Basari is a simple game of negotiation by Reinhard Staupe, published in English by Out of the Box Games.
Players: 3-4
Playing Time: 20-40 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
As with most Out of the Box games, Basari comes in a very densely packed box. This one contains:
- 1 gameboard
- 100 gemstones
- wood bits:
- 4 points markers
- 4 start disks
- 4 merchant pieces
- 4 dice
- 12 action cards
- 1 rulebook
Gameboard: A four-panel full-color gameboard with a textured back and a high-gloss finish on the front. The board is a little plain, but entirely and easily usable. Besides a scoring track, a movement track, and spaces for the gems, each corner also contains a listing of all the scoring point values, which is useful throughout the game.
(The high quality, heavy, textured board herein is the sort I'm more used to seeing in mass-produced games put out by Parker Brothers or Milton Bradley than in games produced for the serious board game audience, which I suspect has to do with Out of the Box's intended demographics.)
Gemstones: 25 small glass stones each in green, blue, yellow, and red. The glass stones each actually have a film of the color coating the stone. I don’t know if this is common for glass stones or not, but it was very noticeable here because a couple of the stones were peeling, and there were little bits of grit throughout the stones.
(I skimmed a number of other reviews, and didn't find many comments on this problem, but did note one person saying his gems were chipping, which means it wasn't a production problem unique to me.)
I also had some problems with the stone coloration. There was a lot of variation within each color, particularly on the yellows, and the contrasts between some of the colors (particularly red vs. yellow; and blue vs. green) was a bit low. Once we got into the actual game this didn't prove to be a problem, but I wouldn't want to play the game in low light.
Wood Bits: There are four colors of components (white, gray, brown, nand black) and each has four associated wood bits. The points marker is a tall cylinder while the start disks are short cyliners. The merchants are each pawns, while the dice are colored wooden dice with indented, inked pips.
The matching of all the colors was nice, and I thought each group of 4 different components looked nice together.
The colors were odd enough that some players lost track of who was who, though there were typically two components in front of each player to remind you (the die and the deck of cards).
Cards: 12 cards, 3 for each color, each square-cut (with rounded corners), printed on medium-heavy, high-gloss card stock. Each one clearly shows the player's color front and back. The three different actions (gemstones, points, and die) are each marked by a clear, intuitive icon.
Rulebook: A four-page medium-gloss rulesheet printed on light cardstock The rules are well laid out, contain useful pictures and examples, and are generally easy to follow.
I've only played a handful of Out of the Box games, but most seem to follow the same pattern: high quality components, including a lot of sturdy pieces with high-gloss finishes, good usability, and cartoon art by John Kovalic. This one is no exception (though I was surprised by my problems with the gemstones). Basari has good quality and good usability, but I don't think Kovalic's artwork is used best when laying out a large, abstract board like this, as the result is a bit plain. Nonetheless, I've given the game a high "4" out of "5" rating for Style: well above average.
The Components
The goal of Basari is to earn points through the skillful collection of gems, good second-guessing, and barter.
Setup: Each player starts out by choosing a color, and taking all the setup pieces (points marker, start disk, merchant piece, die, and cards) for that color. He then places his points marker on the scoreboard at 0 and places his start disk and merchant piece at some arbitrary place on the gameboard (both together). Each player also starts with 3 of each gem color.
The Game Board. The game board is formed by a rectangle of 30 "archway" spaces, 7 each on two sides and 8 on the other two. Each space is marked with two things: a number (from 4 to 7) and a set of gems (from 2 to 4 in number, in specific colors).
Order of Play: All play happens simultaneously in three parts:
- The Movement Phase
- The Action Phase
- The Bartering
The Movement Phase: Each player rolls his die and thus moves 1-6 spaces clockwise, putting him on a new archway which offers specific points and gemstones.
The Action Phase: Each player now secretly chooses one of three actions by placing the appropriate action card face down in front of him. The choices are:
- Gemstones. The player takes the number and color of gems shown at his current archway. (These gems will be used for majority-based control scoring and for bartering, as discussed below.)
