Welcome to the Bazaar

Bazaar is a game created by Sid Sackson (see biography) in 1967.

There are resources on the 2011 release. and 2022 release

The original game is for 2 to 6 players. The Board Game Arena game also allows a 1 player game.

The Rules in a Nutshell

The game is simple. The Bazaar (or bank) has gem stones and wares.

• There are 5 colours of stones (blue, green, red, white and yellow).
• Each player starts with zero stones
• The bank starts with 20 of each colour

The Bazaar sells "wares".

• To buy a ware, a player must have the 5 stones that are displayed on the card
• The bazaar has 45 ware cards and it randomly selects 20 cards (shuffled into 4 piles of 5 cards)

The Bazaar also exchanges stones.

• The Bazaar has 10 exchange cards. Two are chosen at random and they dictate what the Bazaar will trade
• Each exchange card has 5 equations on it
• An equation has a Left Hand Side (LHS) and a Right Hand Side (RHS)
• A player may trade either (LHS -> RHS) or (RHS -> LHS)
• For example, an equation might say Blue stone = Green stone and White stone. This means that a player may give a blue stone to the bazaar for a green and a white stone OR he may give the bazaar a green and a white stone for a blue stone.

A player can do one of three actions

• Roll the die (to get a single stone). The die is six sided. One side for each colour. The sixth side is a "wildcard" and the player can choose a colour that helps him with the game.
• Trade stones with the bazaar (to swap stones)
• Buy a ware card

Note: A player can only have a maximum of 10 stones. If he has more than 10 at the end of his turn the next player must return the previous players surplus stones to the bazaar.

Points are scored for buying ware cards. Please see the Points Table

• The maximum points are scored if you have 0 stones left in your hand after purchasing the ware card
• The minimum points are scored if you have 3 or more stones left in your hand after purchasing the ware card
• Scores for 1 or 2 stones left in your hand are somewhere in between the minimum and maximum
• Ware cards that are deemed "rare" are marked with a "star" and are worth more points.
• When one ware care pile is exhausted then points become larger. Unmarked cards are worth the same as a one star card. Star cards are worth two star points.

Points Table

The game ends when two piles have been exhausted

The winner is the player with the highest number of points. In the event of a tie, the player with the least number of wares is the winner (i.e. you are rewarded for buying wares with the least number of gems in your hand)

Strategy

Bazaar is a simple game to learn but complicated to master. Personally I have only learnt the game while developing the BGA game. I am sure there is much more to learn. Here are a few of my thoughts.

• When you have no stones - you have to roll the die. However, if you want to increase your gems quickly, trading one stone for three or four stones is useful.
• The less stones you have, at the time you buy a ware, the more points you score.
• You can trade away unwanted stones to the bazaar to reduce the number of stones to maximise your points. HOWEVER another player may beat you to the purchase while you mess about.
• Once one ware card pile is exhausted, ware cards are worth more points. Buying a "star" card during the later phase may be a winner.
• Remember there are only 5 ware cards in each pile. When one pile is exhausted, there may only be a small number of cards left in the remaining piles. Wise decision making is important.
• If you are in the lead after one ware card pile is exhausted, it may be in your interest to exhaust a second pile as quickly as possible so as to win the game.

Solo Game

Bazaar is a great game for 2 to 5 players. However, sometimes it is nice to have a solo game either for fun or for practice. This implementation on Board Game Arena offers a Solo mode that meets this need.

In Solo mode, your score starts at 20 points. One point is deducted each time you roll the die or make a trade. Your score is increased each time you buy a ware (as per the points table on the score card). The objective is to have a positive score by the time you have emptied 2 of the 4 piles of wares.

Table Configuration (aka Options)

Tradeable Items

There is some debate as to whether the tradable items are called 'Gems' or 'Stones' or 'Cubes'. This is configurable so you can choose for yourself. This is just a UI option, it has no other game playing impact.

Player Starts With 10 gems

The default is that you start with no gems/stones/cubes at all. More impatient players can skip this step by pre-loading their collection of gems/stones/cubes.

Exchange Card #1 (and #2)

The rules state that the selection of the exchange cards is random. This is the default. However if you want to select specific exchange cards then you can do so here. Exchange Card #1 is the card that appears on the left hand side and Exchange Card #2 is the card that appears on the right hand side.