After the immediate response to Richard Breese's Keydom at Essen 1999, Hans im Glück contracted to take the basic game idea and produce a version of the game. Aladdin's Dragons, or Morgenland in the original German, is the product of their cooperation.
The game features players putting numbered bidding chips face-down onto the board sequentially. After the players have placed all of their chips, then each of the areas is resolved. The bottom part of the board is where players attempt to gather treasure tokens, which is the overall currency of the game. The middle part of the board features a number of special actions, which help the players cast spells, trade in their resource tokens, or block other players' actions. The top part of the board is where players use treasure tokens to purchase artifacts, and the player who can collect the most artifacts by the end of the game will be the victor.
Won Games Magazine Game of the Year award in 2001.
Re-implements:
Keydom
Re-implemented by:
Aladdin's Dragons (card game version by same name as board game)
Microbadges: (Buy One)
Aladdin's Dragons fan
- Early worker placement game
- Didn't set the world on fire
- fantasy
- dragons
- Bus
- Cathedral
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
References (from this video)
- compact, full worker placement feel in a tiny box
- dated feel
- clunky and not very satisfying or fun
- forgettable overall
- bribery, gem collection, and reward generation
- Arabian fantasy setting involving gems and guards
- procedural, light storytelling
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Blind bidding — bid for gems to influence guards and unlock scoring options
- bribery mechanics — spend gems to bribe guards for bonuses and power moves
- scoring via victory points with small abilities — points grant minor abilities that shape endgame options
- worker placement — place resources to access actions and generate victory points
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the best thing about this game is that it is pretty much a full worker placement game but in a tiny little box
- I found it quite forgettable
- there's just so many good Tile placement games and so many good area majority games that this one does not even stand close to most of them
- I generally do quite like the idea and concept of this but I did find it a bit too abstract for my personal taste
- the game was certainly lacking
- production is pretty damn awful
- color colorblind gamers