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Draft:The Bazaar (video game)

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The Bazaar
File:The bazaar.png
Developer(s)Tempo Games
Publisher(s)Tempo Games
Platform(s)
Release
  • Windows, macOS
  • October, 30th
  • Android, iOS
  • TBA
Genre(s)Auto battler, Strategy, Hero-builder
Mode(s)Multiplayer

The Bazaar is an upcoming, free-to-play, hero-builder strategy video game based on the auto-battler and card game genre developed and published by Tempo Games, a game development subsidiary of Tempo Storm. The Bazaar was first announced on April 6th, 2018, by Reynad, founder and CEO of Tempo Games. It will be a free-to-play live-service game which will monetize itself with cosmetics such as animated cards, hero and board skins and more. The game is planned to have an in-game marketplace where players can buy, sell and trade their cosmetics with other players. The game releases as a Closed Beta on October, 30th lasting until December where the Open Beta will commence, with the game officially launching sometime in January 2025[1]. Closed Beta access can be gained by purchasing one of the limited-time Founder's packs or if users had backed the game from methods in the past, they also get access to the Closed Beta. The Bazaar is anticipated to be available for Microsoft Windows and macOS at the beginning, with Android, and iOS.[2] releasing later.

The Bazaar features several Heroes with unique items and playstyles and involves players facing a series of deck-building decisions and PvE threats followed by PvP face-offs with asynchronous matchmaking.

Gameplay

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Before each run of The Bazaar, the player must first choose which hero to play as. Each hero has their own set of around 100 items, and when you unlock that hero, you unlock every item in their pool. Since The Bazaar is a live-service game, it will feature many playable heroes, each with distinct playstyles. The Closed Beta will feature 3 heroes, those being, Pygmalien, Vanessa and Dooley, with Jules, Mak, Stelle and future heroes having their releases spread out. Some heroes feature different mechanics, such as Jules who fills her opponents with Joy, offering a different win condition, or Dooley who centres around "The Core" that buffs other items and can be upgraded throughout the game. Heroes can be unlocked for free by earning enough Gems or by purchase.

The main goal in a run of The Bazaar is to reach 10 PvP wins, before losing your "Prestige", which is your run health. You start with 20 Prestige and lose some equal to the "Day" count when defeated in a PvP battle. A Bazaar run is structured through "Days" and "Hours". Each Day features 6 hours. The 3rd hour is guaranteed to give you an option between 3 PvE fights and the 6th hour is where the PvP battle takes place. The other hours can be a variety of different encounters such as Merchants who sell you items, Skill Trainers who sell Hero Skills, free items or special events. Throughout a game, players can buy items to place on their board, during the drafting process, players can move these items around their board freely, as often they have positional effects. Items have rarity tiers that affect how powerful they are as well as when they show up in a run, these are Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond. When you find the same tier of an item, you can fuse it to upgrade the item. Not every item has each tier, some items can start at the diamond tier. From the start of a run, players have access to a "Stash" with 10 slots for items to be placed in. This is purely a storage space for extra items as they do not activate inside the stash during battles.

At the start of each day, you gain gold equal to your income. The default is 5, however, this amount can be increased through various methods such as items and events. In The Bazaar, your board has a total of 10 slots. You start a run with 4 unlocked with the rest being unlocked via the "Level" system. You unlock 2 slots at Levels 2, 3 and 4. Every level-up provides you with a benefit such as a free skill, item upgrade or item buff. To level up you must gain 8 XP. You get 1 XP at the end of each hour, however, you can gain some from PvE battles as well as purchase some from a merchant. The 3rd hour that presents PvE battles usually provides you with an Easy, Medium or Hard fight, each giving either 1, 2 or 3 XP, along with some amount of Gold. You must win the PvE battle to gain these rewards. Additionally, you also have the chance to drop one of the items or skills the monster uses as well. Hero Skills grants passive stats or bonuses to the player's or enemies' items during combat. There is no maximum amount of skills that you can have in a run.

Battles in The Bazaar do not require player input, and instead, items on both boards trigger automatically after an item-specific cooldown timer. Players each have a health pool, and the PvP battle ends when the opposing player's health is reduced to or below 0. If the struggle continues long enough with neither player winning, a sandstorm appears that damages both players, growing exponentially until one of the players loses.

