Pan Am

Pan Am is a 2020 game by Peter Lee and Prospero Hall. One thing I find interesting about Prospero Hall is they are a whole team of people designing games together. They have been involved in many games, including several big titles. I think they work on not only the game mechanisms, but also the whole product design. 

The box cover of Pan Am certainly caught my eye when it first came out. Early reception seemed to be lukewarm. So I didn't follow it. Recently I listened to a podcast which gave it high praises, and that made me curious. Julian has the copy, so I managed to give it a try. We played with an enhanced version of the game. Spielbox magazine released a set of tweaks developed by the designers. So I guess this is v1.1 of Pan Am. 

The first thing I noticed about the game was how the world map looks different. I like this, because it's cool to be different. But more importantly, this layout is more practical for gameplay purposes, making better use of space. 

Pan Am is a worker placement game. There are five sections for worker placement, and there are different numbers of spots. Each section lets you do something related to building your airline business. The worker placement mechanism is combined with a bidding mechanism. At some spots when you choose an action, you must specify how much you are willing to pay for it. You can decide to spend $0, but if another player wants the same spot and is willing to pay more, he will kick your worker out. If you want to guarantee your placement, you have to pay a high price. Or maybe you are just taking the free spot to force the desperate guy to pay for the action. 

Your humble starting fleet of three airplanes

The goal of the game is to have the most shares in the Pan Am company when the game ends. You will be running your our little airlines to make money, and at the end of every round you can spend money to buy shares in Pan Am. Throughout the game the share price will generally go up, so it's often a tricky decision to spend money to buy the shares now while they are still cheap, or to keep the money to develop your own airline business in order to earn even more money. Pan Am is the giant in the industry. The most important mechanism in the game is how Pan Am will buy your routes and pay you money. This is the most effective way to make money. How Pan Am will grow its network is predetermined, but how quickly it expands is randomised. Generally you want to build routes where you know they will expand to, so that you can make money from them. 

You will spend much time building routes. To be able to claim a route, you need several things. You need to have landing rights at the cities at both ends. You also need to have an available aircraft that can cover the distance between the two cities. Routes go from distance 1 to 4, and your initial planes can only do distance 1 and 2. Level 3 and 4 planes only become available later in the game. 

Taking city cards is one of the actions in the game. City cards are landing rights. If you own a card, it means you have landing rights. It is not easy to get the exact two cities you want for a specific route. Thankfully here is some flexibility with these city cards. If you don't have the exact city card, you can use one from the same region (which has the same colour), but you will have to discard that card. If you don't even have a city card of the same region, you can discard two cards. This is a costly thing to do. 

Another way to have landing rights is building an airport. Once you build an airport at a city, you have permanent landing rights. At most one airport can be built per round, and competition can be fierce. 

Claiming a route is an action you have to perform once you have all the ingredients ready. When there are people fighting for the same route (which happens often), this section becomes a priority. 

This die represents the most exciting part of the game. At the end of every round, you roll this to see how Pan Am expands. If it expands to a route you have already claimed, they will buy that route from you, and you will make money. This does reduce your income level, but you get money now, which is always a good thing. When Julian, Han and I played the game, we all cheered happily when the die roll went our way. The Pan Am logo side (see above) is the best result. When this is rolled, everyone can sell any one route to Pan Am, ignoring Pan Am's pre-set expansion plan. This is when you get to sell those high valued distance-4 routes which are not in their plan. 

Pan Am starts in Miami, and expands in three different directions. Whenever it expands, you place its logo on the route it claims or buys from a player. 

Every round an event card will be drawn. An additional rule may come into play. Event cards also affect the Pan Am stock price and how much Pan Am expands, i.e. how many times you roll the expansion die. 

These gear sticks are your workers. Notice that next to each city card there are four spaces. You place your worker on the price you are willing to pay. If you must have that card, place your worker on the most expensive spot, and no one else will be able to kick you away. 

Every round there will be three special power cards made available. Many of these are strong. They often allow you to break some rule, or they give you a big bonus. 

