Bahama Taxi

Bahama Taxi is a pickup and delivery game for 2-4 players invented by Bartosz Sułkowski. It uses a special board with 52 locations corresponding to the playing-cards in a standard deck and pairs of playing-cards to indicate the pickup and destination locations of passengers. It was invented by Bartosz Sułkowski and the original rules of the game are published on his Bahama Taxi page.

This page is a collection of clarifications and variants of the rules by Ben Rushing (user BinDFW on BoardGameArena), who in collaboration with the developer 'ufm' has published an online Bahama Taxi game on BoardGameArena.

Bahama Taxi 2-4 Players 

Clarifications and rule variations:

Clarifications:

Required Movement: All players are required to move one space on their turn. Players may not indefinitely occupy any space on the board. This prevents the game from reaching an impasse where progress is impossible. An exception is the rare case in a 4 player game when a pawn on a 5-space is surrounded by 3 other pawns and therefore is unable to legally move. In this instance that player’s turn is skipped.

Passengers from God: When Player A is occupying a space and another player collects a passenger and the new passenger generated is on the space of player A and player A has legal space in his cab, this is known as a passenger from God. There are two alternative rules to handle this situation:

1. The no passengers from God rule: The passenger is seen by the taxi as it passes and it is too late to stop, and therefore the taxi would have to move one space and return back to that space on the next move to collect that passenger.
2. The Passengers from God rule: Player A immediately collects the passenger at the start of his turn unless he does not want it or does not have legal space in his cab. After collecting, a new passenger is generated from the draw deck if cards are available and the player takes his move.

Rule Variations:

Forced Pickup: Players who move to a space holding an available passenger must pick up that passenger and can not refuse it if they have space to hold such passenger.

Mirrored Board: Passengers can be picked up at either the destination or the origin.

Shift Change Set Up: On the initial setup, draw position cards as normal and place each pawn at the location matching that card. Then draw a second card and place that in each player’s taxi along with the starting position card. Now draw 2 more passengers (pairs of cards) and fill each taxi. Game starts out with each player having a full cab.

Start Cards used as destination points Set Up: On the initial setup, draw position cards as normal and place each pawn at the location matching that card. Then rather than discarding the card, position those cards as destinations and draw an origin card to place on the top of each start card and continue set up as normal.

Bahama Taxi: 5-8 Players

The rules for Bahama Taxi with 5-8 Players are the same as regular Bahama Taxi with the following changes and clarifications.

Equipment needed

A Bahama Taxi Board, 2 decks of cards, 8 pawns uniquely shaped, colored, or obviously unique from one another that can fit on the spaces of the board.

Clarifications:

The following are rules not explicitly stated in the standard rules of Bahama Taxi but have been experimented with and can be agreed in advance by the players.

Required Movement: All players are required to move one space on their turn. Players may not indefinitely occupy any space on the board. This prevents the game from reaching an impasse where progress is impossible. An exception is the case where a pawn is completely surrounded by 3 or more other pawns at any space and is unable to legally move. In this instance that player’s turn is skipped.

Passengers from God: When Player A is occupying a space and another player collects a passenger and the new passenger generated is on the space of player A and player A has legal space in his cab, this is known as a passenger from God. There are two alternative rules to handle this situation:

1. The no passengers from God rule: The passenger is seen by the taxi as it passes and it is too late to stop, and therefore the taxi would have to move one space and return back to that space on the next move to collect that passenger.
2. The Passengers from God rule: Player A immediately collects the passenger at the start of his turn unless he does not want it or does not have legal space in his cab. After collecting, a new passenger is generated from the draw deck if cards are available and the player takes his move.

Double Pickups and Double Drop offs: When a player has the legal space in his cab and there are two passengers at the origin point (example 2 Ace of Spades), this is known as a double pickup. There are a couple of rules to accommodate this situation:

1. Double Passengers must be picked up together: In this rule it is required that a player have space in his cab to legally pick up both passengers in order to pick up both and can not decline one passenger in favor of the other. Exception: if the passenger limit is less than 2.
2. Double Passengers may be picked up separately: In this rule players can pick up one passenger and leave the other.

