New Old

New Old is a game from Japan. What stands out the most about it is the box design. It is deliberately designed to look like two boxes side-by-side, one brand new and the other one pretty old and worn. The cards inside and the rules are like this too. Some cards are normal, but others look like old cards at different levels of wear and tear. The rules come in two sheets, and one of them is made to look like an old and battered sheet.

The concept is simple, but interesting. Everyone starts with a hand of cards. You will discard some cards before you start. Throughout the game you will play cards. You want to play (discard) many of your old cards because any that you don't score you negative points. You want to play as few of your new cards as possible, because they score positive points. There is one special situation of playing all of your old cards. If this happens, then your new cards will score negative points instead. So you have to keep at least one old card.

From the card backs you can easily tell which are new and which are old

There are two discard piles set up

Each player tracks his own status. You go through two stages. In the first you play cards to the old card pile, and then in the second you play to the new card pile. Different players may exit each stage at different times. That is normal. The cards are numbered 1 to 6. You can play a card if it is the same number or one higher than the current top card. 6 cycles to 1. If the top card is a 6, you may play a 6 or a 1. You must play a card if you are able to. You may exit the first stage when you are not able to play any of your old cards. You reveal your remaining old cards before you and enter the second stage. In the second stage, you hope play as few of your new cards as possible because they are worth points. You can only exit when you are not able to play any card. These remaining cards are revealed before you and the round ends for you. You have to wait for everyone else to end their rounds. Once everyone is done, calculate points based on the diamond icons on your cards.

I have certainly played other games where you play cards of the same number or one higher. So this part of the game is not new. Despite the simplicity, there are some nuances to discover. I find that the first two cards you must discard must be considered carefully. Generally you want to be able to play as many of your old cards as possible, and as few of your new cards as possible. That means it is probably better to have all the numbers in your old cards. It also means with your new cards, you hope to have large gaps, so that you will soon be unable to play. Knowing this, you make decisions on how to discard your initial cards. You start with 7 each of old and new, and you must discard one each.

If you look at my hand above, having old cards in only two values is bad news. If the pile shows 1, 2 or 6, I will be forced to exit stage 1, and all those 4's and 5's will be negative points. 

Look how badly damaged they look

I think your tactics will change depending on the number of players. The number of the piles might increase more quickly if there are more players. If the number of the old pile goes past a number you have before it is your turn, you need to wait a whole cycle before you can play that card. You might not last till the next opportunity. Knowing this, sometimes you want to deliberately advance the number, attempting to mess up your opponents' plans. 

In one of the rounds I played, these were the cards I scored. I scored every single card! I was not able to play any of my cards. This was rather extreme. Thankfully the new cards I had were worth more points than my old cards. 

I am not entirely sure yet how deep this game is. I have certainly discovered some interesting tactics. I don't know whether these are all, and once I discover them, there is an optimal way to play. Not that they will guarantee victory, just that from a probability standpoint there are some best ways to play. Even so, this is fun to play. There is some luck and uncertainty. You have meaningful decisions to make. I really enjoy this kind of clever card games from Japan. This game designer Takuya Iwamura did all the art himself too. 

A shoe print! 

Even the box insert has been deliberately designed to look half new and half old

LOOP

LOOP is designed by Takashi Saito, who is from Nagasaki, Japan. I bought this game when I was traveling in Nagasaki. Because of this the game will have a special place in my collection.

This is a climbing card game, like Tichu and Big 2. You play different combinations of cards and your goal is to play all your cards. The most important twist in this game is you don’t play independent rounds. Every second round that you play, you use the exact same hands from the previous round. However every hand will be played by a different player. So if you have friends who like to complain about bad hands, tell them to play this game. If you think I won just because I had a lucky hand, let’s see what you can do with this exact same hand.

