Pinocchio is released!

The first batch of Pinocchio has landed in Kuala Lumpur! I flew a small batch in by air, so that I can bring them to the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang on 11 - 13 July 2025. My plan has been to launch the game at ABGF, but the project was a little slower than I had hoped. If I were to send all the games by ship, they wouldn't make it for the event. So I split them into two batches. The second, bigger batch will be coming by sea. 

Pinocchio is my fourth game release.

The box is a little bigger than I had imagined. I had originally envisioned it to be about the same size as the first edition of Dancing Queen, i.e. like a regular deck of poker cards. Late in the production process, the manufacturer suggested adjusting the size to be larger. I had requested that the box be big enough so that after the cards are sleeved, they can still fit comfortably. The manufacturer is more conservative and recommended a larger size. 

This is what it looks like after sleeving all the cards. It looks like a perfect fit. There is actually still a little extra space, but not too tight is good. I won't stress the box and risk tearing it. 

Now I add both Traditional and Simplified Chinese rulebooks to my games. 

All the game components

Some of the cards

Mock-up of game in play

Pinocchio cards

Donkey cards

This is the unboxing video: 

This is an overview of how to play the game: 

Webpage (and order form): https://www.cilipadigames.com/pinocchio

The Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) will be in Penang 11-13 July 2025 (Friday to Sunday). If you are in Penang or in the north, come visit me to try Pinocchio!

Orleans

The Game

Orleans is a bag-building game from 2014. That was an era not long after Dominion the pioneer deck-building game was released in 2008. Bag-building, mechanism-wise, is the same thing. It’s just that the physical components are different. In Orleans, instead of cards in a deck, you have chips in a bag. Poker chips, not potato chips. Chips are workers of different types. Every round you draw a number of chips from your bag and use them to perform actions. Once they are done, they go back to the bag. 

The various buildings on your player board require specific combinations of workers types to work. If you don’t have that combination in hand, you can’t work the building. You can still choose to assign some workers there and hope that next round you will draw the remaining workers you need. But those workers sent will be idling this round. 

One thing some buildings let you do is to buy new chips (workers). This augments the composition of your bag. There is also an action which removes chips from circulation. Your chips are boatmen, traders, soldiers, craftsmen, scholars and the like. When you recruit a new worker, you get to advance on a specific track. There are many tracks in the game and as you advance you get various benefits.

You will have opportunities to construct new buildings. These are new places you can assign your workers and they give you new abilities. 

One aspect of the game is a map showing towns around Orleans. You have a pawn on the map and you can travel about to claim goods and to build trading posts. Goods are worth points at game end, and trading posts too. 

The game is played over 18 rounds, and events happen every round, sometimes causing trouble and sometimes presenting opportunities. That’s another aspect you have to handle. 

The Play

The game gives you many strategic options - which kind of workers to go for, any buildings which you want to get, how do you travel on the map, which of the tracks to pursue. It’s interesting to manage your pool of workers. You want to tune your worker mix to best serve your strategic direction. Sometimes your needs change and you need to tune again. 

Competition comes in many aspects. You race to grab buildings. On the tracks there are spots offering citizens (which help with map scoring) and you need to race to grab them. Movement on the map is a race too, because there are plenty of goods tiles to be picked up by whoever passes by first. There is a finite number of workers of each type. It is possible that they run out and you can't recruit any more. That's another thing you race for.

Worker retirement involves some competition too. When you want to remove a worker from circulation, you need to place it on an Important Deeds board. They go there to retire. There are different sections which give different rewards. Naturally you want to go for the bigger rewards most of the time. One twist is the player who places the last worker in a group gets a citizen. Now you need to be careful not to set up for your opponent to gain a citizen. 

In a two player game there is less competition on the map. We went in different directions and did not interfere with each other. By late game we had established many trading posts and claimed many goods tiles. 

This is a development game. Everyone starts with the same capabilities, but as you play you augment your abilities in different ways. It is satisfying to watch your powers grow. 

The Thoughts

Orleans is a little different from typical deck-building games. Many deck-building games have two currencies, one is like money which you use to buy other cards, and the other is like strength, which you use for defeating monsters or beating up your opponent. Card deck-building games usually have cards with nifty powers. In Orleans, you simply have different types of chips, which can be used in different combinations for different purposes. The dynamics are different, and that is refreshing. You are constantly adjusting your bag composition, and it is satisfying to be able to see things pan out. The "reshuffling" happens very soon, because once a worker completes their task, they go back into the bag. Instant gratification! 

