into yours as well.

So, do you think it will? What do you think you’ll like most about the game? Let me know in the comments below!

And, as always, keep on gaming, fellow board gamers.