Cards come in three suits, and they are numbered 1 to 15. There are only a few combos you can play. You can play single cards, pairs, triplets, and straight flushes of two or more cards. Just like in Big 2, you must follow the combo type played by the lead player. A round doesn’t end when one player goes out. You need to determine the ranking of all players, so you need to play until all but one go out. This way you have the positions of all players. Everyone scores points based on his position. Now this is for the first of two rounds. In the second round scoring works differently. Cards are not reshuffled. You keep all the hands that have been dealt in the first round. Beginning with the last placed player, you pick a different seat to sit in. So you will play with somebody else’s hand in the second round. This means in the second round you know what kind of hands everybody has, and you can plan accordingly. This is an interesting twist to the genre. The scoring in this second round is different too. It is not just based on your ranking. It is based on whether you have improved the ranking of the hand you have, compared to the previous round. If you can make the lowest ranked card take the top spot, you will earn many points. If you are playing the top ranked hand and you are just maintaining the top spot, you don't gain much. If you do worse, you will lose points! 

Another interesting twist is the number 8. In some ways, it is a trump card. If anyone plays a combo that includes an 8, or if he plays a single 8, he wins the run and nobody else can play any more. He becomes the lead player for the next run. 8 is in the middle. If someone has played a 9, you can’t play your 8 to win the run. The 8 is strong, but not always.

The 8 can be used in another way. At the start of a round you must remove two cards from your hand. Usually you remove weak cards. However if you remove an 8, during the round, you may perform a special action by revealing that 8. You flip the strength tile to the other side. From that point onwards, 1 is the strongest, while 15 is the weakest. If you have a hand of low cards, and you have an 8, you can choose to use the 8 this way. Now there is a risk that someone else might also have an 8. He can use his 8 to flip the strength tile back to the original side. 

The game comes with fancy score trackers

LOOP introduces several twists to the climbing game genre, and they work well together. Most people are familiar with climbing games, so this is something you can more easily convince non gamer friends to try. I would say the play experience is still mostly that of a climbing game. If this is not your thing, the game probably won't change your mind. I find it novel that you get to play while knowing almost perfectly everyone's hands in the game (I say almost because there are two cards discarded). I have seen one round when the lead player was able to play in such a way that he went out without anyone else being able to play a single card! Information is power! I have also experienced myself that due to knowing the hands in the game I played my new hand in a different way, allowing me to do much better than the player who had it in the first round. 

The artwork is a little weird. I don't really understand what it is trying to say. Maybe it's trying to say deja vu. What if you get to live your life all over again, while knowing what has happened the first time you lived it. What would you do differently? Even the inside of the box cover has some art, which I also do not understand. But I like it. Maybe I'm just pretending to be sophisticated. 

There is an international edition of LOOP now, from iello, and the rules are a little different. This is good news for gamers outside of Japan. I'm happy I got myself this weird art version. 

Bangkok International Game Festival 2026

 

Bangkok International Game Festival (BIGF) is happening in Bangkok 28 - 30 August 2026. Cili Padi Games will be there. The new game I am bringing is Pilgrim Poker. I have exhibited in Thailand before, twice, at a different event - the Thailand Boardgame Show. This year I want to try going for a different event. It is my first time at BIGF. Let's see what it's like. I hope to be able to reach out to more players and different players. Who is in Bangkok this weekend? Come play with me! 

 

Restoration (Phuc Dung)

This is a game I am very excited to talk about. Restoration is a game from Vietnam, designed by Plum Tran and Toan Nguyen, and published under Ngu Hanh Games. It is a strategy game about restoration of the Kien Trung Palace. You play the role of artists and craftsmen. This is a worker placement game. It uses a rondel mechanism, and it has area majority competition. 

This is how a game is set up. You play three rounds, each round representing a period of two years. The three rounds are randomised and what you can do will be different depending on the round cards in play. You can see in the photo above that the round cards for 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 are still face-down. The one for 2019-2020 is revealed, dictating that rondel actions will move 2 steps, and you can play at most 1 manager card on your turn. 

This is your player board. You start with three workers in your colour and one neutral worker. Most of the time you place workers on the main board. However you have a placement spot on your player board too, and a mini rondel (where that big cube is). The section at the bottom right is for end-game scoring. Whenever you complete restoring a section of the palace, you get to claim one small cube. You place your cube in any of the five columns here to score end-game bonuses. Each column specifies a criteria you have to meet. For example the first column says you score 1 point per worker. Cubes you place here are a multiplier. 

Five interconnected board pieces form the main board, and together they form six squares where you can place workers. Each board piece has a rondel - a circuit of icons. When you place a worker, you get to move the cubes on either board piece next to your worker. Each step a cube advances lets you do something. Mostly it is doing restoration work. 