Asian Board Games Festival Malaysia 2025

This is the most important boardgame event in Malaysia - the Asian Board Games Festival. This is held in Penang every year. It was first held last year, and this year it is already growing much better. We are having many more exhibitors from overseas, many from South East Asia. I will be exhibiting under Cili Padi Games too, and I will be bringing my latest game Pinocchio. Also Dancing Queen (Malaysian 2nd edition). Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves did not take part in ABGFMY last year, because it wasn't released yet then. So this is going to be the first time Ali Baba is showcased to the public in Penang. If you are in Penang or in the north, do come and play! 11 - 13 July 2025. 

More information: https://www.asianboardgamesfestival.com/abgf-my-2025

Ginkgopolis

The Game

Ginkgopolis is a game from 2012. I remember reading about it when it was first released. It received positive reviews, and was nominated for several awards. I was only able to give it a try recently on BoardGameArena.com. This is a game I didn't fully grasp even at the end of a complete game, but that's partly because I was playing online, and I had only breezed through the tutorial without reading the rules in detail. I generally understood the rules, but I wasn't exactly clear what the strategy should be. So my opinions about the game may not be well-rounded. I am further thinking about and digesting the game as I write this. 

Ginkgopolis is about developing a city. The city starts as a 3x3 grid of nine tiles. As you develop the city, you may place tiles on top of others, or add tiles along the edges (where the discs are), increasing the area. You have a hand of four cards, and the cards will always show either the number of one of the tiles, or the letter of one of the discs. The card deck in play is live. Whenever a new tile with a new number is introduced, a card with that number will be added to the game. Whenever a tile is covered by another, you claim the numbered card, taking it out of circulation. These cards you claim have various powers, some helping you gain resources during the game, and some giving you points at game end. 

Hand cards are passed among players. After you choose a card to play for the current round, the other cards are passed right. You will receive three cards from your left neighbour, and you will draw a new card. So together you will have four cards for the next round.  

There are three kinds of buildings in the game. Blue buildings help you gain new tiles. New tiles are needed for either growing the city upwards or sideways. Red buildings help you collect player markers. Whenever you place a tile, you also place your player marker or markers on it, indicating that this is your contribution. Player markers exert influence, and when you control districts at game end, you score points. If you are short of player markers, you can't place tiles. So this is a resource you must manage. Yellow buildings help you score points. You will score some during the game, but the bulk will come at game end. 

There is area majority competition in Ginkgopolis. At game end, every district is scored. A district means a connected group of at least two tiles of the same colour. You compare who has the most and second most markers in the district. Only these two players will score points, and the point value depends on the number of markers in the district. Districts grow and shrink during the game, because you can stack a tile of a different colour onto an existing tile. This area majority scoring is something you have to plan for throughout the game. 

The Play

Every round, players decide what they are going to do at the same time. You don't actually have many options, since you are limited by the four cards in hand. Also you are limited by the tiles you have. However your every decision can have many implications. Remember any card you don't choose goes to your right neighbour. You don't want to give them something very useful to them. You always have to manage these two resources - tiles and player markers. Whenever you are lacking in either one, you suddenly find yourself short on options. The many different aspects of the game are tightly integrated. One decision affects several things. You need to think about which tiles to cover so that you can claim their cards to augment your abilities. All this while you are also manipulating your dominance in the districts, and you are shaping the districts themselves too. 

If we refer to the screenshot above, we can see that district scoring has a big impact. There is one large blue district with 8 of the yellow player's markers and 6 of the pink player's markers. If the game ends now, yellow scores 8+6=14 points, and pink scores 8 points. 

The Thoughts

I have not fully organised my thoughts about Ginkgopolis. At the moment, it is a game I admire but not a game I like. The rational part of me says this is a well-designed game, but the emotional part is not moved by it. This might be because I spent the whole game trying to digest the strategy, and I had to spend the time writing this post to continue digesting it. So I did not have the opportunity to truly enjoy the game. This is a game with little fluff, and I like that. It is compact and tight. Many popular heavy games have several superfluous elements which aren't really important to gameplay. Ginkgopolis doesn't have such. Everything is linked to everything else. Your every move is important and has many implications. This is a game of meaningful decisions. 

