Lost Valley. No dinosaurs.

Ah, Lost Valley. It’s all about punching dogs in the face and getting wood. Drinking whisky and stealing gold. Paddling down river with a canoe full of dynamite. Survivalist Goths eating rats. And all those other things you’d associate with exploring the American West. This was Lost Valley's second airing at NoBoG. Myself, Lovely Rich and Andy had played it the last time and we’d all come back for more. Punk Rich joined us for some adventure.

Each player in Lost Valley takes on the role of a gold prospector and explores the depths of the Lost Valley hoping to amass a fortune by discovering and extracting the gold found in the rivers and mountains. Players can use gold they find to buy better gear, which makes it easier for them to travel around and survive in the wilderness, as well as more efficiently pan or mine gold. This is a race against each other, for the limited resources, and also against the game as the onset of winter will freeze the river and end the game.

The gear that players can but really allows each player to adopt their own strategy and all four of us had different ideas on how to win. Rich went for the survivalist route and bought horse, fishing rod, axe and gun, which allowed his prospector (a goth) to live off the land and collect natural resources quickly. I went for the entrepreneurial miner and invested a lot of money in a horse, a cart and a big box of dynamite with the idea to quickly recoup my expenditure by efficiently exploiting mines. Andy bought a canoe and dashed about the map exploring new territory and grabbing the quick and easy river gold, before buying some dynamite paddling for the gold rich mother lode at the end of the river, while Lovely chose to also buy a canoe and scurrilously follow the others around drinking whisky (to give him extra actions) and stealing gold from their mines. The end results were close with Lovely and myself tying with the most gold.

Great game and great night as we finished off with an extra beer and a game of 6 Nimmt.

Beer: I was drinking Elgood’s Indian Summer, a pale hoppy brew with a hint of malt. I’d rate it a seven and compare it to Automobile as it’s not as dry as it looks.