Aladdin's Dragons

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• ASIN: B00005UN1O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,639 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality components, good gameplay, January 28, 2005

By 

J. C. Ford (Grantham, NH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Aladdin's Dragons (Toy)

This game is basically a game of abstract tactical choices in an "Aladdin's Lamp" setting. Players each control 8 henchmen with power ratings of 1-9 (there is no 3), which they take turns deploying around various areas of the board: treasure collection areas (dragon caves), a magic spell collection area, a few special-purpose areas, for example one that determines the overall tie-breaking order in the game, and most importantly a series of royal chambers where special artifacts needed to win the game can be obtained for treasures. The gameboard is especially nice, with heavy construction and good artwork.

Although the overall gameplay is simple and easy to learn (as with almost any really good game), there is considerable depth as well. Forces are deployed face-down and add up, allowing for bluffs -- a two-person force might actually be a 1 and 2 (total strength 3), or it might amount to as much as 17, and the fact that forces are deployed in a round-robin fashion makes it necessary to adapt plans to others' moves. Spells and the special royal artifacts players collect can also allow for a few surprises: for example, the magic carpet flies in your missing #3 henchman, and a spell might render all or some tokens powerless. Also, in a clever twist the acquisition of artifacts uses a bidding-like process, where the biggest force on an artifact room gets the artifact, but only if the player can pay treasures equal to his force -- if not, it becomes available to the next-higher force, and so on. The winner of the game is determined by who collects the most artifacts.