presentation
Ali Baba
collect magical treasures
Ali Baba collects treasures in the Robbers‘ Cave; but he is very particular and not only tries to collect as many treasures as possible, but also tries to collect as many treasures of the same kind as he can, and he uses the magic of treasures to best his opponents.
Treasure tiles are laid out on a 5x5 grid in four levels, the bottom three levels are laid out face-down, the top level openly, surplus tiles are set aside unseen.
The active player has a turn of three parts: 1. He takes one of the open tiles behind his screen. 2. He reveals all uncovered, face-down tiles in the levels. 3. He uses the magic of the taken tile according to its background color, resolving it immediately. When all tiles have been revealed, you score - at the end of the current round and then a final turn for all players - groups of treasures according to their size.
In the version Equal Treasures for a more tactical game you remove one type of treasure, so that the number of treasures of each kind is known. The version Smaller Cave for 2 players is played on a 4x4 grid with only seven types of treasures. In Aladdin’s Lamp you set aside six random tiles and, whenever you take a Lamp tile, you can either use the magic of its background color or swap the lamp for one of the set-aside treasures and use the magic of this treasure.
Ali Baba is a very well-working and well-made family game, offering more tactics than expected despite a high factor of chance; magic of the tiles can give you solid advantages and sometimes you take a tile that is not so valuable for yourself, but avoids a high score for another player.
Players: 2-4
Age: 8+
Time: 20+
Designer: Martino Chiacchiera, Remo Conzadori
Artist: Denis Martynets, Chris Conrad
Price: ca. 23 Euro
Publisher: White Goblin Games 2017
Genre: Set collecting
Users: For families
Version: multi
Rules: de en fr nl
In-game text: no
Comments:
Good family game
Excellent mix of luck and tactics
Pretty component
Attractive variants
Compares to:
Collecting games with step-by-step revealing
Other editions:
Currently none
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 2
Strategy (blue): 0
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 2
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0