The four plane levels

This was late game and Pan Am had expanded far

Playing Pan Am is reliving the heyday of air travel. This game tells the story of how modern airlines came to be. It is greatly simplified, but there is still much historical flavour. Cashflow is always tight and the competition for worker placement spots is intense. The game is highly interactive. Pam Am is a well executed mid-weight strategy game. 

My first experience at TOBE 2026, Taipei

TOBE 2026 (Taiwan Original Boardgames Expo) was 25-27 Sep 2026. I participated as an exhibitor. TOBE was first held in 2017. I had never visited TOBE before, so this was not only my first time being an exhibitor, it was my first time ever attending. One thing different about this exhibition for me was my wife Michelle joined me to be my helper. I have exhibited at many boardgame fairs in Malaysia and South East Asia, but this was the first time she joined me for the whole event. We took this photo above on setup day - Thursday - before the crowd. This was the event photo wall. 

We reached Taipei slightly early, on Wednesday. TOBE was Friday to Sunday. We met up with old friends Wednesday evening. We went to a Junji Ito exhibition Thursday morning. Junji Ito is a Japanese manga (comic) artist specialising in horror manga. We have read some of his manga and they are pretty scary. This exhibition was also at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, where TOBE was. It was at Warehouse 4, and TOBE was at Warehouses 2 and 3, just next door. Thankfully this horror exhibition did not give me any nightmare for the next few days. There was a lot of disturbing stuff. 

Michelle and I went to Ximending to buy Ruyi sunny cakes. Thursday was a relaxing day. We brought our games and exhibition materials to the exhibition hall around 4pm to set up. We had a very simple booth so there really wasn't much to set up. I was there mainly to meet the TWOPLUS team to pitch my games. TWOPLUS is a large and well-established publisher in Taiwan. I first met them at the Bangkok International Game Fair, but at the time we didn't manage to find time to chat more and for me to show them my games, so I contacted them afterwards to ask whether they accepted submissions. Eventually we arranged to meet at TOBE. It was a fruitful discussion and they took four of my games to play more. 

These are the wristbands for the three days

This was exhibition hall 3, Thursday around 6pm. Exhibitors could do setup from 12:30pm to 9:30pm. By 6pm many had completed their setup, but not all. Some only came to do setup Friday morning before the doors opened to the public at 10:30am. Warehouses 2 and 3 were part of a tobacco factory. That whole area was a tobacco factory. There was a long elevated platform that ran through the middle of the warehouse, as you can see in this photo. It ran from entrance to exit. My booth was on this platform. 

I saw a giant version of the game Leaves. The art is really nice. I saw this game just recently at the Bangkok International Game Festival. 

The only two Malaysian booths, Cili Padi Games and nPips Games were side by side, in Warehouse 3. 

This was Friday. There was a great crowd. It was Mid Autumn Festival, so it was a public holiday in Taiwan. Normally Fridays at game fairs are less crowded because it is still a work day. I was very busy from opening time 10:30am all the way to closing time 7:00pm. I did not have lunch. I only managed one toilet break. I had very few breaks. When a group was done playing, another would sit down to play. One thing nice was people generally didn't expect to play a full game. Many just wanted to try a few rounds to experience the game. Usually we played 2 or 3 rounds, and I would say "so this is how the game works", and the visitors would move on, and another group would sit down to play. This meant I could show my games to many, many people. 

When my booth was available, if anyone walked past, Michelle or I would say hi and ask whether they wanted to try the game. Most of the time they did. That was why I was so busy the whole day. My voice was hoarse by the late afternoon. 

One thing amazing is people are happy to play together with strangers. Once I had people of three different groups sitting down together to play. When only one person walked past and I managed to invite him or her to play, if another stranger walked past, I'd ask him or her too, and often he or she would sit down to join the first person. 

