Jewel eXchange, a 2–5 player lightweight card game where players trade colorful jewels in a shared marketplace (the “eXchange”) and try to make the best deals they can by exchanging the jewels in their hand for jewels in the exchange. To make a play a bit more interesting, there are also costs to participate in the exchange.
Players compete to grab the best jewels from a 3×3 grid of cards on the table, adding them to their Treasury for points. To take jewels, you put a jewel from your hand into the exchange following certain rules. For example, you cannot exchange a smaragd in your hand for a smaragd in the exchange, the jewels must be of different kinds. So, in order to collect jewels, you have to put jewels into the exchange for someone else to grab them.
At the end of your turn, you must always pay the cost of participating in the exchange by placing one card into your Expense pile, which counts as negative points.
Some of the cards contain actions, and when you use one to pay the cost of your turn, its effect is triggered. This can be something like taking a card from another player’s expense pile and putting it into some other player’s treasury, stealing one of the opponent’s hand cards, etc. Cards with actions usually have a bit higher values, so you must evaluate if you are willing to put the card into the exchange for others to grab into their treasury, or take the cost hit and execute the action.
When the draw pile is depleted, the final rounds begin, and in the end, the player who has the most valuable treasury versus the expenses (treasury – expenses) wins.
Jewel eXchange is a fast, interactive game of tactical sacrifice and trade.
The game participates as Board Game Geek’s 2026 Two-Player Print and Play Game Design Contest
History and more about the design of the game in BGG WIP thread.
Latest changes
2026-04-14: Rules update
Rules were modified based on feedback. The gameplay was simplified by removing phase 1 and rewriting the setup section. The setup now includes instructions for the initial Exchange filling. The new setup ensures that, at the beginning of the game, the Exchange is fully set up and contains only basic cards. This should also partly reduce the first-player advantage.
The old phase 2 is now the only main game phase, which should make the game a bit smoother.
2026-03-14: Minor rules update
Minor rules update based on the feedback.
- Fixed the index letter mistake in an image.
- Nothing cards are removed from the deck during setup or during the first phase of the game. Nothing cards are shuffled into the draw pile for the second phase of the game.
- This should clarify the setup phase and the first game phase as Nothing cards are not in play until the second phase
- Clarified how empty slots work. They function the same way as slots with Nothing cards.
2026-03-10: Digital versions open to public
Screentop.gg -version published and link to TTS mod added to this page
2026-02-14: The rulebook updated to version 4.5.
- Spelling and grammar fixes
- Tried to improve readability
- Minor simplification to game play considering nothign cards: You may continue to play jewel cards after playing a nothing card. This makes nothing card rules a little less different from other cards.
Rules
Digital versions
Print and Play files
All you need to play the game are the rule book and 82 cards (available in full color and low ink versions).
Rules and reference sheet (optional)
Action card reference sheet in A4 size (pdf)
Action card reference sheet in letter size (pdf)
Cards
All card files are two-sided, with 3mm bleed around the cards to ease two sided print alignment. Even pages are the card backs. Card backs have cut marks, front sides do not have the cut marks.
Jewel eXchange cards, A4 sized sheets
Jewel eXchange cards, LTR sized sheets
Low ink versions of the cards have most of the background graphics removed though still in color. The game is somewhat playable even if you print low ink version as black and white only.