The river is represented using clear plastic discs in a grooved surface, allowing board spaces to move downstream toward the waterfall.

Given away at the Spiel 2005 game festival, Diamond Joe adds another canoe which is controlled indirectly by the players, and which participates in trades, generally bringing the harder-to-reach gems upstream.

It also adds two "spirits" of the river: the "Bathing Beaver", which resets the flow of the river to normal, and the "Hurried Elk", which allows a player to move their canoe faster if they reach the gems on the edge of the waterfall.

[citation needed] In 2005 Niagara won the Spiel des Jahres[1] and was one of the winners of the Mensa Mind Games competition.

[2] It received 2nd place in the Deutscher Spiele Preis[3] and 3rd in the Schweizer Spielepreis for Family Games.