Chatuchak

Description

Bangkok's Chatuchak market, with its colorful tent booths, is one of the world's biggest markets. In Chatuchak, players have the task of grouping market booths better by market segments like decoration, cloths, furniture, plants or food. Each player manages a section of the market area, and to group the booths in their section better, players want to rearrange booths — but you can relocate booths only as long as they stay along the same alley! Your own market section has booths along four horizontal and five vertical alleys, so it has five rows and six columns of booth spots. One of the spots in your 5x6 grid is empty; the other 29 spots have a booth, and each booth belongs to one of five market segments. On each turn, you move one booth horizontally or vertically to the empty spot, i.e., to the spot from where the previous booth was moved. To earn points, players try to reach goals better than their opponents. The game includes twelve goals, such as having one of the five market segments grouped the best, or having two specific market segments connected the best, or having the longest straight path with one market segment or the biggest rectangular area with one market segment. These goals earn you a point when you reach them first, when you overtake another player, and when you have the lead at end of the game. The number of turns players have depends on the progress on the time track, so you can assess how many turns remain in the game, but you can't know for certain.