1001 Review

1001 is a team game with an individual winner. I'll admit I initially wrinkled my nose when I read that in the rules. Those games often devolve into squabbling and backstabbing that leaves even the winner feeling deflated. Not so with 1001. It's a diamond in the rough in many ways, from the effective team mechanics to the way it plays well even with 8 players. However, it’s going to go play much better in non-confrontational groups or with younger kids. Experienced gamers may find it a little too thin to play as a main course.

As a team you take on the role of the desert winds, pushing and pulling Aladdin across the sands. The goal here is to collect a bunch of gems and clouds so that you can buy things to help not-Jasmine while trying to avoid not-Jafar. As an individual player you’re trying to guess what direction the other team will go. It works, but it’s odd and you’d honestly be forgiven for ignoring the individual scoring rules and just playing it as a team game.

Ready for flying! 4 routes out placed on the edges of the board to direct Aladdin.

One team plays as the day team with the other taking on the role of the Arabian nights. As a team you must vote together on which of the 4 programmed paths Aladdin will take on his magic carpet ride. Whichever route gets the most votes is the direction you’ll move, gaining and losing clouds and gems until you either run out of clouds or reach the end of your assigned route. At this point you’ll cash in your gems or a pile of clouds for reward tiles. When laid out during setup they combine to make a neat drawing of a palace, though you never reconstruct them.

What makes your choice trickier than just some basic math is that your opponents are trying to guess which route you’re going to fly. They are trying to block you with the Vizier card and also so that they can score individual points for guessing where you were going to go. This is where the scoring system starts to fall apart. If a team votes on one route unanimously the whole team scores a few bonus points. Whether or not they voted unanimously, the opposing team gets to guess where they think the active team is going. So long as any player on the active team voted for the route an opposing player guesses, that opposing player gets some individual bonus points. After that, the opposing team can reveal which route the Vizier will prevent Aladdin from flying. You can see the problem with everyone voting unanimously for a single route.

Players have no control over the routes they can choose from, and they’re visible to the whole table. Because of the way flying works, it isn’t uncommon for there to be a few route options that simply aren’t viable, either because Aladdin will end up gaining only a paltry few gems or because the cloud penalties cut his flight short. It means you don’t really have 4 choices every round which really takes the edge off the guessing. Similarly, when you’re trying to figure out which route to block with the Vizier there is often an obvious answer. Back and forth you go, attempting to say one jump ahead of your teammates while being completely incapable of affecting their score at all.

You can always attempt to bluff I guess, campaigning to block Route 1 because it’s the “obvious” choice but that doesn’t really work if you have friends like me because most of the people I play games with can count for themselves. This isn’t to say that 1001 is a bad game; it’s just one that needs the right audience. It makes for a great game for families who don’t like aggression, and it’s fantastic for kids. It’s bright, easy to play, and I’ve found that kids take more joy in guessing right in this kind of game than adults. The components make for a pretty fun experience too. Look at this Aladdin standee, floating above the board on his magic carpet. This is the kind of standee a game needs to have to pull me away from miniatures.

Prince Ali, fabulous he.

1001 isn’t creating a whole new world of team-based games or gaming experiences. Experienced gamers should probably look elsewhere. However, it’s a light and simple game that scales well up to 8 and is great for young kids and families. It’s bright, it’s beautiful, and it won’t outstay its welcome.