Sidibaba

Sidibaba is an interesting take on the coop game. In this, there are up to 6 players vs the GM. The players each take the role of a dungeon dweller out to loot the great treasure of Sidibaba. The GM plays the role of the King of Thieves looking to protect his loot.

There are four different mazes offered which really helps with replay value on this one. The 6 players enter as a group and decide in real time which way they will go in the maze. They are carrying with them several oil lamps of which each will light their way for only 3 minutes. After that, the lamp is useless and needs to be replaced immediately. The ultimate goal for the players is to get into the maze, loot the Great Treasure and find an exit all before they run out of lamps.

This is a great concept for a game and for the most part it does work albeit with a few caveats. First off, the 3-D aspect of the game comes with tiles that are shown to the players as they move around the maze. Each tile shows the squares directly ahead of the players. The players then choose a direction to move and then the tile is replaced by the next appropriate one. Keep in mind that all of this has to happen while that 3 minute timer is running. So the GM has to be fast with his hands to get the correct tile shown. After a while, I gave up and just left all the tiles in front of the screen and called out the tile number and let the players find it.

Secondly, it takes a little while to get used to the fact that the tiles show ONLY what is in front of you. So if you see a hallway that you can either go straight at least 2 squares or turn right in 1 square when you take that step forward, you will NOT see that right hand turn on the tile. You have to remember that it was there and rotate to the right in order to take that turn. But once the players figure this out, it is not too hard to keep in mind.

Thirdly and most importantly is the fact that the King of Thieves is supposed to be following the party around in the dungeon throwing hazard their way and pilfering useful items and generally being a pain in the hind end. In practice, this is almost impossible for the GM because of the timer. You have to move the party on the hidden maze, show the correct tile AND then move the King of Thieves token in the maze as well. If he reaches the party he gets to do stuff to them. And the GM also is supposed to draw hazard tokens to use on the party when he catches up to them. Keeping track of the King token and the hazards is simply too much to do when actions that you take eat away at time the party has on their lamp timer. You could turn the hourglass on its side when you move, but that would get really tedious really quickly. Couple that with the fact that there is no reference sheet printed on the GM side of the screen and you’ll be referencing the rule book constantly figuring out what the hazard you just drew does…again eating up valuable player time unfairly.

In the end, we just bagged the King of Thieves and the Hazard tokens altogether and made it a game of navigate the maze to try and get the Great Treasure and then the exit. It did not IMO detract too much from the overall theme and feel of the game. The players had a great time trying to figure out if they had been at this intersection before or not.

With a few rules tweaks and a reprint of the GM screen, Sidibaba could easily score a 8 or 9. But as it stands it remains at a 7, but a solid 7 that is.