The Big Dig is a small Reveal and Write game by Tasty Minstrel Games for 2-4 players that plays in about 15 minutes (the box says 10 minutes). In the game players take on the role of treasure hunters digging deep into the earth trying to uncover precious gems, artifacts, or even oil. Each game players randomly select three cards to see what items they will need to uncover with the first one to accomplish this task winning the game.
To accomplish this players take turns choosing from the available digging cards on the table and crossing off the card’s pattern on their board marking off the tiles with the included dry erase marker. If the available cards don’t fit with their plan or players need to cross off one of the rock tiles on their board they can explode one single tile instead of selecting a dig card. Once all of the dig cards have been selected and played they are flipped over and laid back on the table. The player to complete all three of the tasks on the goal cards wins the game.
This game was simple enough that we picked it up and were playing within minutes of first opening the box but fun enough to keep us going back for more immediately after finishing. The combination of the double sided player boards and 10 goal cards offers an incredible amount of replayability in a short amount of time. In addition to that the game’s small footprint ensures that it can be played almost anywhere. This game is an instant hit for us and will be a great asset to any collection.
Wynken’s Thoughts:
I liked that there were lots of different objective cards because you never knew what you would need to dig in any game. I also liked being able to explode tiles if I needed to get to a space and one of the cards couldn’t reach it. I also liked that you could start anywhere at the top of the board in multiple spots if you needed to.
9/10
Blynken’s Thoughts:
This game was a lot of fun, I liked that the cards determined the pattern that you dug in and that you had to work them around the obstacles to reach where you needed to dig. I like that there were lots of objective cards so each game we played was different.
9/10
**A copy of this game was provided for review**