The Bazaar - now in paid beta

[J1M]

The Bazaar is a game I've been following for a couple of years. It's the only instance I'm aware of an e-sports streamer using that notoriety to found a game company that produced a AA title.

In this case, The Bazaar is deck-building autobattler born from the frustrations that a professional troll had with Hearthstone. It's been interesting seeing snapshots of Reynad changing over the years. From a kid making money playing a game, to a caster sabotaging live events, to optimistic game designer with high production film crew, to someone who looks like a homeless European. I had assumed the game would fail and be cancelled given that Hearthstone has been out for 10 years now, but last month the game entered a paid beta.



There are a few concepts from the design that are interesting:

• Cards of different sizes, creating another axis (aside from cost/power/ability) to balance cards around.
• Async PVP, since it is an auto-battler the game can pit you against a snapshot of someone else's deck even if they aren't online. This sidesteps issues like queues or players quitting seen in other games like Hearthstone Battlegrounds. This appears to have been an original idea that some indie devs implemented between Reynad discussing it and getting to market (Backpack Battles, etc).
• Deckbuilding as primary gameplay. Not unique in the marketplace, but still fairly novel compared to Magic: The Gathering and its imitators.

I definitely think this will be worth checking out once it is F2P. If you decide to make an account please use my referral link.

► Show Spoiler

I get some kind of currency or trinket for referrals.

[J1M]

Buying into the beta grants multiple access keys, so maybe this thread will be useful for people to share them around.

[J1M]

Some impressions from playing half a dozen 'runs'.

• Battles resolve quickly. But the downside of that is it's difficult to really grasp what an opponent has built for their engine outside of the broad strokes.
• The game is more 'analog' than 'discrete' in terms of its resolution. Buffs give things a 10% chance to crit, slow for 1 second, etc.
• It's rather difficult to target a specific strategy. It can feel bad to take your first item built around 'fire' or 'friend' cards and not see any of those for half a dozen turns.
• Some builds are strong/weak against others (poison > shield) but this information isn't particularly helpful since you have no control over or knowledge of which player decks you will face.
• I like that you have a backpack to store items you might be developing/transitioning to, but I worry long term these will become slots that contribute to battle power too much. (Some cards already provide a benefit from the backpack.)
• The most successful run I had relied on a limited use weapon + an item that refilled its ammo + picking up every item that would increase its damage or crit chance (equivalent of a rush deck in Magic).
• A lot of the power comes from effects that modify cards you already have, which makes it pretty difficult to switch strategies in the middle or end of a run, even if you have lots of currency. This is perhaps the biggest concern I have. The game is mostly about optimizing whatever you end up with by mid game instead of, say, throwing out half of your 'deck' and rebuilding because a new set came out (Magic deckbuilding equivalent).

I could see myself playing a run of this each day (you get a free ranked entry each day, where you can win the in-game currency) but I have a pretty strong preference for discrete math (+2 sword, turn order) over this type of optimization engine.

I could see them adding a way to pit your build against a friend as interesting. Like, you both complete a run and then snapshots of your characters go against each other in a best-of-nine battle. Then you can come back the next day with a differently-built character designed to defeat theirs. Essentially a king-of-the hill mode for each person on your friend list.

[rusty_shackleford]

Is this thread in the wrong section?

[J1M]

Is this thread in the wrong section?

Sounds like a question for the site admin. We don't have a card game forum.

[rusty_shackleford]

Is this thread in the wrong section?

Sounds like a question for the site admin. We don't have a card game forum.

From watching the video it seems like a video game?

[J1M]

Is this thread in the wrong section?

Sounds like a question for the site admin. We don't have a card game forum.

From watching the video it seems like a video game?

Digital card game. Like Hearthstone Battlegrounds.

[WhiteShark]

(you get a free ranked entry each day, where you can win the in-game currency)

Does that mean it's f2p right now if you only play one match per day, or is there still an upfront price?

[J1M]

(you get a free ranked entry each day, where you can win the in-game currency)

Does that mean it's f2p right now if you only play one match per day, or is there still an upfront price?

It is currently a paid beta. You get two access codes if you buy in for ~$30. It is supposed to go F2P in December.

There are two modes. Normal and ranked. Normal has unlimited entries.

Ranked requires a ticket to enter. Getting 4 or more wins in ranked provides currency and cosmetic rewards.
How to get a ticket:

• One free per day
• Get 10 wins in a normal run.
• Spend 100 currency.

The gameplay is the same in both modes. Currency is also used to unlock other characters (there are currently 3).

[Rand]

paid beta

This is like saying "a married bachelor".

[J1M]

The pirate girl + 1 weapon with ammo + items that support that weapon by refilling it or buffing it has been the most successful strategy for me so far. I could see it being nerfed, possibly because they did not expect the single-weapon strategy to be viable for the whole run. It's weak to a freeze strategy, but strong against anything that needs time to build up speed (shield, poison, fire, cards the buff each other, etc). This one was particularly nasty because I had some passives that applied slow and freeze at the start of the round and reapplied slow each time the weapon attacked.

This screenshot doesn't tell you much, but here's a recent 10-win ranked run as an example. By the end, the weapon had over 100% crit, lifesteal, attacked every 1-2 seconds, and +dmg equal to the crit percentage.

[rusty_shackleford]

Kinda wish I could get into card games because there's so many but I just don't loik 'em. Gwent in Witcher 3 is about as close as I can get.

[J1M]

Kinda wish I could get into card games because there's so many but I just don't loik 'em. Gwent in Witcher 3 is about as close as I can get.

As with anything else, most card games are bad. I tend to find one that aligns with my interests and go hard at it for a while. This isn't that, it's more like anthropology.

I do think the way this game can be put down or walked away from at any point without a negative consequence even though it feels like a multiplayer experience in some ways is interesting and something that will hopefully become a design goal for more game projects in the future.

I am also interested in seeing more projects that expand a specific gameplay mechanic into a full game because by definition those should be less homogenous experiences.