Square on Sale
Square on Sale Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
Ages 10 and up. 3-4 players. About 45 minutes.
Throughout the game, players construct buildings in the 25 squares spread across the board. The right to construct is won through auction. All 25 building sites are, at all times, open to bidding.
On your turn, you choose one of the squares and stack money tokens from your own supply on it, declaring your intent to construct there (build one building piece into that square). The number of money tokens you place there becomes your current bid for that square. To mark that this is the current bid, you place a countdown marker on top of it — this marker also shows how many rounds remain before the bid resolves. When you place a new bid, you set the marker to its "2" side, meaning two more rounds remain. Because each player's money tokens are a different color, it is always clear who currently holds the top bid on a square.
Any square with no current bid (no countdown marker on it) may receive a bid of any amount. If a square already carries another player's bid, you may only bid on it by exceeding the current bid (out-bidding it). When you do, take the countdown marker off the previous bidder's stack and place it, without changing which side is up, on top of your own newly placed money tokens. The money tokens from the previous bid are returned immediately to their owner.
If your own bid is not overtaken by the time your next turn comes around, flip the countdown marker from its "2" side to its "1" side. If the marker was already showing "1," its count becomes zero and the marker is removed entirely — the square has now been won. Once won, place one of your own building pieces into the center of that square.
The 25 squares of the board are grouped into three types: the 9 center squares, the 12 edge squares, and the 4 corner squares.
Winning a square does not make you its permanent owner — the square immediately becomes open to bidding again. The current owner of the building there has no special right to block a new auction on it (though they may take part in it like anyone else). Whoever wins the square next stacks their own building piece on top of whatever is already there. Buildings are owned entirely by whoever has a piece on top of the stack.
The game also has an unusual rule that rewards efficient building, similar to Othello: whenever you win a square and place your building piece there, check every square in that same row, column, and diagonal from the newly built square. If you already own a building further along one of those lines, and every square between your new building and that other building belongs to opposing players, then you also place your building piece on top of every one of those in-between buildings. Timed well, claiming several buildings' ownership at once like this dramatically increases your building efficiency. However, because every square is being bid on simultaneously by everyone, it is not easy to predict what will happen elsewhere on the board by the time your own bid resolves.
The game ends the instant a player places their last building piece onto the board. At that point, each building you own (the buildings where your piece sits on top) scores points equal to its height (the number of stacked pieces). Building pieces you still hold in your own supply at the end of the game are worth negative points instead. In addition, the gem tokens that a player may earn for constructing first in one of the central 9 squares are worth 1 point each. Whoever has scored the most points wins the game.
Components
- 1 cloth board
- 80 building pieces (4 colors, 20 each)
- 80 money tokens (4 colors, 20 each)
- 20 countdown markers
- 30 gem tokens
- 1 rulebook
Setup
Spread the cloth board out in the center of the table. Each player chooses a color and takes the 20 building pieces and 20 money tokens of that color, placing them in front of themselves. Throughout the game, keep your remaining supply of building pieces and money tokens visible to everyone.
If you are playing with 3 players, return all pieces of the unused color to the box.
Place all countdown markers and gem tokens beside the board. Decide the starting player by whatever method you like, then begin the game.
Sequence of Play
Play proceeds clockwise. On your turn, carry out the following steps in order:
- Collect income
- Countdown
- Construction
- Bid or pass
- Place a gem
1. Collect Income
At the start of your turn, check each of the 9 center squares in turn. If a center square has no countdown marker on it and holds one of your own money tokens, take one of your money tokens back from that square into your hand.
When you win a square, the money tokens you bid for it stay on the board as spent. However, as above, money you spent on the center squares is gradually recovered this way after you win. The more money you invest to win a single square, the longer it will take you to recover it.
2. Countdown
Next, check whether any of your money tokens on the board currently have a countdown marker on them.
- First, remove every countdown marker that is showing its "0" side. Removing a marker this way means that square has now been won, and you can carry out construction there later in your turn. If you have won more than one square at once, you may choose the order in which you construct on them.
- Next, flip every remaining marker that is showing its "1" side over to its "0" side.
When you place a new bid, the countdown marker shows "2 rounds remaining until won." At the start of your next turn it becomes "1 round remaining," and by the turn after that the marker is removed and the square is won. Doing these steps out of order risks mislabeling a marker (for example, turning what should still show "2" into "0," or removing a marker too early), so be especially careful once the board gets crowded with markers.
3. Construction
Place one of your building pieces into the center of each square you won this turn (this is both a right and an obligation). If a square already has a building piece on it, place your own piece on top of it. Whoever's piece sits on top of a building becomes the new owner of the entire stack.
After constructing on a square, check whether it triggers a spillover into surrounding squares. Look along all 8 directions (each row, column, and diagonal) from the square you just won. If you own a building further along one of those lines, and every square between your newly won square and that building belongs to other players, then you also place your building piece on top of every one of those in-between buildings.
