A historic view of the American gold rush in a match 3 Mac game Gold Fever is an unique play for all ages. Travel through the northwest in a smoking, wood burning locomotive of the time period (circa 1850) looking for that one huge mother lode to retire on. Gold Fever takes you on a ride far from the usual gold rush scenario with interesting tidbits of information that you do not always know. You only hear about the California gold rush in Sutter’s Fort so the journey through Oregon, Montana, and Colorado came as a surprise to me.

Gold Fever is your usual match 3 or more like symbols to destroy Mac game with a little twist. You do not slide or swap the gold coins but you flip the like colored, 2-sided coins to match the symbols. There are gold nuggets you must get to the bottom of the screen and the wooden cart will take your prize away. To complete the level you must make matches over the entire gold background. As the levels increases, the gold coins will have more variety of colors and western symbols like the sheriff’s badge, pistol, cowboy hat and horseshoe.

The dynamite at the bottom of the screen with the long burning fuse is the timer for each level. There are 3 helps you can earn by getting enough matches to buy either the pick, timer or hammer. The pick will destroy 1 coin, the timer will get you 30 seconds more while the fuse stops, and the hammer will destroy the coin and the gold background. You start with 5 lives, and you can lose a life if you do not complete the level before the dynamite is set off.

Gold Fever starts off slowly for me because of the flipping the coin method, but I enjoy it more in the higher levels. What I like about match games is the action and explosions of the power-ups. This game’s demo does not have them. Perhaps it gets more active in later levels. I do not like the music, but I like the artwork. I found this play to be pleasant but not very dynamic or exciting.

Features of Gold Fever:
-Gold Rush
-160 Levels
-Power-Ups and Challenges
-Gold coins

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars