Board Games on the Old Silk Road
August 11, 2008
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For over a thousand years hardy traders traversed the mountains, deserts and seas between the great civilization centers of Rome, China and India. Roman gold coins have been found in India and China and Chinese silk in the pyramids of Egypt. In the 19th century, the historian Ferdinand von Richthofen (father of the famous flier) coined the term "Silk Road" (in German, Seidenstrasse) to describe the long, narrow, easily-broken overland route between East and West, but there were also the Spice Route, the Incense Route and many others. On these routes there flowered not only trade, but the transmission of technology, art, culture – the Silk Road has been called the Internet of its day. Others document its history, but what you have come upon here is the only place, so far, to document games which evoke this rich past and offer some opportunity to relive its sense of wonder and adventure.
Silk Road Games:
Aladdin's Dragons –
Ali Baba –
Ali Baba –
Ali Baba –
Asia Crossroads –
Asian Travels –
Auf den Spuren des Marco Polo –
Bakschisch –
Basari –
Bazaar –
Bazaar –
Caravansérail –
Da Geht Was Ab im Morgenland –
Die Diebe von Bagdad –
Fliegende Teppich –
Flying Carpet –
Geschichten aus 1001 Nacht –
The Journey to Tianzhu –
Karawane –
Marco Polo –
Marco Polo – Dragonda –
Medina –
Morgenland –
Oasis –
Palmyra –
Die Perlen der Scheherezade –
Samarcanda –
Samarkand –
Die Schätze des Ali Baba –
Die Seidenstraße –
Silk Road –
Silk Road –
Sindbad –
Tales of the Arabian Nights –
The Thieves of Bagdad –
Verrat! –
Les Voleurs de Bagdad
Related Games:
Abdul's Adventure –
Blazing Camels –
Durch die Wüste –
Kameltreiber –
Kameltreiber AG –
Das Letze Kamel –
Muscat –
Nomadi –
Oasis –
Sahara –
Sultan –
Targui –
Through the Desert –
Timbuktu –
Wabanti
Wüstenkönige
A re-issue of a British game Calamity translated to a colorful, but not particularly apt theme. Although tension is high, players often feel there is far too little control over their destiny, particularly as the number of players increase.
Ali Baba
by Dominique Ehrhard for Piatnik, 1999?
2-6 players (ages 5 and up)
A memory game with features akin to Can't Stop.
Ali Baba
by Gunter Baars for Ravensburger, 2002
Only the player who picks the nine locks of the treasure chest correctly, can open the cover and arrive at the treasures inside the crate (game box).
Asia Crossroads
by Joe Miranda for Decision Games, 2003
2 players
Britian and Russia engage in their "Great Game" in Central Asia during the 19th century.
Asian Travels
for the San Francisco Asian Art Museum
2-6 players
A voyager in the game finds himself on the trade routes which existed at the height of the Tang Dynasty in China (c. 750 AD). He sets out from Chang An, the cosmopolitan Chinese capital. Traveling across northern China and then to Central Asia, with a lucky roll of the die he will arrive at Samarkand, an important trading center. There, glass, fruit and horses may be purchased. At Merv, the traveler must decide whether to follow the overland or sea route. Going by sea, one has the opportunity to buy incense at the port of Hormoz, collect rubies, sapphires and pearls in the kingdom of Anuradhapura (now in Sri Lanka), visit the wondrous temples at Elephanta and Kancipuram and buy spices in Srivijaya (Sumatra). But beware! There are mighty perils on this route. On the overland route, the traveler visits magnificent Buddhist temples in India and beyond, encounter tigers in the jungles of Bengal and purchase luxuries such as kingfisher feathers and rhino horn at Angkor. The final leg of the journey passes through the the bustling port of Guangzhou (Canton) and then off to Japan and Korea where the traveler will be able to visit foreign temples and complete final trading before returning home by way of the Grand Canal.
Each location includes a special paragraph of text describing what happens to the traveler there. Often they include special trading opportunities. Major trading centers have specific products which they sell and also another list which they want to purchase. Commodity holdings are shown by cards which list the differing values of these items at various locations. Includes short history and glossary of terms.
Auf den Spuren des Marco Polo
by Reiner Knizia for Ravensburger, 2004
for 2-5 players aged 8 and up
Included are game board, 5 camel figures, 45 playing cards, 5 overview cards and 36 "gold crates" having values 1-3. The board shows the travel route of Marco Polo over of 30 spaces. Play begins in Hormuz and there is a halfway point at Kan-chou. When the first player arrives there, an intermediate scoring occurs. Play ends with a final scoring when the first camel reaches Daidu. Each player begins with 5 hand cards and a value 3 gold crate. 5 more cards form the open pool. The starting player places his camel on Hormuz while the others players start in turn order ever a field further in front. Only one camel is permitted per space. In a turn, a player may move as far as they like, or can, and then draw exactly one card from the pool or deck. In the deck are 40 goods cards (4 types of goods in 5 colors) and 15 caravan leaders in 5 colors. These are applied to spaces, each of which indicates which cards it needs before entry is allowed. Inability to satisfy the demand means waiting a few rounds and just pulling cards. But if a space is occupied, a player may simply skip over it. Once the player may hand over a gold crate instead of cards, but may not thereby go to the front of the caravan. Some spaces yield gold crates for the player that first enters. The winner is the one who has the most gold crates at the end.
Bakschisch
by Kara Ben Hering (pseudonym for Klaus Teuber and friends) for Goldsieber, 1995
2-4 players
The goal of the game is to successfully bribe your way to becoming Caliph. If you use more gold than the other players to bribe any of the first four revealed cards, then you will move towards the throne. If you use the least amount of gold to bribe the fifth card, then you will move back towards the start space. After each complete round (5 bribes), all of the bribes of that round are redistributed as evenly as possible to all of the players. Once per round a player may use his or her thief rather than attempt to bribe the current card. The thief steals the bribes of the other players of the current card only. If more than one player plays a thief, then they must divide the bribes as evenly as possible. The game ends when a player occupies the throne at the end of a round.
Basari
by Reinhard Staupe for F.X. Schmid, 1998
3-4 players
The setting is a Middle Eastern bazaar. Players travel around the board landing on various stalls. On each turn the players have 3 options:
The main feature is that each player secretly 'bids' for which action he wishes to take by use of bidding tiles. If two players bid for the same action, they must negotiate a deal to see which one gets to execute the action. The jewels (of which there are 4 varieties in various values) are the unit of currency. The negotiation process involves players making offers and counter-offers in jewels until one player decides to accept the other's offer, takes the jewels offered, and the other player gets to execute the action.
If three or more players happen to bid for the same action, those bids cancel each other and no one can execute the desired action.
The game is played in three rounds. A round ends when at least one player travels around the board and again reaches his starting base. At this point, any player who reached the starting base on that turn receives a bonus of ten victory points (this is why the dice roll option is important). Then, each player who has a majority of one of the four categories of jewels gets bonus points, which range from 8-14 points. Each player who had a majority must return three of that color jewel to the bank. Thus, the race for majority position remains competitive from round-to-round. After the third round, final scores are tallied to determine the victor.
Bazaar
This game has no real travel or desert, but is an abstract
rendering of the barter and trading that goes on in a bazaar,
and in particular, the process of continual "through-trading"
to get what it is that you ultimately want.
Players obtain gems in the right combinations to purchase random merchandise
cards, each of which cost five gems each. All players compete for
the came cards. You may either throw the dice and receive gems
of the corresponding color
or you can make a trade according to one
of ten formulae, which will be different for each game.
When merchandise card is matched, you
turn in the five gems and turn up a new merchandise card.
Points are collected based on the number of remaining gems the player
has each time a card is claimed and surprisingly, the fewer the better.
Thus a player needs to be efficient not in the sense of earning a lot of
gems, but in making only necessary trades.
It is chesslike in the sense that a player must traverse a decision
tree of possible trades which lead to more possible trades and so on.
This game could be played very well by a computer, particularly if the
optional rule that prohibits rolling the die except when no trade is
possible were employed.
See also, the so-called
Bazaar II.
Bazaar
This game has the same basic idea as
Bazaar,
but as is it a re-invention of the game, is colloquially given
the sobriquet "Bazaar II".
(The story is that the German company which published the
first edition of Bazaar had allowed them to lapse and
they had been acquired by another company. So they instead
commissioned inventor Sackson to simply create a new game
with a similar theme.)
This edition features
the addition of pawns which travel across different
regions of a board, including buying markets, bartering markets
and bazaars, different rules applying to each.
These ideas are carried further in Mr. Sackson's game,
Samarkand.
Caravansérail
Each player is a sheikh ruling a desert kingdom. He sends his
caravans to oases and caravanserais to exchange his wares with the
other sheikhs, and controls a group of raiders attacking opposers'
caravans. The winner is the first to get all the goods listed on
the treasure card that he was dealt at the start of the game.
Suggested variant: Make up 4 cards for each player, each colored
accordingly and label them 1, 2, 3 and Raider. Then take all 24 (or 32) cards
and shuffle. During movement, turn up cards one by one — as each is turned
up, the corresponding caravan or raider moves. This eliminates the need
for writing orders.
Da Geht Was Ab im Morgenland
"Morgenland" is an old poetic name for "The Orient".
The grand viziers of the old ruler Scheherban are trying to become the next ruler.
Each has treaure in a treasure chamber. Under that is also an insignia of power.
Whoever collects all the insignias attains the goal. One tries to protect
one's own chamber while infiltrating others'
using robbers, genies, guards, slaves and magic items.
The game play is divided over several days and nights. Players fill up their
hand with five cards during the night, selecting freely from attack and defense
cards. At daybreak, four cards representing events and objects are pulled.
Fliegende Teppich, Der
Play a card and move your carpet, but don't run into a wall
or a cloud. If you land on another's carpet, you can stall him
or drop him to the ground. A fun, not-too-serious racing game
with some wild effects so you're never sure who will win until
the last play.
Geschichten aus 1001 Nacht
This is actually a re-release of
Tales of the Arabian Nights
with some additional text and places to visit.
The Journey to Tianzhu
Chinese and English game based on a Chinese national epic
The Journey to the West.
The tale of myth and magic is based on the real life journey of the Buddhist monk
Xuan Tsang
from China to India and back in the seventh century.
Players move their monk, monkey, pigsy and Shaseng pieces (all characters
from the book) from Chang An to
Tianzhu (the ancient Chinese name for India) with rules similar to those of
Pachisi.
Pieces are plastic with colored stickers with the board made from
laminated paper.
Play is made more interesting by inclusion of special powers for each
type of piece which can affect each other type in special ways as well
as cloud paths which a player may attempt to use to evade his enemies.
There are also variant rules to change the victory conditions or play of the game.
Karawane
In the 13th century the emperor Kubla Kahn,
has started a contest. Once a year, the cleverest and best caravan
leader in his empire was determined.
Each caravan leader has three sets of water gourds and
starts their camel from the first town. The first
one to reach the next receives bales of
silk, the second a couple of bales less and so on.
To move,
each player secretly chooses a number of gourds which are
revealed simultaneously. The highest number moves forward
a number of places equal to the number of players.
The next highest moves one less and so on, down
to the minimum of one. Players choosing the same number
move the same number. It is possible to choose none
to try for last place on purpose and save water, but of course
others may do the same and thus lose the advantage. The idea is to
have enough gourds to survive the journey at a good speed.
Some places are marked with special graphics that award a silk bale
to anyone landing exactly on them, others offer fresh gourds and
others have negative effects such as losing bales or water. There
is therefore much jostling for position and movement placing to
pick up or avoid these special sections. The resulting strategy is
not mind boggling but is interesting enough and quite difficult to
get right.
The title in English would be "Caravans"; the game is out of print.
Marco Polo
The mapboard depicts ancient Asia and its cities,
connected by roads and water routes. There are also
6 areas for the 6 colored card decks (4 types of
commercial cards (56 in all), 1 of golden pass (4) and 1 of secret cards (4)).
Each player symbolizes a trader, who travels to a certain city,
trades and then returns home with wealth.
At the beginning each player receives 240 guldens of starting capital and
a play figure. One uses the spinner to see how far one can move, either
by land or sea. Trade is permitted in certain cities where one can buy
or sell cards of certain colors. Cards are purchased for 20g and sold for
whatever price is printed on the card. Some of the cards however are
actually events which must be played immediately. Sold and event cards
are eventually shuffled back in to their respective decks.
If a player reaches a city where another player is, he may give the other
30g and take a card. Once a player has 3 cards of value 80, the trader
may visit the Khan and receive a golden pass, which provides protection
against pirates and bandits, which are usually encountered via the spinner
and resolved via dice. Losing traders must discard a card to the pirate
area or pay 50g. A victory gains however all the cards on the pirate area.
A golden pass card also lists a place, which, if the trader goes there, he
receives a Secret of the Orient card which is worth 240g. The game ends
when the first player reaches the number of gulden needed to win (which is
dependent on the number of players) and returns to Venice.
The game seems to have a rather prosaic endgame since once one acquires
the golden pass, victory becomes almost certain.
Marco Polo– Dragonda
Pick-up and deliver game stretching
from Venice to China.
Various forms of transportation – horse, ship, caravan –
are available.
Medina
Game of constructing the medieval Arabian city.
Borrowing liberally from both
Torres and Big City,
could serve as Exhibit A for the case that today's German games fail to
break new ground and are content to merely feed upon one another. It
doesn't help either that rather abstract rules result in a cold, silent
atmosphere devoid of excitement. A failing in perhaps my eyes alone is
the utter lack of any historical reality, save one: by the end is
constructed a kooky, colorful patchwork of a Medina that resembles the
real thing better than any artist could contrive. But the amount of mileage
one can take from this purely visual will vary widely. Speaking of graphics,
the usually sure-footed Hans im Glück have here made an annoying mis-step,
coloring red the tile meant to match the brown buildings.
Morgenland
The German title refers to "The Orient".
The cover reads "Adventure under the crescent moon."
Aladdin is the background figure of the game,
which is a re-invention of
Keydom.
Oasis
In three different games, players cooperate to best direct three caravans
collecting valuables from the board while trying to avoid thieves and sandstorms.
Palmyra
Palmyra was one of the most prosperous oasis towns to be found on the part of the
Silk Road that runs through the middle of the Syrian desert.
Between 100 B.C.and 272 A.D. it was a thriving market town until ordered
destroyed by the Roman Emperor Aurelius.
In this game you are a trader of Ancient Palmyra, dealing in Gold, Wine and Spices.
As the commodities are purchased the price goes up.
A player may either buy or sell one of each type of commodity per turn,
or buy or sell two of any one type.
Each turn the players also play a card onto the board.
At the end of the year (there are three years in a game),
these cards will adjust the prices of the various commodities, tax
particular commodities, pay profits on a players holdings
or undo a previous card.
There are a set number of card spaces on the board (adjusted for
number of players) and when all the spaces are filled the year
ends.
Outguessing the other player intentions and dealing adequately with
the uncertain end of the year (because undo cards do not take a space)
appear to be the keys to the game.
Perlen der Scheherazade, Die
The board shows two paths from an oasis to the Sultan's palace, which
has seven rooms.
At the start of the game each player gets 1 Baksheesh Card and
corresponding pieces,
10 multicolored beads and a cloth for
covering them as well as a color card from the deck.
Each player also has 2 Bedouins in the oasis, but only he knows
their identity.
Players attempt to find Scheherazade in the correct room of the harem
and present three beads to her. They each secrete beads in
hand and predict how many beads will be allocated in total. The high bidder
wins the right to lead a camel and places his
beads in a bowl. The best guesser receives all the beads in the bowl.
As the camel moves, the Bedouins which are of the same color may also
be moved. Then the process is reapeated.
Presenting the beads is a matter of matching a hidden card in the harem.
Samarcanda
Subtitled: "The Marvellous Adventures of Marco Polo"
Like Polo, players represent Venetian traders, each of whom set out funded with thirty
pounds.
Available for trade are silver, spices, salt, gems, silk and ivory.
Each price is represented by a separate die;
all of them are re-rolled at the start of each round.
Departing Venice, a trader's move is controlled by a single die and traverses
either clockwise or counterclockwise and either by land (outer edge) or by sea (inner edge).
The right to go first rotates after each round.
The player's movement roll also moves the Genoese pirates who started in the middle of the
board and strip a trader of all but what he has left in the Venice bank if they should end
on him.
Landing on a Customs space makes the player roll a die and pay that many pounds to cross.
Landing on a Thieves space makes the player roll a die and lose that many commodities.
During the journey, players will end on spaces that permit purchase a certain amount
of each of the commodities.
Purchased goods may later be sold in a warehouse space (but only one type per space),
sold to other players when at market spaces or sold at Venice with the price being equal
to the number of the commodity being sold up to a maximum of five.
But there is no such limit if the player holds a monopoly this commodity.
Players may also take out loans, but at 100% interest.
They may also make any deals not explicitly prohibited by the rules.
The first player to reach 100 pounds is automatically elected Doge of Venice and wins the game.
May have influenced
Sindbad
whose travel and trade system is somewhat similar.
Samarkand
A re-packaging (new graphics) of the so-called
Bazaar II,
although now players have more freedom of movement.
Wheel and deal to buy the greatest share of goods in the bazaar to
become the wealthiest Merchant.
Die Schätze des Ali Baba
English translation of title: The Treasures of Ali Baba
Die Seidenstraße
The game is about Marco Polo's return from his
expedition to faraway China on the Silk Road (Seidenstrasse).
This is a trading and racing game, but victory is to the player
who has the most silver at the end. Players interact via
cardplay, in every turn counterbalancing own
interests with those of rivals. For example, an early Market Day may only
give you a few coins, but it might make your visits to the next Trading
Posts very profitable.
Silk Road
A board has a track of 9 spaces with Arabia on one side, China on the
other. In a deck of cards are four types:
imports (goods from Arabia), exports (goods from China), road
(terrain) and special (obstacles/opportunities).
Via trade players accumulate wealth. The first to acquire a fixed
amount wins.
Silk Road
This multi-player game of trade on the Silk Road has a
game-map which covers the entirety of Asia from Italy to Japan.
Each player buys goods at one location and sells them at a
different location. The game is now out of print.
Sindbad
The game is set in the world of the seven voyages of Sindbad from
A Thousand Nights and a Night.
Player Sindbads voyage by sea
to amass a fortune of one million miskhals in trade,
treasure, and adventure and return safely to Basra.
This one is actually ships at sea rather than camels in the desert,
but feels much more appropriate to the topic than does an abstract
game such as
Durch die Wüste.
Included are illustrations
of exotic creatures, characters and settings, exotic valuable trade goods and
the concept of telling stories reminiscent of the classic A Thousand Nights
and One Night.
Tales of the Arabian Nights
This is actually four games in one:
Verrat!
A game of scheming to kill the Sultan
in his palace. To be successful you collect six different-colored resource
cards from different parts of the city and then end your
turn next to the Sultan.
Each turn the players vote which of the other
players' pieces to imprison.
Each player has only three pieces so you need to balance the need for
resource cards in the city against staying in the
palace to vote.
English translation of title would be "Treachery".
Les Voleurs de Bagdad
The board shows the five principal districts of the Baghdad: the
Souk, the Port, the Bazaar, the Kasbah, and the Palace.
Each player represents the thief of his choice.
First, players receive income from their pawns in shops.
Then they may trade gem, surprise and trade cards amongst themselves.
Then they purchase pawns, any of
Caravaneers,
Merchants (can expel Caravaneers),
Traders (can expel Merchants),
Assassins (can assassinate),
and gems (sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds).
Pawns may now be moved so as to maximize profit and hamper those of others.
Players may attempt also to move the Grand Vizier, although others may try
to frustrate this.
The game ends when the Grand Vizier reaches the Palace.