My string of failures

Most of the games I publish are failures. That sounds weird, and clickbait-like, but it's true. Dancing Queen should be considered a success, because Matagot picked it up and published an international edition. But this was later. In 2021 I designed Dancing Queen because I signed up for a game design competition on BGG. Winning that competition was a huge boost to my confidence level. And maybe to my recklessness too. I tried to submit the game to some publishers who make card games, to no avail. So I decided to publish it myself. I must admit this is an ego trip. And this was how my indie design studio and publisher Cili Padi Games was born. 

A sensible person who goes into game design is not doing it for money. Making money from designing games has an extremely low success rate. If you ask me to invest in a start-up game design and publishing house, I'll just say no without asking. That's not called investing. That's charity. We design games because of the ego trip. To phrase it more positively, this is how we explore meaning in life. Creation is an exploration of meaning and purpose. Starting a small indie publisher and printing your own game is not prohibitively expensive. The barrier of entry is low, even if the success rate is miniscule. We do it simply because we want to see our design published. We are spending money, time and energy to fulfil a dream. I want to be honest with myself on this. 

I was lucky that Dale Yu from the Opinionated Gamers, one of the top boardgame bloggers in the world, liked Dancing Queen and recommended it. That was how it got picked up by Matagot. It became my first game published internationally by an established boardgame publisher. In the past few years I have been taking part in game design competitions and pitching my games to publishers. I did not have much success. In competitions my games brought home consolation prizes at best. One moderate achievement was Taking Sides (later renamed to Rebels of the Three Kingdoms) getting through to the second round of the Hippodice game design competition. I take part in competitions as a strategy for marketing my games and myself. If I can win something, I can use that as a selling point. Just like Dancing Queen. In the larger and better run competitions, another benefit is getting feedback from experienced game designers and players. At some of the smaller competitions, sometimes I have doubts about the judges. How well are they judging the entries? There was one particular incident I was quite disappointed about. One of the judges admitted that one of the winning games had weak gameplay, but it was pretty. This goes against my belief about game design competitions. A game design competition should be about game design, not art and graphic design. Yes, a published game must have good art, professionally done. That's the minimal industry standard. But this is a game design competition. 

I have learned to not get too fixated about competition results. People's tastes in boardgames can be very different. A judge not liking my game may not necessary mean my game is bad. It might. Or it might not. Or maybe I'm just sour grapes. I should spend more time comparing my games with the winning games to see how I can do better. Or differently. If I want to win competitions, it is not only about making a good game. It is about making a game the judges like. 

I have also learned to be less fixated about failing to pitch to publishers. When accepting pitches, publishers have so many games to vet through, to be able to catch their attention requires your game to have something that stands out. There are many reasons why a publisher is not interested in your game. It can be because they already have a similar game. Or they do not want to go into this genre. Or their hands are full for the next 12 months. It's not only about whether the game itself is good. I had tried to pitch Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves to a publisher. That didn't work out, so I published it myself. Pinocchio is a game that other publishers didn't want, and it didn't even survive the first round in a competition. Rebel of the Three Kingdoms will likely be my 2026 project. I had wanted to pitch that to a publisher too, but that didn't work out either. So I have to do it myself. This is my string of failures. 

One good news is Malaysian Holidays. This is a game I successfully pitched to a publisher. This is my second game which found a publisher. I am very excited about it. 

In addition to rejection at competitions and when pitching to publishers, another type of rejection I need to learn to accept is from the reviewers. This type is a little easier to handle. I know games is a very personal thing. People have different tastes and preferences. I have been told my games are dull, lack control, too mathy, and overly simplistic. While I learn to not be discouraged by negative feedback, I also understand the importance of learning from them. If different people give me the same negative feedback, they are probably right and I should make improvements. In fact, every negative feedback is right, in that it reflects what that person feels about the game. 

Some do enjoy my games. It always make me happy when I meet someone and they tell me they've played Dancing Queen before and they think it's great. 

The boardgame industry doesn't need more game designers or game publishers. We have more than enough. Looking at the number of games published every year, we know no one can play them all. Even if you skip all the mediocre and poor games, there are already more good games than you can ever finish playing. The world doesn't need designers to do designing. It is the designers who need to do designing. We need this dream. It is purpose. It is meaning. 

Keep hustling and learning. 

Defuse

I have been playing many boardgames online lately, that my blog is starting to look like one for digital games. So I need to play a physical game once in a while to get back to something non-digital. I need a digital detox. I still have games bought last year which I have not played. Defuse was one of them. 