Before the fair, the organiser Smoox sent out contact details of influencers, exhibitors, publishers and related industry players to everyone, so that we could connect and explore collaboration. I reached out to several influencers and offered them review copies of my games. Many accepted and they came to my booth to collect their games. I felt bad that I was so busy teaching games that I could not chat with them properly. Smoox and the Taiwanese boardgame media did a great job promoting games prior to the event. Many people wrote reviews and previews of many games which would be available at the fair. Many people who came to my booth told me they read about my games so they came to try them. 

This is the commemorative game for TOBE 2026. They make one every year. The cards in the game showcase the games of the exhibitors. I chose to put Pilgrim Poker. Jon's King & Peasant is in the game. Name It from Thailand, and Restoration from Vietnam too. There are 40 games in the game. There were many more at the fair. 

Cat Earth has great components. I have not found out how it plays. I took this photo before opening time on Saturday and no one was at the booth yet. By opening time I was busy at my own booth. Saturday was just as busy for me as Friday. Again non-stop teaching games. The crowd was less than Friday. That was what everyone told me. I did not notice it myself because I was crazy busy. No lunch, and barely any toilet break. In hindsight, I probably should have engaged a local helper. Michelle isn't comfortable with teaching games and she would be rather nervous if I left her at the booth by herself. So I couldn't leave my booth much to connect with other publishers, designers and industry players. Not much chance to explore collaboration or to try the many games at the fair.

Giant Magical Athlete

Chinese edition of deluxe Puerto Rico

There is a Next Station games series from Singapore by designer Dexter Tiah which is different from the more widely know Next Station series by Matthew Dunstan. The first game in this Asian series is about the Singaporean MRT, and the second is about the Taipei MRT. 

This is a casual card game in which you try to be first to get rid of your cards. It's a little like UNO. You must play a card of the same colour as the previous, else you must keep drawing cards until you can do so, or until you have drawn 10 cards. Some cards have two colours, forcing a change of the active colour to another. Some cards are jokers, which also force a colour change. If you have station cards which are immediately adjacent, you can play multiple cards. If you have a set of four cards in the same colour, you can play them as a combo too. 

There are special ability cards with various powers. 

Milk from BGN Thailand saw a chilli hair clip when she was in Taipei, and bought it for my wife. 

Panda from Thailand visited my booth. We met at the Bangkok International Game Festival in August. He is a content creator. From creating content he went on to selling games, and now he is expanding into publishing games too. He will be publishing the Thai editions of Pilgrim Poker and Pinocchio. I am very excited about this collaboration project! 

This is a push-your-luck game Lucky Dumpling. This this here is the giant version. The real version looks very much like this, just smaller. It is absolutely lovely. 

Dog Bark Train (DBT) is a retailer in Taiwan

Dirty Work is a design from Thailand and it has now been localised in Taiwan. It's a great party game! It's clever and it can have dramatic twists of fate. 

Ngu Han Games from Vietnam was at TOBE 2026. This year they released a heavy strategy game Restoration. Plum and Toan were both in Taipei and it was great to meet them again. The last time we met was two years ago at the Thailand Boardgame Show. 

Tom from Gameness (Taiwan) has exhibited at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang twice and I really enjoy his games. Coco Boom is a great party game. 

5-player Pilgrim Poker

Yoyo from Swan Panasia. He and his wife run Witch House, the cafe which I visited regularly in 2003 / 2004 and learned many modern German games. Swan Panasia is one of the biggest publishers in Taiwan now. Yoyo has been wearing a swan hat for many years, and I told him the chilli on my head was inspired by him. He said we must take a photo together. And that the swan wanted to eat some chilli. 

Cute middle aged couple photo taken by Panda?

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Many people came to ask about Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs. They read about it on social media. The Taiwanese circle of boardgame influencers and also TOBE organiser Smoox's team did a great job promoting the many game titles available at TOBE. The games were given much publicity. Normally it is not easy to get Snow White played at a fair, because the minimum player count is 7. Also normally sales is not as good as my other titles due to the player count range. This time I not only managed to get it played, sales was decent too, as good as my other titles. After one particular game, two of the players still hotly discussed the game and how they did the deduction. We moved on to play another game, and as I taught the next game to the group, the two of them couldn't stop discussing excitedly. Another player had to tell them to stop and listen to me. I'm certainly happy that people get so enthusiastic after playing my game. 