These large tiles are where the restoration work is done. Each tile represents a section of the palace. To work on restoring a section, you have to place a worker on the main board to advance a rondel cube, and that cube needs to advance to an icon which matches the next step here. You also need to commit a worker here to be used as a progress marker. This is quite challenging because you will have one worker fewer to work with. Technically you can work on two sections at the same time, but this means you are tying up two workers. When you complete a section, you claim the tile and your worker can rest. To ask him to come back to work, you will lose reputation. Reputation is like money in this game. You need to make sure you have enough to get people to continue working. 

This is the side board. The central section is the development area. You have a pawn here. Whenever you advance, you gain a benefit. One important benefit is unlocking an extra worker at step 3 and 7. More workers means more things getting done. The track on the right is for your reputation. I think of it as money. 

These are manager cards. They have all sorts of abilities. All of them have one basic ability, which is to advance the rondel cube one step. This is shown at the bottom right of every card. 

After you complete restoring a section of the palace, you claim the section tile. At the back you can read about that section of the palace. 

One important aspect of the game is collaborative construction. When you place a worker on a spot which already has other workers, after you perform your action, everyone else present here gets to perform a small action too - moving one adjacent rondel cube one step. In the game I played, some of us actively collaborated, and we got a lot of work done collectively. I heard that in another game, people played in a cutthroat manner and did their best to avoid helping others. I find this intriguing. 

This is where neutral workers have an impact. You should place workers in your own colour early, so that you can benefit from others placing workers here later, or even yourself placing more workers here. Neutral workers don't enjoy the collaborative construction bonus. 

Restoration has several moving parts, but they gel together well. I want to say it is a heavy strategy game, but it is not too heavy. I shall call it medium-heavy. There is a constant puzzle of how to perform restoration efficiently. Depending on the rondel situation on the main board, you may choose a different section to start restoring. If the next few steps on those five rondels show many red spaces, you probably want to start work on a palace section with many red spaces. It will make life easier for you. If you know your opponents need spaces of a specific colour to advance their restoration work, you can be a meanie and move the rondels past those colours. Oh you horrible person! 

You can actually compete on the same palace sections. This did not happen in the first 80% of our game, because we didn't want to take the risk and waste our efforts. However towards game end we did compete. Each palace tile is a race track. If two or more players work on the same tile, only the first to complete it claims the tile. This game can be rather cutthroat. 

There are opportunities to make big combos, and this is always fun. When you advance on the palace sections, some spaces give you bonuses. These bonuses can trigger chain reactions and help you further advance. 

In the game I played, I arbitrarily decided to go for the workers end-game bonus. That meant I wanted to unlock all my workers, and also in the last round I wanted to be able to win as many neutral workers as possible. Whenever I completed a palace section, I placed the bonus cube here. When you can see that your opponents are trying to work on specific scoring conditions, you should try to deny them. 

The area majority competition in the game comes into play at the end of a round. Notice that the worker placement squares have yellow dots. These are the strengths of each worker there. For each of the five board pieces, you compare who has the highest strength. He gets the right to recruit a neutral worker for the next round. He needs to pay reputation to recruit. It's not free. 

This was my play area at the end of our game. I restored many sections of the palace. Together we completed the restoration early in Round 3. Something felt off. It seemed too easy. Later we found out that we had played one important rule wrong. When you do collaborative construction, the bonus is only one step. We had played that you get the same number of steps as dictated by the round card. On many turns we moved twice instead of once. No wonder our restoration progressed so quickly. Oops. Still, we had fun with the game and it was very satisfying. 

This is a game for the more serious gamers, not casual gamers. It is not a typical Asian game. Asian games tend to be light and they target the casual crowd. We do have heavy gamers in Asia, but it is a small niche. I hope Restoration does well internationally. This is a breakthrough. We can have heavy strategy games from Asia too! 