The Game

Defuse is a game design from Thailand. It won several awards a few years ago. This is a roll-and-write game inspired by Minesweeper, that computer game in older versions of Windows. I used to play a lot of Minesweeper and I was pretty good at it. 

Minesweeper

Every player has a sheet of paper like this. This is your player board. This photo above shows the end of a game. At the start of a game it is blank, of course. The game is played over 10 rounds. Every round four dice are rolled, two black and two orange. You must pick a colour and use the numbers rolled to fill your sheet. 

The coloured spaces on your sheet are buildings. No colour means open space. Numbers need to be filled in buildings for them to score points, although you can write numbers on open space. Similarly bombs (black dots) can be drawn anywhere, just that if they are drawn in a building, that's one building you won't be able to use for scoring. 

The 8-sided dice give you numbers, and the 6-sided dice give you pips. When you fill a number in a space, it means how many spaces around it are bombs (including diagonally adjacent spaces). Pips are bombs. You must draw the same number of bombs as the number of pips. You must fill the number first, because your first bomb must be adjacent to that number. Subsequent bombs must connect to your first bomb drawn this round. 

When the number in a space matches the number of bombs surrounding it, that's good news. It means this space is secured. All bombs have been identified. All these bombs are defused. You draw a box around the number, and circles around every bomb next to it. You also draw lines linking the bombs to the number. If there are empty spaces next to the number, you cross them all out, because it is impossible for them to have bombs now. If the space with the number is a building, it will help you with scoring. 

Sometimes invalid situations occur, e.g. the number of bombs surrounding a number is more than the number, or all spaces around a number have been filled, but the number of bombs is too low. In such situations, you will need to use tools to make corrections. There's a tool which lets you change a number. There's one which lets you add or remove bombs. You start the game with some tools, and during play you may gain more. Leftover tools are worth points. In case you run out of tools and cannot use them to fix any invalid situations, you must still make the fixes, just that instead of using tools, you are taking penalty. In game terms these are called mistakes. Every mistake costs 1 point. If you make more than 20, you lose immediately. 

Most of your points come from buildings (i.e. coloured spaces) which have numbers and have been secured. It is not possible to put a number in every building. You'll have to choose. Orange is residential. Everyone compares the sum of their numbers in orange buildings. You score points based on ranking. Purple is government departments. You want to fill the same number in them. The more same numbers you have, the more points you score. Other colours score in other different ways. One other way you score is complex bombs. This means defused bombs linked to two or more numbers. This is one consideration when you fill your sheet. 

The Play

I found the game difficult to learn. It is based on Minesweeper, but there are many other rules. Now that I know how to play, it isn't actually that complicated. But somehow reading the rules was quite challenging. Maybe it's the small font making reading difficult, or maybe how the rules are written and organised can be done better. I needed to actually play the game to get a clear understanding. The first few rounds I still had to refer to the rules several times. I made quite a few mistakes I had to correct, and I created a mess on my sheet. 

Once I understood how the game worked, it was smooth sailing. The board initially gives an impression that there is a lot of space. Once you get into it, you will realise that the spaces quickly fill up. By Round 10 you will be more or less running out of space. There is no direct player interaction, but for some of the scoring criteria you have to compete with the other players. So there is some pressure. It is helpful to watch your opponents. It helps you decide where to compete and where to concede, so that you don't waste effort and you grab opportunities which others have given up. Overall this feels like a solo game, since this is roll-and-write after all. 

The Thoughts

It's interesting to see Minesweeper implemented as a roll-and-write game. If you have played Minesweeper before and enjoy it, or if you like roll-and-write games, give it a go. 

DNP Game Design Competition

In 2025 I am doing one thing I have never done before - organising a boardgame design competition. I am also one of the judges for this competition. Since getting into game design, I have participated in many game design competitions. However this is the first time I am on the organising team. This competition was initiated by local game designer Jon (King & Peasant, Furmation of Rome). In the past several years, there has been another game design competition held in Malaysia - MYBOGADECO (Malaysia Board Game Design Competition). I have participated before. This competition has been held three times. It won't be run this year, and Jon felt that was a shame. He said why not we do it ourselves. I said if he's going to do it, I'll support him. And that's how DNP (Design and Play) game design competition came about. Jon is driving this and doing most of the work. We had in-depth discussions and did planning together. I was mostly the sounding board. We have six judges. In addition to Jon and I, we have Chee Kong (Zodiac Go), Buddhima (My Rain Forest, Chinese Flower Card), Logan (Nasi Lemak), Haireey (Drama Pukul 7, Nak Makan Apa). I can't say that we the local game designers and publishers have big achievements we can boast about. What I can say of all of us is we have been through that journey of designing, playtesting, producing and marketing games. We don't have a lot, but we are willing to share what we have learned with fellow Malaysians who have interest to explore game design. 