The players reveal their cards. The winner is the one holding
the gems that the Vizier requested. If no one has the right gems,
the winner is the one holding the greatest value of gems.
Players try to be the first to deliver 100 shekels worth of goods.
In town, stock up on water, hire guards, buy commodities and camels,
sell commodities or artifacts, etc. On the trail, roll to move and land on wolves,
nomads, oases, open desert, pyramids or sandstorms.
Blazing Camels
In this racing game each player is a camel
driver driving his animals from the oasis to
the pyramids (palm trees and pyramids serve as start and finish markers).
Re-invention of a game about worms called Würmeln.
It is also said that the same type of camels
used in this game were later used in
Durch die Wüste.
Durch die Wüste
Players take turns placing 2 camels
on the board to form caravans. Each player has 4 or 5 caravans
of distinct colors. You
get points for placing your camels on waterholes or adjacent to
oases or for surrounding territory. Additionally, the
longest caravan of each color gets a bonus.
There is really nothing here to do with camels, deserts, trade or
adventure. The camels, deserts and oases are merely a very thin veneer for a
Go-like game of surrounding territory.
Kameltreiber AG
Included are sixteen desert cards, thirty number chips,
five play figures and a marker piece.
Start by laying out the cards to form
a 5x5 framework and pick one camel card to start.
The number chips are mixed and laid out.
Turn over a random chip and move the corresponding camel.
If the camel lands on an oasis, turn another chip.
Das Letze Kamel
Included are one game board, six camels, six camel possession cards and two
color cubes.
The possession cards are shuffled and dealt to determine which camel
each player owns.
Each camel has a two-colored saddle
and moves forward via the color cubes.
Each color on the color cube is represented
on three camels.
On a result of a golden asterisk, any camel
may be moved forward — a black asterisk, moves any camel backwards.
The fastest camels must rest upon reaching oases.
Muscat
In this artist's competition the players
must get as many as possible of their own into the Sultan's court
(perhaps more likely an emir).
The mechanism is a form of
Rock-Paper-Scissors. Luck is introduced in the form of the order
in which the players draw artists from their supply. Special powers
granted to losers in status conflicts add considerable interest
and variation. Strategically, despite
all the possibilities for clever tactical play, victory often goes to the
player who manages to get the most tokens into play, indicating that it
may be best to mostly simply enter new artists, leaving activation of
conflicts to others.
Graphic design by Antje Graf.
Oasis
Mongolian families attempt to dominate lands to raise horses, build temples and
control oases.
Nomadi
A tactical game set in the desert.
A caravan with 15 camels moves slowly through the sand, its target:
the shadow of the oasis.
Throw six dice, and move six camels.
All camels must always remain connected together as a caravan, yet
each player is trying somehow to get ahead of all the others.
Sometimes not all the dice can be used.
Then pay per each die.
Nomadi is a revision of the game Wabanti.
Sahara
Basically a card-play game with 36 camels.
The board shows a path leading to an oasis
with 8 fields. There are ninety playing cards, six sets of fifteen each;
each player will receive such a set and randomly divides them into three
stacks of five, the top card of each showing, and playable. If one of
the stacks is exhausted, the player takes all the cards and reshuffles,
creating stacks as before.
Within each set, there are four types of cards and these are used for
moving the camels. Palm cards let you move your own camels a number
of spaces equal to the number of palms. A Fata Morgana card permits moving
opponent camels. A Camel card replaces one of your camels with a guide camel.
The Sheikh allows moving any camel virtually anywhere.
The game ends when the eight numbered oasis fields are filled with
camels. Scores are calculated by adding up the scores
under the camels; scores for guide camels are doubled.
by Sid Sackson for 3M, 1967; for Schmidt, 1967; for Discovery Toys, 199?