I taught Pilgrim Poker so many times that I now have script hardwired into my brain. Even all the jokes are scripted. 

With Casey and Serene from Singapore (Instagram channel: To The Table)

I saw this One Piece themed Dobble / Spot It being sold at a convenience store. I almost wanted to buy it for my younger daughter Chen Rui who is a fan of One Piece. 

Back of the game

My Sunday wristband for TOBE 2026

Sunny Sunday in Taipei. These are the pillar decorations in front of the exhibition halls. 

I love these drawings. They are done well, and they are based on internet memes. The overly enthusiastic parrot is based on that guy explaining some conspiracy theory. That bear waiting for something to happen is based on that meme of the lonely idle guy. That wolf I'm not sure. Maybe that one isn't based on a meme. 

How many chillis can you count in this photo? Answer at the bottom. 

Michelle taught these kids to play Pinocchio. That's the simplest among my games, so if kids came to play, usually we suggested this. These three kids probably just wanted to collect stickers. Fair attendees get a sheet for collecting stickers. Most booths give out stickers if you buy something from them, or if you try their games, or even if you just listen to the game being explained. When you collect enough stickers, I think you get to enter a lucky draw. Maybe you get some other stuff too. I'm not exactly sure. I didn't collect stickers. This sticker collection thing is something the organiser does to help exhibitors with sales. When people visit your booth, it's an opportunity for you to sell your game. Sometimes people visit you for the sake of collecting stickers and they are not really interested in your game, but that's okay. It's still an opportunity. At my booth, some people were happy to have just played one or two rounds. Michelle always gave stickers out the moment people sat down to play, while they were still listening to me explain the rules. This is efficiency. These three kids probably just wanted stickers, so Michelle gave stickers to them as soon as they sat down. She asked them whether they wanted to move on to the next booth to collect more stickers. It was okay if they were not really keen to play. The children felt is wasn't nice to only ask for stickers without playing, and they said they wanted to play. So Michelle taught them and we played several rounds. 

Sunday, to me, was almost as busy as the other two days. Only in the morning I had some free stints. By around noon, my booth was non-stop action again, all the way up to around 6pm. Closing time was a little earlier, at 6:30pm instead of 7:00pm. By around 5:30pm some booths starting packing up. Some booths were huge, with many games on sale. They were effectively shops. They certainly needed more time to do tear down. They had not only much stock to pack but also shelves and giant displays to dismantle. 

There was one guy who came to my booth many times wanting to try my games, but it was always occupied. Michelle noticed him returning several times. He came around closing time on Saturday, but we were already packing up. Michelle asked him to come earlier on Sunday. He told Michelle that he did come early on both Friday and Saturday, but even at opening time my booth was already full. Michelle remembered his face, and Sunday afternoon when there was a lull at my booth, she went out to look for him to bring him to my booth. Shortly after she left, visitors showed up and wanted to play. I couldn't say no. I had to proceed. I was secretly hoping Michelle would find him soon and bring him back before all seats were taken. She did manage to find him. He was very surprised and grateful. By the time he made it back to my booth, there was exactly one last seat available for him. I wasn't sure whether Michelle would find him, and I had just started teaching Pilgrim Poker. I gladly restarted the rule explanation. I'm happy to have people so keen to try my games. I'm glad to be able to show this 3-day guy my games. 

Michelle did a lot bringing people to my booth. She greeted people walking past and invited them to sit down to play. Many people did when invited. She handled sales most of the time, receiving money and handing out games. She chatted with people who had questions, because I was always busy teaching games and playing with visitors. She spoke to the influencers I contacted more than I did. They came to collect review copies I offered. She watched out for people with press passes and checked their names against my to-gift-list. 

This was the other Journey to the West game making a first appearance at TOBE 2026. Since my main game being promoted was based on the Journey to the West too, naturally I was interested to see what this other game was like. 