Before we decided to do this, I asked Jon what our objective was. We spent some time discussing and agreeing on this. We should not be starting any project when the objective has not been clearly defined. Our objective is to encourage more people to get into game design. I want to discover game design talent. We want Malaysia to produce more games and better games. Game design and publishing in Malaysia is in its infancy. We don't have anything we can be particularly proud of that captures global attention. There is much space for growth. We are organising the competition under the MBD label.

MBD is  Malaysia Boardgame Design. This is a group started only earlier this year. The idea behind it is based to TBD - Taiwan Boardgame Design. It is about game designers working together, helping one another grow and learn, sharing knowledge and resources, and organising activities together. It is a way we coordinate and help one another. At the moment we are only a small informal group. We have not done any official registration. One thing we hope to do is to apply for a government grant to promote Malaysian game designs at the Essen game fair in 2026. 

As Jon and I planned, the two biggest challenges we expected were money and participants. Organising a game design competition in Malaysia is not profitable. There is little publicity to be gained. Any sponsor will just be doing charity work to support local game design. You don't really need a huge sum of money, but when you are giving money away, even with a small sum you'd wonder why you are parting with your money. Is it really worthwhile? Thankfully both the potential sponsors Jon approached were willing to support the competition. So money was settled. Jon and I had mentally prepared ourselves that we might have to fork out some money. The other big challenge is the number of participants. If we only have a handful of participants, we would not be achieving our goal. During the registration period (the month of May), Jon spent some money on Facebook to get the word out. We want people to know about this competition. We the judges also reached out to our respective circles to promote this competition. When registration closed at the end of May, we had 110 participants. This was amazing! It far exceeded my expectations. Earlier on when Jon and I discussed this, I asked if we had fewer than 20, would we still go ahead with it? I said we must set a go-no-go condition. This was the project manager in me talking. 

It is wonderful that we managed to get 110 participants. This also means the judges are going to have a lot of work. In the first stage of the competition participants must submit a rulebook and a short video giving an overview of the game. Every entry will be scored by at least three judges. That means every judge must score at least 55 entries. Eight participants will advance to the second stage (also the final stage). They are required to submit their physical game prototypes, and the judges will sit down to play these games. The deadline for Stage 1 is end of July. In the first half of August we the judges need to complete our scoring, so that the eight finalists will be able to ship their games to us before the end of August. The first half of September will be playtesting and judging of the finalist games. We plan to announce the results on 16 September, Malaysia Day. This is fitting, because the theme for the competition is Malaysia. 

There is a reason we chose Malaysia to be the theme for the competition. The prize for the competition is getting your game published. In case you don't want it, you can convert that to a cash prize of MYR 1000. We wanted to make sure the prize is attractive enough to make people want to spend the effort designing a game. It is motivating to have your game getting published for real. We chose Malaysia as the theme and as a requirement because if we were going to publish the winner, we wanted the game to be something Malaysians are familiar with and would accept easily. Being a publisher means making marketable products that many people want, not art pieces that only a handful of people appreciate. One other criteria for the game design is it must have at most 52 cards. This is to control production cost and manageability, and also a card game is generally simpler and easier to learn than a boardgame. 

After the registration deadline, we set up a WhatsApp group, inviting all participants. We encouraged them to share their ideas, their rulebooks, and to exchange ideas. Several have already shared their rulebooks and also obtained feedback. Writing rulebooks is difficult, more so than most people realise. People often complain when they read rulebooks, because they are impatient. They don't realise how much effort has gone into making the rulebook as easy to read as possible, and complete, and unambiguous. When learning to become a good game designer, engaging with fellow designers and learning from one another are immensely helpful. I hope this little community of game designers will continue to be active after the competition, and we can develop more and more game designers, and better game designs from Malaysia. 

2025 is the first time we are doing the DNP competition. I hope it creates a significant impact that continues to be felt after the competition. I hope this will continue year after year, and help Malaysia find its mark in game design. 