The designers Plum Tran and Toan Nguyen

Here's an interview of Plum about her journey as an indie publisher in Vietnam. The English version is in the second half of the page.  

designer diary: Pilgrim Poker

 

Pilgrim Poker is named so because the setting is Journey to the West, the Chinese classic novel. The characters are transported to a modern setting. They are on the first leg of their pilgrimage, taking the train to Dunhuang. Guess what they are bringing on this trip? Pilgrim Poker of course! Five years ago when I started working on this game, it was very different. It certainly was an unexpected journey for me. 

The core idea in Pilgrim Poker is that everyone gets one card and holds it up facing forward. You can see everyone else's card, but not your own. Based on this, you need to bet on whether you are going to win. Only the highest card will win. The game was inspired by Hanabi and Kobayakawa. In Hanabi, you can't see your own cards. There are other games using this concept, like Pikoko and Luz. In Kobayakawa, you do just one round of betting, to decide whether you're in or out. Very minimalistic, but the decision-making can be tricky. Pilgrim Poker was initially called Saikoyu, which is "psycho you" modified to sound Japanese, a nod to both the games which inspired it. 

The first prototype had Malaysian fruits and four suits

In the first version of the game, after cards are drawn and held up, you take turns naming a bet amount. This is done for only one round. After everyone has named an amount, the bet which everyone must place into the pool is the second highest named amount. The reason for this is if most people think one particular player will win, they can all name a low amount, so that even if that single player names a high amount, he won't be able to win much. This is done in turn order as opposed to simultaneously because whenever a player names an amount, it is a clue to the other players. A player who names a low amount is likely seeing a high card. If you don't see any high card, then you might be holding that high card. 

There are some special cards which modify the core rules. Anyone holding the 10 wins or loses double. 10 is strong, but it is not the strongest. The numbers go from 1 to 13. Getting 10 is good, but it will be painful if you lose to an even higher number. If the 4 is in play, it is the smallest card which wins instead. When you hold the 4 and you see that everyone has high cards, you might think there is no hope of winning, but you would be wrong. If anyone holds the 8, it turns all odd numbers to zero. That means the 8 beats 9, 11 and 13. It only loses to 10 and 12. These cards add a twist to the game. You have to think carefully as you observe the actions and expressions of your opponents. 

Playtesting session

The Control Problem: Players feel there is little control

One big problem I had was players feeling helpless. When two players feel confident (or desperate) enough to want to name a high bet amount, you will be forced to put in a large bet, even when you are pretty sure you will lose it. This feels bad. I didn't want to add more rules to handle such a feel-bad situation. I thought maybe that should just be what the game was. But still, I had a nagging feeling this wouldn't work. I was stuck for a long time, and I had to set the game aside. It took more than two years for me to revisit the game. I am glad I did, because I had an idea that helped to move this design forward. Well, it wasn't exactly my idea. It was just poker. I applied the poker mechanism to the game. 

Everyone must commit to an ante. During a round, it is possible to raise, and when anyone raises, you can decide to fold, sacrificing your ante. This is simple, and most people understand this, because most people know a little about poker. By using a tried-and-true mechanism, I not only solved my problem about the feeling of control, I also made the game more intuitive to learn. 

Prototype in play

The Information Problem: How much information is enough?

When a round starts, you have no idea what your card is. I want to make sure there are ways for you to get clues. Your opponents can't and won't tell you, but I want to make sure their actions will give you hints. Or there are things you can do to try to get information. One mechanism I introduced for the purpose of helping players gain information was the Side Bet. Making a Side Bet means challenging another player to a duel. You state a bet amount. If your target agrees, you resolve this at the end of the round. If your target declines, he must pay you half the bet amount immediately. As you can see, this is a chance for you to bluff and intimidate an opponent into giving you money. Of course, if you happen to be holding the 1, this will backfire, and everyone will laugh at you. The Side Bet action gives information. Normally the player with the lowest card will be targeted. If you are being targeted, you probably have a low card. The bet amount named is also a clue. If you are being targeted but the bet amount is low, then maybe your card isn't too low. 

Here is one hilarious situation that I came across when playtesting. One player was the target of a Side Bet, but he saw that another player had a lowly 2. Since the active player did not target the 2 and targeted him instead, he knew he probably had an even smaller card, the 1. Throughout my playtesting, it was moments of realisation like this which truly tickled the players. 

