Coin Quest Review

I remember being a kid and finding out that my Dad collected silver coins when he was younger. I only remember seeing those coins from afar, because they were worth quite a bit. The idea of collecting coins was always way cooler than stamp or post card collecting. In Coin Quest from R&R Games, players are curating their collection of priceless coins and bidding on coins that go to the auction block.

Starting Your Collection

Coin Quest is a bag building game where you’re always working toward an efficient and high quality bag of coins. The game supports up to 6 players with each player receiving a player screen along with a bag containing 10 coins.

Players will be using their bag of coins to bid on coins and victory points that are on the auction board in the middle of the table. Each round you draw 5 coins blindly from your bag. Three coins are added to spaces on the bidding board.

You will place your bid on the miniature board that sits behind your player screen using bronze, silver and gold coins. Once everyone has their bids in place, everyone lifts their player screens to see who won each of the auctions. A player who bid with a gold coin will always win against a silver or bronze coin. When players bid with the same color coin, then ties are broken by the number on the coin or the additional coins that are used in the bid.

The auction board has 3 spots for coin auctions and 3 spots for victory point auctions. I really like how this board adjusts based on the players count. Some spots are blocked out at lower player counts to keep the bidding more competitive. I’ve enjoyed the game at 3, 4 and 5 player counts, preferring the tension of the higher player counts personally.

A Quest for Points (and Coins)

While the goal of Coin Quest is to have the most victory points at the end of the game, you have to balance getting new coins and snagging victory points throughout the game. Once you win a coin from the auction board, the new coin is placed in your discard pile with other coins. When your bag is empty, the pile of discarded coins will fill the newly emptied bag. This works a lot like a deck builder and the mechanics are easy for new gamers to grasp.

Some coins are just worth what they are worth such as a silver coin with a value of 3. But others give you special bonuses, contain a set collection icon or even give you victory points at the end of the game. Watching for these special coins are imperative to having the best coin collection at the table. I really enjoy the subtly of these different icons. By focusing on a specific icon or bonus icon, you can take other players by surprise.

When you draw a new coin at the beginning of the round, you can use a bonus icon located on a coin by showing the coin to all the players at the table. This mechanic gives information about your current hand of coins to everyone else. The table now knows that you’ve got a high numbered silver coin AND that you’re receiving an additional coin from your bag. Players can use this information to adjust their strategy as they bid that round.

During the setup of Coin Quest, 7 coins are added to the bottom row of the auction board. These coins are available at the cost of 3 victory points. Usually the good coins get taken in the first couple rounds while the mediocre coins just sit there for the majority of the game.

Inside the Box

If you can’t tell already, I enjoyed Coin Quest a lot. The kids really enjoyed the game and understood the bidding mechanic pretty quickly. I have to admit that due to the box art, there is no chance I would pick this up on a store shelf on looks alone. All of us at One Board Family agreed that the box art really detracts from the solid game contained inside this box. It’s tough to describe this box art other than it looks like a budget title that you find at a discount store. This game is deserving of a better art treatment than it currently has.

A couple years ago Ric taught us how to play Revolution! from Steve Jackson Games. While this game has gone out of print, I feel like Coin Quest shares some of the same mechanics and mirrors what Revolution! did so well. If you take anything away from this review, please know that this game is worth digging into.

Coin Quest feels like a great “next step” for families that enjoy Go Nuts for Donuts and enjoy deck (or bag) building games like Quest for El Dorado. R&R Games has published a great game that is greater than the sum of its box art.

You can purchase Coin Quest on the R&R Games website or on Amazon today.

R&R Games provided us with a retail copy of Coin Quest for this review. This in no way influenced our opinion of the game.

Highs

• Excellent mechanics make the game smooth and easy to learn
• Auction board changes at different player counts
• Good variety of coin abilities to collect

Lows

• Heavy reliance on reading other players strategies
• That box art…