Tranquility

The Game

Tranquility is a cooperative game and an abstract game. It has cards numbered 1 to 80, which needs to be played onto a 6x6 grid. If you manage to fill the grid before the deck runs out, you win. 

Players cannot discuss their hands or communicate in any way. This is supposed to be a silent, zen game. On your turn, you either play a card or discard two cards. At the end of your turn you draw back to your hand limit. The numbers in the grid must go from smallest at the bottom left to highest at the top right. Within each row, the numbers must increase from left to right, and the number range in a row must be higher than the row below it. So effectively this grid is a single 36-space row where numbers must go from low to high. When you play a card, if the adjacent spaces (left and right, including wrapping around to the next row) are empty, you play the card for free. If there is an adjacent number, you must pay a fee in the form of cards being discarded. The fee is the difference between the number played and the adjacent number. So if you play a 23 next to a 24, you must discard 1 card. Cards discarded like this will be lost forever, because there is no reshuffling of the discard pile. 

In addition to the number cards, there are some start cards and some finish cards in the deck. The term start card is misleading. You don't actually have to play it at the start. You just need to make sure you have played one during the game. Else you can't win. Playing a start card requires some thinking. When you do it, you will draw several cards, and you will also be forced to discard several cards. It is a time for difficult decisions. The finish card only needs to be played before you finish. You must make sure you have at least one left, so that you can play it after filling the grid. This is how you win. 

The Play

The card deck is your life points. You must complete your mission before you run out of life points. Conserving cards is important. If you need to make payment all the time, the cards won't last. You also need to be careful not to discard cards which you might need. If there is a space between two numbers, but all the cards that can fit have been discarded, you will lose. It certainly helps to card count. I'm too lazy to do that. I only try to remember some of the important or easy-to-remember numbers. E.g. if I have placed 79 in the second last spot, I will keep in mind not to discard the 80 when I draw it. 

In the early game I try not to play cards next to other cards, to avoid the need to discard cards. You know roughly which number should go where, but this is not exact math. Whether you have placed a number at a good position depends on the card draw. You can only take your best guess and hope things work out. 

The first game I played was a two-player game with Han. We weren't sure about the strategy and fumbled along, figuring things out as we played. Needless to say that game didn't go so well and we lost with two spaces we were unable to fill - this screenshot below. 

Afterwards I tried this as a solo game. Now that I understood the strategy, the game felt pretty easy. I won pretty comfortably. I think the game is easier as a solo game. With two or more players, you don't know what cards your teammates have. I wonder whether the game is too easy as a solo game and doesn't quite work. This screenshot below was taken shortly before I won the solo game. I knew I still had cards smaller than 4, and it was a matter of when I'd draw one. I already had a finish card on standby. 

The Thoughts

This is an abstract game. It is a simple cooperative game. I don't yet have a good grasp of the difficulty of winning. I believe it will be more challenging and also more interesting with more players. I don't think it works as a solo game because it seems to be too easy. But take this with a grain of salt - I have only played it once solo. The game is for 1 to 5 players. BGG says it is best with two. I'm not sure whether it is because I won the solo game easily, I find the game a little dull. It is a light game that casual players can easily ease into, and it's cooperative so if you have non-gamer friends who want to play a peaceful, non-competitive and simple game, this might work. 

Behind the scenes: Dancing Queen

 

The international edition of Dancing Queen is now out, from French publisher Matagot. This year, I am also releasing a Malaysian second edition. It uses the original art from the 2022 first edition. The international edition has different art. Unlike the first edition which was manufactured in Malaysia, this second edition is manufactured in China, with Magicraft. They have been my manufacturing partner since Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs. There are only minor changes in the second edition. Instead of a custom tuckbox, I now use a standard two-piece box. It is sturdier. The cards won't come pre-sleeved anymore. That was a bit too much work when my interns and I did this sleeving. There will be rules in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. I have now added the Chinese name to the cover. The 9 main cards will not have text descriptions for their powers. The song titles remain. However the card powers will be represented using icons, to make the components more language neutral. The text descriptions of the card powers will be on the reference cards. 

Welcome to the Moon, and to New Las Vegas

The Game

Welcome to the Moon is part of a family of games - the Welcome To series. I have not played the first game in the series. This was my first time being introduced to the series. This is a roll-and-write game. Technically you don’t roll, because there are no dice. Instead you draw cards. Every round three pairs of cards are drawn, determining the three options you have. Everyone decides which pair to use and marks their individual player sheets. In this game you compete to launch colony ships to the room. Marking your player sheet translates to preparing your colony ship. Once anyone has enough points to launch, the game ends and you compare points. 