When a player has two passengers in his cab with the same exact destination spot (example both passengers bottom card is the Ace of Spades). There are a couple of rules to accommodate this situation:

1. Double drop offs must be made separately: A player with a double drop off must choose one passenger to score, make a legal move on his next turn, and return back to the same space as before on his next turn in order to drop off the second passenger.
2. Double drop offs must be made simultaneously: A player with a double drop off must drop both passengers off simultaneously and score both.

Canceled Ride Passengers: A canceled ride passenger is a passenger whose cards are of the same exact rank and value (Example Ace Spades to Ace Spades). There are a few ways to handle this situation:

1. A Canceled Ride Passenger counts as one point and simultaneous pick up and drop off generating a new passenger.
   
2. A Canceled Ride Passenger counts as zero points and simultaneous pick up and drop off generating a new passenger.
   
3. A Canceled Ride Passenger counts as two points. The player picks up the passenger generating a new passenger, on his next turn moves one space, and on the subsequent or a later turn moves back to the pick up point to drop off and score the passenger.
   

Bahama Taxi: 2 cabs

The rules for Bahama Taxi: 2 cabs are the same as regular Bahama Taxi with the following changes: each player will control 2 different cabs. A coin should be flipped to determine order. If the coin is heads, players control both cabs on their turn. If the coin is tails, players will control one cab and then on the next available turn move the second cab. Cabs still only hold 3 passengers so great care should be taken to label the player’s areas and pawns to show which passengers are in which cab.

Passenger exchange: If a player’s cabs are at adjacent locations, at the start of his turn that player may transfer passengers from one cab to the other as long as the exchange will not violate the passenger limit rule. He may then make his movement.

No Passenger exchange: Players play the game as normal. No passenger exchange is permitted.

Bahama Taxi: Destination Unknown

In this version destination cards are not dealt until a passenger is picked up. Once a passenger is picked up, a destination card is drawn to show where that passenger is going.

Bahama Taxi: Dice Roll

In this version a 6-sided die is rolled before each turn.

• If the number rolled is 1-3, the player makes that number of moves.
• If the number rolled is 4, the player is forced to travel 4 moves towards the furthest drop off point. If the cab is empty the player is skipped.
• If a 5 is rolled, the player makes 1 move as normal and the the next opponent’s turn is skipped.
• If 6 is rolled, the current player's turn is skipped.

Bahama Taxi: 4 card hand

Equipment needed: card holders

In this version players are dealt 4 cards after the initial set up. After picking up a passenger a player can choose to change that passenger’s origin or destination to a destination or origin listed on any of the 4 cards in their hand. The hand is private information and cards should be placed in a card holder until they are used. If a destination or origin is changed, the player will discard the original card into the discard pile and take the new card from the card holder and place it face up under the origin card for that passenger. Hands are not replenished and cards remaining in hand at the end of the game are worth nothing.

Bahama Contraband:

In this 2 player game, instead of a taxi, each player controls one smuggler pawn and one pawn representing a police officer. The 3’s are discarded from the deck and players play as red and black. A player will position his police officer at one of his color’s 3 and his smuggler at the other. A coin should be flipped to determine order. If the coin is heads, players move both smuggler and police officer on their turn. If the coin is tails, players will move the smuggler and then on the next available turn move the police officer.

8 Pairs of cards are dealt as passengers are normally. Instead of passengers, these cards represent contraband. A smuggler pawn may pick up and deliver contraband scoring points as normal. He may also block the other smuggler, but if the smuggler gets captured by his opponent’s police officer he loses all his contraband. If a police officer catches a smuggler or is caught by a smuggler when the smuggler has no contraband, that player is rewarded with the other player’s contraband, if that player has no contraband then nothing happens and the game continues as normal. A police officer cannot pick up contraband, he can only capture a smuggler or block the opponent’s police officer.

Capturing can occur when a single legal move would cause a police officer to occupy the same space as an opponent’s smuggler. Simply being a single space away does not constitute a capture: the capturing pawn must move onto the the same space that is occupied by the captured pawn to make the capture. The owner of the captured piece must then move it away to an adjacent space on his next turn.

All other aspects and rules in these variants listed are the same as Bahama Taxi. Once the last passenger is picked up, the game ends. Stranded passengers do not score and the player with the highest score wins.