Late in the game, you may find yourself without enough building pieces left to complete every spillover placement triggered by a single construction. In that case, choose which of the eligible squares to place your remaining pieces on; any square you can't place a piece in does not change ownership.
After finishing the spillover from one won square, move on to processing any other square you won this turn the same way.
Additionally, whenever a building piece is placed in one of the 9 center squares for the very first time, if a gem token is sitting on that square, the player who builds there first takes every gem token on that square for themselves. Keep the number of gems you've collected visible to the other players.
4. Bid or Pass
On your turn you choose one of two actions:
- A. Place a bid
- B. Pass
On almost every turn of the game you will do A. B is only useful in certain situations. Details on both follow.
A. Place a Bid
Choose one of the 25 squares and stack your own money tokens on top of it to declare your bid.
If no one currently has a bid on that square (no countdown marker present), take a countdown marker, set it to its "2" side face up, and place it on top of the money tokens you just placed. This shows "2 rounds remaining until won."
If another player already has a bid on that square, you must exceed their bid — meaning you need enough money tokens in hand to place more there than they currently have. Add one or more additional money tokens beyond the previous bid onto that square, then take the countdown marker off the previous bid (without changing which side is face up) and place it on top of your own new money tokens instead. The money tokens from the previous bid are returned immediately to the player who placed them.
If the countdown marker showed "1 round remaining" at the time you out-bid it, that timing carries over — the marker still shows "1 round remaining" afterward. It never resets back to "2."
B. Pass
You may choose not to bid on any square this turn. Doing so grants you one benefit instead: for each of the 12 edge squares, return one of your own already-spent money tokens from that square to your hand (one token per edge square where you have a spent token there).
Throughout the game, money tokens you've spent that remain on the 9 center squares are recovered gradually with each of your turns, as described in Collect Income. To recover money tokens spent on the 12 edge squares, you must pass. Money tokens spent on the 4 corner squares, once you have successfully won that square, never come back.
5. Place a Gem
At the end of your turn, take one gem token from beside the board and place it on one "untouched" square among the 9 center squares — that is, a center square with neither a building piece nor a money token on it.
As the game progresses, the center squares that have not yet been built on become more valuable, since whoever constructs there first earns the bonus gem or gems waiting on it.
If You Forget a Step
You may occasionally notice, after finishing a turn, that you skipped part of that turn's procedure. If Collect Income, Countdown, or Construction was missed, correct the board back to its proper state as best you can and then continue play. These steps matter to the other players too — they affect how much money an opponent has, or when a construction they were anticipating actually happens. If someone ends up with less money than they should, or an expected construction doesn't happen, it can create problems for players other than the one who made the mistake.
Placing a gem, on the other hand, is different: if you realize after the fact that you forgot to place a gem, don't rewind — just continue the game. Since several parts of a turn happen somewhat automatically, it helps for every player to keep an eye on whether procedures are being followed correctly and to remind each other as needed, so the game keeps moving smoothly.
End of the Game
The game ends as soon as either of the following occurs:
- A player has placed every one of their building pieces onto the board.
- All 25 squares have a building constructed on them.
The game ends once any spillover triggered by those constructions has been fully resolved. On rare occasions, the game also ends if every player chooses to pass on two consecutive turns each.
Scoring
Calculate each player's score as follows:
- Buildings you own on the board: 1 point per building piece in the stack.
- Gem tokens in hand: 1 point each.
- Building pieces remaining unbuilt in your own supply: -1 point each.
Since every piece on top of a stack that is your color belongs entirely to you, you may find it easier to pull all your owned building pieces toward yourself to count them — just be careful not to mix them up with the unbuilt building pieces still in your supply.
Whoever scores the most points wins the game. If multiple players are tied for the most points, they share the victory.
Example of Scoring
The yellow player has placed all of their building pieces, ending the game. Everyone now calculates their score.
Red owns 5 buildings on the board, worth 2 + 4 + 1 + 6 + 1 points — 14 points from buildings. Red also has 5 points from gems, and loses 2 points for the 2 building pieces still left in hand. Red's final score is 17.
Blue scores 19 + 4 − 2 = 21 points. Yellow scores 22 + 10 − 0 = 32 points. White scores 15 + 3 − 6 = 12 points. Yellow is the winner of this game.
Q&A
Q. Can I place a bid on a square where I already own a building? A. Yes, you can.
Q. Can I raise my own existing bid on a square myself (update my own bid)? A. No, you cannot.
Q. What happens to a bid that is still in progress when the game ends? A. It is not resolved. Scoring is calculated based on the state of the buildings at the exact moment the game ended.
Credits
Rules: Taiju Sawada Artwork: Takashi Hashiguchi (un&co.) Manufactured and published by New Games Order, LLC — Tokyo, Japan.