The golden rule in this game as you fill your sheet is the numbers in every row must be in increasing order. For example if you fill a 9 in a particular spot, thereafter any spot to the left must be less than 9, and any spot to the right must be more than 9. The number distribution of the cards is from 1 to 15. The middling numbers occur more frequently, the extreme numbers rarely. In each pair of cards drawn every round, one is a number and the other an icon. The icon tells you which row you can fill the number. You choose from the three pairs and then choose a valid spot on your sheet to fill the number. In case you can’t, you take a penalty (in game terms, an error). As you fill up sections on your sheet, you gain various benefits. Rocket icons increase your readiness to launch, which translates to points. There are some inactive rocket icons. For them to take effect you need to activate them first using an activate icon. There is an icon which lets you fill a spot with an X. Sometimes it is hard to fill spots due to the number restriction. When you fill an X you are not subject to this restriction. Finally there is an error icon which forces your opponents to lose points. Such attack icons in specific sections can only be activated once by the first player to complete the sections. If another player completes the same section afterwards, there is no more attack triggered. 

The icons in the corners of the number cards tell you these are the icons you can expect next round. 

As you gain rockets, you cross them off accordingly on the right. Once you cross out all these rockets, you launch and the game ends. The player who launches scores 150 points for launching, but may lose points from errors (red exclamation mark). Launching doesn't necessarily mean you win. 

You must complete a room (not the whole level) to gain the benefits. For example in the blue row (above), you only need to fill the two leftmost spots to complete that room on the left to gain its benefits. 

The Play

Welcome to the Moon is a fun game of risk assessment and completing sets. You can pursue different goals. How successful you are is somewhat dependent on luck, but your choices do make a difference. You should fill your sheet in a strategic manner to keep your options open as much as possible. You want to position yourself such that no matter what cards get revealed, there is something useful you can do. There is a wild row. Regardless of icon you can always fill a number there. It is an important safety net. You want to maximise points by activating those inactive rockets before you complete their sections. You want to have some X’s ready to fill those difficult spots. There are several tactical considerations to ponder. However there are only three pairs of cards to choose from, so you probably won’t have analysis paralysis. 

Although mostly a solo game, you do have to watch your opponents a little, because of the attack abilities. You don’t want to be at the receiving end too much. It’s nice to see a roll-and-write game have a bit of player interaction. 

The Thoughts

I find the game highly enjoyable. There are many clever little things you can do. It is satisfying to learn to manage risk well and to be able to plan your development well despite the uncertainty. The game is easy to understand and it will work for casual gamers. 

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Welcome to New Las Vegas

This is another game in the series. After trying Welcome to the Moon as a two player game, I gave this a go but as a solo game, playing against a bot. There are several common principles, but I find the game quite different. It’s still roll-and-write, but it’s a bit more complex. You still have those three pairs of cards, but instead of choosing a pair, you choose a number from one pair, and then you must choose an icon from another pair. So instead of three options, you have six. 

The things you do in the game are different. It is not only about filling spaces. One thing you need to do is to trace the path for a VIP's limousine. He needs to make a circuit before the game ends, and certain casinos (spots in this game are called casinos) he passes by gives you benefits. If he doesn't complete the trip and return to the airport by game end, you lose points based on how far he is from the airport. 

One way you score points is having consecutive odd or even numbers. You score points based on your longest odd stretch and even stretch. You also score points for completing columns on your sheet. There are several dimensions to juggle. 

Some of the plots are empty, and you need to perform the construction action to build the casino before you can fill any number. 

The scoring sheet looks intimidating, but once each section is explained it's not that complicated. However during play there are multiple aspects to consider and prioritise, so this is a more challenging game than Welcome to the Moon. You can charge up a power (the opening ceremony track along the top) and use it for three special actions (top right). For example one special action lets you treat an icon as wild. This gives you a bit more control, but it also means more to think about on your turn. 

I'd say Welcome to the Moon is more beginner friendly, and for those who like roll-and-write games and want a bit more challenge, then go for Welcome to New Las Vegas. I personally enjoy Welcome to the Moon more. I prefer the simplicity. Welcome to New Las Vegas felt a bit like too much work. Maybe it was because I was expecting a carefree holiday but it was actually a city planner and chauffeur job.