(edit: This game's monetization model has changed along with its Steam launch, so what I wrote about it below is not all accurate anymore. I'll update it if I go back to playing the game.)

The Bazaar is a pretty interesting roguelike auto-battler I've started playing recently that alternates between PvE and asynchronous PvP battles. Once you get past the initial information overload and get a basic grip on what's going on, it's a lot of fun to piece together its different items, upgrades, and perks into a wide range of different builds. The game flow consistently gives you interesting opportunities and trade-offs, rewarding those who can keep their options open and recognize when to commit to a strategy. While there's a wide breadth of stuff you can run into and things to learn through experience, it's not too hard to pick up and intuit some kind of semi-reasonable strategy thanks to the clear design of how things might fit together.

Although the ultimate cap for your run is a gold trophy for 10 PvP wins, rewards and recognition are also given at both 4 and 7 wins, nicely framing "winning" as something that doesn't have to go all the way. After all, the game can still be really fun when you're just experimenting with something new, or trying to succeed with your favorite build from a bad spot, or some other situation where you just may not be able to survive against lategame number scaling. And this game really does have so many decisions, exciting possibilites for good luck, and ways to feel your growing strength and meta knowledge that it's usually fun to play even on a run that doesn't go super well. I do wish the runs went by a little more quickly, but admittedly a lot of it requires just learning the game to go more quickly yourself, and it's hard to see where it could be heavily trimmed down.

This is a free game, but there is a bunch of monetization stuff including some kind of subscription I've ignored and a boring battle pass. More concerningly, there is a "ticket" system for ranked games which may occasionally require players to pay $5 for 5 tickets if they're not willing to play unranked. I don't mind too much since ranked is much harder, but this system further lessens my interest in getting deep into it. There are also card expansions that honestly I don't really understand the distribution of, but which seem like they can cost money for early access. Just playing the game gets you some ranked tickets as well as some in-game currency (albeit with the added steps of opening chests from claiming battle pass tiers...), which is also used to unlock more characters with their own distinct build paths, cosmetics, and more. I don't love the whole setup, but as a casual player I do feel like I can just play and enjoy myself without spending money, so it's whatever.

The game's particular blended genre (marketed as a "hero builder") brings to mind many other games but feels unique overall. The multiplayer component in particular is something I've been thinking about, since your actual engagement with other players is the bare minimum, no way to properly plan and build around them other than seeing what character they are before the fight starts, no shared resource pool, no particular positioning outplay you can do. As a result it seems to come down to a general meta read if you actually want to play competitively, but this game doesn't really have the resources to make that easy to break into (even though there are some good build guides out there). I have to wonder if the game might be better as a pure offline roguelike that puts more into designed boss encounters, adventure, and an ultimate true win state, but it's fun as-is, just slightly odd from my casual newcomer perspective.

I have had some runs of this that were an absolute blast as I just barely lost any health for many rounds or instantly one-shot my opponents, but even some of these runs eventually hit a wall full of stuff that I haven't even engaged with yet that totally destroys me. It is definitely a game that you could put many hours into, particularly with how often they are updating it, but also one where I think you can just play a bit of unranked action and have a good time with the stuff you start out with. Certainly planning to keep playing it for now, and I think it will be a really really great iPad game when it eventually comes out on there.