Another funny situation was the player holding the 4 confidently issuing a Side Bet to the lowly 1. When 4 is in play, the lowly 1 becomes the strongest card. The active player didn't know he had a 4, well, at least until the other players started giggling. 

Game prototype

The Existential Problem: Isn't this just Indian Poker?

I found out rather late in my development journey that there is already a public domain game very similar to Pilgrim Poker. It's called Indian Poker. Indian Poker is not widely known in Malaysia where I live, so I had no idea there is such a thing. It was depressing to find out what I had been working on was something someone else had already made. Eventually I decided to still proceed with the project. Pilgrim Poker is not exactly Indian Poker, due to the special characters and also the action cards. So I felt I still had something new to offer. 

The Theme Problem: Why Journey to the West?

I must admit, Pilgrim Poker has a pasted on theme. This is a mechanism-first game. I did not start with any theme. Most of the other games I have published under the Cili Padi Games brand have fairy tale themes - Snow White, Ali Baba and Pinocchio. This time I thought why not pick a Chinese fairy tale. I chose Journey to the West because it is a story every Chinese knows, and many non-Chinese too. A familiar theme will attract attention, make the play experience more enjoyable, and also make learning the game a little easier. I do feel a little guilty because Journey to the West is supposed to be about Buddhism, and here I am with a gambling game... 

The final pilgrimage team in the game

There are many characters in Journey to the West, so I had more than enough source material to use. The pilgrimage team consists of four main characters, Master Tang Sanzang, eldest disciple Sun Wukong the Monkey King, second disciple Zhu Bajie (Pigsy), and junior disciple Sha Wujing (Sandy). Among the number cards, only three of them - 4, 8 and 10 - have special powers. That means I had to exclude Sha Wujing and move him to one of the action cards. Strictly speaking the pilgrimage team has five members, the fifth one being the horse. That horse is not just any horse. He is a dragon prince. I did not include him at all, since most people think of the team as just those four. 

10 became Sun Wukong, because he is the strongest fighter. 4 became Zhu Bajie. Zhu Bajie is often depicted as the greedy and lustful one. His flaws remind us that we are just human.  

Other characters in the game

For regular number cards (i.e. other than 4, 8 and 10) my original idea was to put some generic minor demon character. Some minions. My artist Edwin Chong suggested the Bull Demon King. Now the Bull Demon King is certainly no minor character. He is a big shot demon. I loved how Edwin turned him into a tired modern day salaryman, carrying a laptop bag and standing in the train. In Pilgrim Poker when you initiate a Side Bet, that's an act of aggression. I thought Red Boy would be most fitting. He is the fiery character in the story. In many chapters, it was the Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) who came to save the day, when the pilgrimage team got really stuck. So I put her on the Change Card action card. This is a card that can completely turn things around. Halfway through a round, you can discard your card and draw a new one.  

Pilgrim Poker was released in Malaysia in August 2026. It started as "Saikoyu", and now it has a theme of Journey to the West, which in Japanese is "Saiyuki". If this game ever gets a Japanese edition, it might be called Saiyuki Poker. 

Finally, the end product

Game components

Action cards

Number cards

Start player card (night side)

94 coins

Game page at Cili Padi Games website: https://www.cilipadigames.com/pilgrimpoker 

Play Play Asia opens for business!

We have a new physical boardgame store in downtown Kuala Lumpur! Play Play Asia is located in GMBB Mall, which is a local hub for arts. The shop specialises in Asian games, with much focus on South East Asian titles. This is a collaboration between Origame from Singapore and LUMA from Malaysia. You will see many Singaporean and Malaysian game titles at the shop. Can you spot my games Malaysian Holidays in this photo above?

The place is on Level 1, at a corner lot. 

I went early on opening day (Sat 15 Aug 2026) before the crowd came

Merdeka Day (independence day) is coming so Malaysian titles are spotlighted

I am given a whole section for Cili Padi Games titles! Woohoo!

There are play tables for you to sit down and play

This is like home - comfy!

This shelf is for demo copies. It is already full! 

The boss (Daryl Chow of Origame) is busy arranging the shelves

Since I have been to quite many game fairs around South East Asia, I thought I'd have seen most Asian game titles. I still found many I had not heard of before. 

Game components as wall decoration

If you are in KL, go take a look!