Monetization

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The Bazaar Closed Beta requires paid access in the form of limited-time founders packs that grant beta access for you and a friend, exclusive collectibles, currency and physical goods, depending on which tier you purchase. Once The Bazaar enters Open Beta in December, the game will enter free-to-play permanently. The game will monetize mainly from selling cosmetics in the form of: Boards that change up the environment, Hero skins that alter what your chosen hero looks like, Stash skins which change up what the chest looks like (which is located on the left-side), Bank skins that change the gold pile (located on the right-side), Rugs that your items lay on top of, Playlists that change the music you hear in-game, and Item backs (items start flipped over at the beginning of a fight). There are also titles to equip, however it is unknown whether these can be purchased or if they will be restricted to achievement-like rewards.

The game features two in-game currencies, Gems and Ranked Tickets. Gems are both the premium and free currency and can be used to purchase Heroes, Collectibles as well as Ranked Tickets. The ranked mode requires you to use Ranked Tickets to be played. Everyday you get one free game and each game after that, consumes 1 ticket. To earn more tickets, users can play the free casual mode and achieve 10 wins in a run to earn 1 ticket. You may also purchase them with gems and earn them in ranked itself for free, allowing you the opportunity to go infinite (meaning you can always play ranked as long as you earn the ticket while playing ranked, not having to worry about other ways of attaining tickets). Playable heroes are available to be purchased, however they can be earned completely free by playing the game and earning the Gems yourself.

Development and release

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Development of The Bazaar was first made public through an Indiegogo campaign,[3] from which the game raised $115,000 toward production. Soon after, developer Tempo Storm—a former competitive esports organization—formally announced a company division dedicated towards the production of The Bazaar: Tempo Games. In 2019, the game was made publicly available for pre-order which granted the user early access and the amount they paid as in-game currency, doubled. Pre-orders were closed September 16th, 2021.

On February 20th, 2020, Tempo Storm announced they received a $3.3 million investment led by technology investor Galaxy Interactive.[4] On March 5th, 2021, Tempo launched their open investment campaign on Republic and successfully funded and closed on August 10th, 2021 with $700,734.

Tempo Storm announced multiple industry veteran hires on September 2nd, 2021. Tempo welcomed Erin Krell, Eric Flannum, Gregory Marques, and Stephen Dewhurst to the team working on The Bazaar.[5] As of 2024, none of these people work at Tempo currently.

Throughout the development of The Bazaar, the team uploaded update videos showcasing the games progress in all areas of the games development such as art, music, design and gameplay. Video updates stopped after February 7th, 2022 so the team could focus on finishing the game.

The Bazaar was officially announced at the OTK Games Expo on June, 4th 2024. Alongside this announcement the Closed Beta date was revealed to take place in October. This date also commenced the return of weekly videos, this time focusing on finalised topics (instead of the previous in-development videos) such as gameplay reveals, art spotlights and music previews. [6]

Art

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Tempo Games outsources N-iX, a European software development company. They are responsible for many art pieces players see in The Bazaar.[7]

Plot

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The Bazaar is set in an intergalactic marketplace where a variety of different technologies, cultures, species, and people are coming together to trade and barter.

References

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  1. ^ The Bazaar (October 11, 2024). October Update | Closed Beta, Roadmap, and More | The Bazaar. Retrieved October 26, 2024 – via YouTube.
  2. ^ "See how Tempo Storm's Upcoming Strategy Game The Bazaar Went from Deck-Builder to No Decks At All". Gamepur.com. June 12, 2020. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  3. ^ "Reynad talks about Tempo Storm's multi-million dollar investment for The Bazaar". invenglobal.com. March 2020. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  4. ^ "Tempo storm secures $3.3m investment to enter interactive media and game design". February 20, 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  5. ^ "Tempo Storm announces multiple game development hires". www.sportsbusinessjournal.com. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  6. ^ The Bazaar - Official Trailer | OTK Games Expo 2024 - IGN. June 5, 2024. Retrieved October 26, 2024 – via www.ign.com.
  7. ^ "Art Outsourcing - N-iX Game & VR Studio". Retrieved November 7, 2022.
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Category:Android (operating system) games Category:Strategy video games Category:Auto battler video games Category:Esports games Category:Free-to-play video games Category:IOS games Category:2021 video games Category:MacOS games Category:Windows games