Gamehelpbazaarntj

Welcome to the Bazaar

Bazaar is a game created by Sid Sackson (see <a href="https://sacksonportal.museumofplay.org/s/sackson-portal/page/biography"biography</a>) in 1967.

There are resources on the <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/287/bazaar">Board Game Geek</a> web site.

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 gems and wares.

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

The Bazaar sells "wares".

• To buy a ware, a player must have the 5 gems 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 gems.

• 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 Gem = Green Gem and White Gem. This means that a player may give a blue gem to the bazaar for a green and a white gem OR he may give the bazaar a green and a white gem for a blue gem.

A player can do one of three actions

• Roll the die (to get a single gem). 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 gems with the bazaar (to swap gems)
• Buy a ware card

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

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

• The maximum points are scored if you have 0 gems left in your hand after purchasing the ware card
• The minimum points are scored if you have 3 or more gems left in your hand after purchasing the ware card
• Scores for 1 or 2 gems 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

Gems Remaining	(no stars)	* (one star)	** (two star)
3 or more	1	2	3
2	2	3	5
1	3	5	8
0	5	8	12

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 gems - you have to roll the die. However, if you want to increase your gems quickly, trading one gem for three or four gems is useful.
• The less gems you have, at the time you buy a ware, the more points you score.
• You can trade away unwanted gems to the bazaar to reduce the number of gems 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