I didn't manage to play, but I read the rulebook and had a general idea. This is a card game. Two dice are rolled to determine a target number. Players then play cards to try to reach that exact number. They need to do this and also to collect a specific scroll card to win. Many Journey to the West characters appear in the game, and their powers tie well with the theme. I must admit this is probably more thematic than my own game. If you have the Tang Sanzhang card (the master), you can play it to ask for help. Other players must play a card to save the master. Disciple characters like Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing can do that. If you can't, you are eliminated from the game. 

The Journey to the West booth

This is yet another game based on the Journey to the West story. This one is from Hong Kong. The earlier one is from Taiwan. I did not read up on how this one works. 

I am in discussion with a Hong Kong publisher and a Taiwan publisher about localising Pilgrim Poker in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. They might be collaborating to do a version localised for their markets. The gameplay will stay the same, but the theme will be changed. The association with gambling will be removed. The Journey to the West theme might be changed too. Pilgrim Poker did not start with a theme in mind. It was a mechanism first design. I picked the Journey to the West theme because it is something many people already know. Familiarity is inviting, and also helps in learning the game. People understand and remember that Sun Wukong (Monkey King) is powerful (he wins or loses double). The downside of using a familiar theme is they are already used in many other things. I am sure the publishers who are much more experienced than me will find a better theme for their respective markets.  

This is a reader of my Chinese blog. He has been a reader for many years. He brought his son to try my game. It is a special moment for me to meet a reader who has been following my blog. He is a blogger himself, and shares about boardgames. 

One thing I learned was I should have found myself another helper for my booth. I thought with Michelle joining me, I wouldn't need one and I could save some cost. Michelle is proactive in inviting people to my booth to play, and that kept me busy non-stop. That also meant I did not have time at all to do anything else throughout the fair. Not even lunch, and barely any time for toilet breaks. I did not have time to visit other people's booths or play other people's games. There were so many games I had not seen before. I'm going to plan to get a helper next year. I hope to be able to go again next year, and maybe make this an annual thing. By having a helper who can do game teaching, I can also make time to meet publishers and designers, and explore business collaborations. I want to pitch my games to publishers. Michelle is a little nervous about teaching games, so I cannot bear to leave her at the booth by herself for too long. 

Even if I get a helper to teach games, I still need to and want to do some game teaching myself. One comment I heard from visitors was they liked how passionate I was about my games. The direct translation what they said is I light up when I talk about my games. People do appreciate that the designer himself is there to teach his games. People feel the connection. The personal touch is important. And I do enjoy teaching people games and watching them have fun. 

Closing time on Sunday

Team Malaysia! Jon was the only other Malaysian exhibitor. His booth was right next to mine. Buddhima did not exhibit, he was there as a visitor. The Beast of Boardgame team was there too, not to booth but to cover the event and to buy games. 

There were several visitors who came from Hong Kong. When they spoke to me in Mandarin, I could hear the Cantonese accent, and I'd ask whether they were from Hong Kong. When I spoke Cantonese to them they were pleasantly surprised. I told them some Malaysian Chinese speak Cantonese, especially those from Kuala Lumpur. The guy who came the furthest (that I have met) was an American guy whom I have met before at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. He works for an airline and he could fly cheap. So he travels a lot. It's amazing to be able to meet him both in Penang and in Taipei. He likes my games and he has bought them in the past. He wanted to try my new game. 

TOBE 2026 was an amazing experience. It gave me Essen vibes. It is nowhere near as big as Essen, but there were many games I had not seen before. I would say most games are light family games and party type games. There aren't many heavy games like at Essen. There are many localised games, and most heavy games available are from the west and have been localised. TOBE is a paid entry event, so most people who do come are truly keen to try and buy games. At the end of Sunday I asked Michelle, are we going to do this again next year? She said, why not?

How many chillis answer: Six. On top of my head and Michelle's head. In Michelle's hair. On the poster behind us. On the poster behind me in the top right corner. On my apron.