The Asian Board Games Festival (ABGF) was run in Malaysia for the first time on 20-21 Jul 2024. It was run in Penang. Many game designers from Kuala Lumpur made the way to Penang to be exhibitors. There were also quite a few visitors who traveled all the way there from KL. That is amazing. It's a four hour drive at least, unless you drive very fast.
This was the first time I used my red Cili Padi Games desk mat. I'm quite pleased with it. Jon told me that he used to use a desk mat too, but has decided not to now, because his logo design is a bit complicated and is thus visually distracting when playing games. He's going to work on a new desk mat design. Mine should be alright, since my logo is simple.
The tables are not very big. I had originally intended to display more of my games, but due to the table size eventually I only displayed my two published games Dancing Queen and Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs. I did demo my unpublished prototypes though.
ABGF was held in conjunction with a bigger event, the George Town Festival, which was from 19 to 28 July.
This is Tradition and Innovation, my latest game design project. The festival was an opportunity to get my games playtested with new players. The design criteria for this project included being playable by primary school children and lasting no more than 30 minutes. So the overall design is simple. When I put together the game, in my mind I told myself this wasn't really the kind of game I like, because it was too simple for me. I was making the game for others to like, not for myself. During ABGF I managed to get Tradition and Innovation played by many different groups of different sizes (testing different player counts). One pleasant surprise was it created quite a few dramatic moments. In one particular game, we came down to the very last card draw in the very last round, which would determine whether the leading team would win, or the game would end with no winner. That was a nail-biting experience. Now I'm more excited about further developing the game. Maybe with some adjustments or additions I can make this a light strategy game which I would be keen to play too. I have also thought about turning this into a training activity that I can use in my training work. There is a moral-of-the-story thing behind this game. It is not a cooperative game. It is a team vs team game. However there is a message about greater good vs selfishness.
I taught Dancing Queen many times.
Cedric wore a dragon hat while teaching his dragon boat game. His booth was right next to mine.
Haireey is from Penang so he was back at his home turf. His Meja Belakang brand colour is light blue, so he has a different tablecloth that stands out among the crowd.
The festival ran 10am to 10pm both days. For those 12 hours most of us exhibitors had no time to rest. Almost every table had a non-stop flow of people wanting to play. I didn't really have time to eat. I ate burgers halfway through teaching games. Even toilet breaks were barely possible. I wanted to visit other booths and try other designers' games. There was a designer from Vietnam and I was curious to try her game. Unfortunately I simply did not have time to visit others. The other reason was since they were so busy teaching their games to visitors, it wouldn't be nice for me to take up their time. After the event there was a gathering for exhibitors at Kohii boardgame cafe to play one another's games. Too bad I couldn't join as I had to leave for Kuala Lumpur by then.
The Asian Board Game Festival was initiated by Daryl Chow and Nick Pang of Origame from Singapore. They are an established publisher now and have many titles under their belt. Their games have reached many countries. The Malaysian ABGF was organised by Choon Ean (Kaki Lima, Bansan) from LUMA and her team. It was a successful event and we are all looking forward to the next one. We still need to work hard to spread the love of boardgames in Malaysia. It is still a pretty niche hobby and most Malaysians know nothing about modern boardgames. We still have a lot of work to do.
Chee Kong's booth was on the 1st floor. Mine was on the ground floor. Normally for boardgame events we would worry that the ground floor would get decent foot traffic, but the 1st floor would get little. In our case, the 1st floor booths were just as busy as the ground floor booths. It was amazing.
The minimum player count for Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs is seven. Often when I exhibit at events it is hard to get enough players. Not many visitors at events go in groups of seven or more. At ABGF, we had enough visitors that it was easy to bring together different groups to play. I managed to demonstrate Snow White quite a fair bit. My booth didn't have enough chairs and some of the players had to stand. Thankfully they only needed to hold one card throughout the whole game, so not having a seat wasn't an issue. Whenever any visitor asked to play Snow White and didn't have enough players, we just turned around and ask other visitors whether they wanted to join. Most of the time we could quickly find willing dwarfs.
Photo credit: Kee Sit
Day 2 of the festival, a Sunday, was Poon Jon's birthday. All of us sang him a birthday song at the mall. It must have been unforgettable for him.
Photo credit: Tropical Spice Garden
The day after the festival, a Monday, some of us exhibitors visited the Tropical Spice Garden. This is probably the most zen group photo I have ever been part of.
I had a great experience at the ABGF. One thing that I truly appreciated is to be able to connect with people in boardgame related businesses in the north. Boardgame cafe owners, bookstore owners, retailers. It is a joy to be in the company of fellow enthusiasts who are also working hard promoting boardgames in Malaysia. I hope boardgames in Malaysia continue to grow, and bring joy and connections to many more people.
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