How to play Bazaar

Take, or sell. Never both

On your turn you take one goods card from the market; or take every camel in it at once; or swap two or more cards, paying with anything in your hand and any camels in your herd. Or you sell.

Seven cards is a full hand, and camels do not count against it — which is why a herd is worth having and why taking all of them is sometimes the whole turn.

The piles never refill

Selling takes tokens off the front of that pile and nothing puts them back, so the market decays as it is used. Three of one kind draws a bonus token, four a bigger one, five the biggest.

Diamonds, gold and silver may not be sold singly. Holding out for the pair costs you turns; selling early takes the good tokens before anyone else can.

It ends when it ends

The round is over the moment three piles are empty, or the deck cannot fill the market — whoever that suits. The higher total takes a seal of excellence, and two seals wins the match.

So the last few turns are a race about a finish line either of you can move.

Questions people ask

Can I play Bazaar on my own?

Yes. The other chair holds one of three traders, each a different opinion about the same game rather than the same opponent at three volumes: the Broker sells early and small, the Hoarder fills her hand and waits, and the Spoiler takes whatever you were building.

Is twenty minutes really enough for a match?

For a two-seal match, yes — a round runs six or seven minutes once you both know the shape of it. It is the game to reach for when two people have a coffee break rather than an afternoon.

Does anybody have to install anything to play Bazaar?

No. It runs in the browser everyone already has open. One person opens a room, reads out the six-character code or pastes the link into the channel, and everyone else is at the table in a couple of seconds.

Do we need accounts?

No. There is no sign-up, no password and no email address anywhere in the flow. You pick a name when you sit down, and that is the whole of it.

How many people can play Bazaar?

1 to 2 — best with two, or one and a trader. A room seats up to 12.

How long does a game of Bazaar take?

About 20 minutes, which is the length of a coffee break rather than the length of a games night. Nobody is the host in the sense of holding the controls, so a round finishes whether or not everyone is still looking at it.

Does it work over a video call?

That is what it is for. The game is on the screen and the talking is on the call — nobody has to describe a board to anybody, and the parts that must stay private stay on the server rather than being read out.