2-6 players
by Sid Sackson for Schmidt, 1986
2-5 players
by Bruno Faidutti, 1996
6 or 8 players
by Mark Sienholz for Krimsus Krimskrams Kiste, 1999
2-5 players
by Kurt Feyerabend and Elke Flogaus for Ravensburger, 1987
in English as Flying Carpet for Ravensburger, 1987
3-6 players
by Eric Goldberg for Truant, 1999
2-6 players
by
Bennie Lui and the Lui Chi Leung Production Co.
for C.C. Games, 1998
2-4 players
by Ravensburger, 1990
3-5 players
by Tom Kremer for Schmidt, 1983
2-4 players
by Marco Annatelli for Clem Toys, 1982
2-4 players
by Stefan Dorra for Hans im Glück, 2001
3-4 players
by Richard Breese for Hans im Glück, 2000
in English as Aladdin's Dragons for Rio Grande Games, 2000
2-5 players
by Jim Deacove for Family Pastimes, 1999
1-8 players ages 5 and up
by Reiner Knizia for eg spiele (Editrice Giochi of Italy), 1996
2-4 players
by Klaus Zoch and Albrecht Werstein for Zoch, 1992
2-6 players
by International Team
3-5 players
by Sid Sackson for Abacus-Spiele, 1999;
Rio Grande Games, 1999
2-5 players
by Jean du Poél for Historien Spielegalerie, 1999
2-6 players
by Hartmuth Kommerell for Schmidt, 1997
2-7 players
by L. or R. Edwards for Tsukuda Hobby, 1985
2-8 players
by Lloyd Krassner for Warp Spawn Games, 2008
2-4 players
by Flying Turtle, 1990, sold in USA by Mayfair
2-6 players
by Eric Goldberg for West End Games, 1985
2-6 players
by Tom Kremer for Winning Moves, 1999
3-4 players
by Francis Pacherie for Tilsit, 1999
in German as Die Diebe von Bagdad for Heidelberger Verlag, 1999
in French as The Thieves of Bagdad for Clash of Arms, 2000
3-6 players
Abdul's Adventure
by Daniel Lewis for Inner City Games Designs, 200
2-6 players
by Alex Randolph for Milton Bradley, 1996
in German as Kameltreiber for Milton Bradley, 1996
4 players
by Reiner Knizia for Kosmos, 1997
in English as Through the Desert
for Fantasy Flight, 2000
2-5 players
by Heinz Meister for Schmidt, 1989
2-5 players
by Tom Schoeps for F.X. Schmid, 1988
2-6 players
by Christiane Knepel for
Die Sternspieler,
2001
3-5 players 12 and up
by Alan R. Moon & Aaron Weissblum for Überplay, 2004
3-5 players
by Reinhold Wittig for Blatz/Schmidt, 1995
2-5 players
by Hajo Bücken for Hexagames, 1990
2-6 players
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Sultan
by
André Zatz & Sergio Halaban
(illustrated by François Bruel),
for
Phalanx Games,
2008
2-5 players
The Sultan's daughter has come of age and he is seeking a suitable husband and heir! He decides on a test. Each is given an identical amount of gold with which to to acquire the most valuable jewels in the bazaar (apparently the new prince is to be an accountant). Includes 75 gold cards, 1 bag, 50 glass pieces, 3 bazaars, 5 screens, 18 bonus markers and 5 rules summaries.
Targui
by Wil Dijkstra and Ben van Dijk for
Jumbo Spiele GmbH,
1988; 1999
2-4 players
Players attempt to control the desert, whose layout is different in every game. The game is apparently a bit like Risk — the name from a North African tribe.
Timbuktu
by Dirk Henn for
db Spiele, 1993
3-5 players
Caravans try to cross the deserts of northwest Africa on abstract routes, taking goods to Timbuktu. But thieves are attempting to steal particular types of merchandise. You have some information about what they want and can steal more information from other players at oases. But the more the thieves steal, the rarer and more valuable that good becomes. Your goal is to have the most of the rarest type of when you arrive in Timbuktu.
Wüstenkönige
by
Hendrik Nicola Jenzowsky
&
Eva Maria Tobies
for
Jenzowsky,
2008
2-5 players
In "Desert Kings" caravans race across the desert trying to avoid sandstorms, flying carpets and epidemics at the oases. Each player controls 12 camels (represented by wooden disks). Turns consist of three activities:
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