''Diamant'' is a multiplayer

card game A card game is any game that uses playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, whether the cards are of a traditional design or specifically created for the game (proprietary). Countless card games exist, including famil ...

Bruno Faidutti Bruno Faidutti (born 23 October 1961) is a historian and sociologist, living in France, who is best known as a board game designer. Early life and education Bruno Faidutti studied law, economics, and sociology, eventually earning a doctorate in h ...

, published in

2005 2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Schmidt Spiele Schmidt Spiele is a German games publisher for a wide variety of games, especially German-style board games. Founder Josef Friedrich Schmidt developed Mensch ärgere dich nicht in 1907/1908, based on antique forerunners. Five years later his new ...

, with illustrations provided by Jörg Asselborn, Christof Tisch, and Claus Stephan.''Diamant'' credits
at Faidutti.com. Retrieved 2007-11-23 An English-language edition of ''Diamant'' was published in 2006, by Sunriver Games under the name ''Incan Gold'', with illustrations provided by Matthias Catrein. The rules for ''Incan Gold'' and ''Diamant'' are the same, but the games have other minor differences.

Gameplay

Players take on the role of adventurers looking for treasure in a diamond mine. Players search for diamonds while trying to avoid various hazards such as spiders and snakes. Fearful players can run out of the cave, while daring players can choose to venture on, push their luck, and risk losing the treasure they have accumulated. After five rounds, the player with the most treasure is the winner.

Differences from ''Incan Gold''

In ''Diamant'' players are exploring a cave or diamond mine; in ''Incan Gold'', players are exploring a temple. ''Incan Gold'' comes with artifact cards, but ''Diamant'' does not. In ''Diamant'', players have treasure chests; in ''Incan Gold'' players have tents at their camp. In ''Diamant'', players are searching for diamonds, but in ''Incan Gold'', players are searching for jewels and other gems.

History

According to

's website, ''Diamant'' is Faidutti's second collaboration with Alan R. Moon.''Incan Gold'' history
at Faidutti.com. Retrieved 2007-11-23 Faidutti said that they both held Can't Stop by

Sid Sackson Sid Sackson (February 4, 1920 in Chicago – November 6, 2002) was an American board game designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game ''Acquire''. Career Sackson's most popular creation is probably the business game '' ...

"in great esteem" and they wanted to design their own game where players would have to choose between keeping what they have or risk losing all they had acquired. Faidutti said he suggested a kind of "common pool Can't Stop" where all the players were in the same situation but could make different decisions. Faidutti described the theme as "somewhere between

Indiana Jones ''Indiana Jones'' is an American media franchise consisting of five films and a prequel television series, along with games, comics, and tie-in novels, that depicts the adventures of Indiana Jones (character), Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, ...

and Alan Quatermain". Faidutti said the first prototype of the game used an

Incan The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilisation rose fr ...

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

temple as the setting. The danger cards were initially frightening noises but those were changed by the publisher. Faidutti said an attempt to add action cards to the game was not successful in

playtest A playtest is the process by which a game designer tests a new game for bugs and design flaws before releasing it to market. Playtests can be run "open", "closed", "beta", or otherwise, and are very common with board games, collectible card games, ...

ing. Friedemann Friese suggested that the card "that triggered the bust" be removed from the game and that only one voting token was necessary. Jürgen Valentiner Brandt of

was the first publisher to make a "firm proposal" to Faidutti and Moon and they signed a contract with

in September 2004. The game was published for the Nürnberg fair in February 2005. Faidutti felt that the original title of the game, "The Temple of Doom",''Incan Gold'' overview
at Faidutti.com. Retrieved 2007-11-23 was much stronger but the publishers changed it to ''Diamant''. Alan R. Moon talked with various American publishers and the U.S. edition of the game was published in late 2006 by Sunriver Games. The publishers wanted to rename it "The Temple of Doom" but went with ''Incan Gold'' because of legal issues. Faidutti noted that ''Incan Gold'' had some changes from ''Diamant''. The rules stayed the same, but ''Incan Gold'' does not have cardboard chests or wooden pawns, and artifact cards were added to the game.

Awards

Spiel des Jahres The Spiel des Jahres (, 'Game of the Year') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence an ...

2005, Recommended *

International Gamers Awards The International Gamers Awards (IGAs) is an award for strategy board games and historical simulation games History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and in ...

2005, Best Strategy Game Nominee * 2005 - Best Foreign Game for Beginners *2006

BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition t ...

Golden Geek award for Best Light/Party Game *

GAMES Magazine ''Games World of Puzzles'' is an American games and puzzle magazine. Originally the merger of two other puzzle magazines spun off from its parent publication ''Games'' magazine in the early 1990s, ''Games World of Puzzles'' was reunited with ''Ga ...

2008 Best Family Game Nominee (''Incan Gold'')

Reviews

*''

Pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

References

External links

*{{bgg, 15512, ''Diamant''
Diamant / Incan Gold
at Bruno Faidutti's website Card games introduced in 2005 Adventure board games Alan R. Moon games Bruno Faidutti games Dedicated deck card games