- Points. The player scores the number of points shown at his current archway.
- Die. The player eschews his current archway and rolls a die. He moves that many spaces, then scores a number of points equal to 6 minus his roll
The players then all reveal their selections.
If a player was the only one who selected a specific action, he gets to take the action.
If three or more players all selected the same action, they all lose out; none of them get an action.
If exactly two players selected the same action, they must barter to see who gets the action.
The Bartering: Bartering starts with the player with the higher current score. He must offer 1 or more gemstones to the other player; the other player must either accept the offer or else make a higher offer. This goes back and forth until someone accepts an offer (sometimes because it sounds like a good offer, sometimes because they can't bear to go any higher).
A "better" offer is defined as: having more gems; or having the same number of gems, but more of the better gems (in order: red, then yellow, then green, then blue).
The person who's offer gets accepted gets to take the action, after paying off the other player.
Ending a Round. A round of play ends when someone goes all the way around the track (which is easy to see because he passes his starting marker).
Then, majority control is examined for each type of gem, with the winner (who had the most of that gem color) getting all the points, and ties forcing sharing between two players. The values of the gems are: red: 14; yellow: 12; green: 10; and blue: 8. In addition, each person who completed a lap gets 10 points.
Now, each player who won majority of a gem must turn in 3 of that gem (2 in case of a tie), then each player moves his start marker to his current location and a new round of play begins.
Ending the Game: The game ends after three rounds of play; the person with the most points is the winner.
Relationships to Other Games
Basari is an action bluffing game with aspects of trading, majority-based control, and racing.
The action bluffing system (centering around the three cards) is really the core of the system. At heart all action bluffing systems go back to rock-scissors-papers, but most of the better ones (like Basari) place different weights on different choices, making it possible to actually guess what a player wants to do. Hoity Toity is another recently reprinted action bluffing game that has a strong central system.
The other system in Basari that really shines is the trading (or bartering) system, which works well because it's so tightly constrained. Res Publica is another good example of a trading game with tight constraints that runs at a somewhat similar level of complexity.
The main aspects of the majority-based control that's unique is that players have very good control over what majorities they attain though useful barters and though specific decisions to take the gems of certain archways (many other majority-control games like El Grande and San Marco instead constrain how players get to choose their majorities though arbitrary card-based powers).
Basari was originally released in Germany in 1998 and has since been rereleased as a card game called Edel, Stein & Reich (which works much like Basari, but gets rid of the board, substitutes an "event card" draw for the "die" action, and also introduces a new action for a fifth player). However, the card game is only available in German.
The Game Design
Basari is overall a well-designed trading game. Here's some of the things I liked:
Intelligent Negotiation: The bartering is done well, because not only can you try and make "good" offers to players, such as giving them one or two gems in majorities they're working on, but you can also make "nasty" offers, such as 3 of a gem that neither of you want, where they probably won't be able to raise the offer without badly hurting their own supplies.
Good Action Bluffing: The action bluffing here is well done. In a bad system, this type of bluffing can devolve into second-, third-, and fourth-guessing, no better than a rock-scissors-paper game, but Basari instead places real weight on the different options, so that players receive real benefits if they make certain choices, and thus it's easier to make intelligent guess about what other players will choose.
Good use of Simultaneous Play: The simultaneous play of dice rolls and movement is nice, and helps speed up the game.
Here's some of the aspects that I liked less:
High Random Factor: Good die rolls for a specific player can definitely help him score points for lapping. This level of randomness is a bit higher than I would have liked for an otherwise very serious game.
Requires Good Players: Bad negotiators (which I'd define as people who don't understand how to make a good offer, because they're not looking at what another player might want) can disadvantage the players forced to negotiate with the person, and make the game run less smoothly.
Overall, Basari was fun both as a short filler and as a thoughtful negotiation and bluffing game. It earns a solid "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Basari is a well-done bartering and negotiation game. If you like either genre, and you're looking for a new filler, it's definitely recommended.
Review Summary