my 2024

2024 has been a memorable year for me. Having been a boardgame hobbyist for 20 years, this was the first time I visited the Essen game fair in Germany. For boardgamers, Essen is a pilgrimage. I went purely as a gamer. I was not an exhibitor. I did not go as a publisher or as a business. I was a consumer going there to fully enjoy myself. And what an experience it was. It was earth-shattering to me, a first timer. So many games, and so many are interesting. So much to see and to be amazed by. By gamer standards, I didn't buy that many games from the fair. Mostly small box card games, and only a few standard sized boardgames. Several months in, and there are still many I have not yet played. I have much homework ahead. 

 

Of the games I played for the first time in 2024, my favourite isn't even a recent game. It is Seven! (with exclamation mark). This is a simple and silly card game. The core mechanism is straightforward. It is something casual players can easily pick up and enjoy. Despite the simplicity, I like how it creates tension and surprises for the players. There certainly is some luck, but it's exhilarating when you feel you've read your opponents correctly. I am working hard on creating games like this - simple yet enjoyable, and not rehashes, and not dumb. 

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a race game, and normally race games are not my thing. However I enjoyed it greatly, despite having only played it online. Days of Wonder (the publisher) is working their magic. Excellent game choice and amazing production. 

Riftforce is a 2-player card game which gave me a pleasant surprise. Even after reading the rules I wasn't confident I would like it. Only after playing it I was able to appreciate the intricacies of the design. 

An Infamous Traffic was a memorable experience. This is a game about China and the opium wars. This story is not often told in boardgames. 

I have played many trick-taking games, and by now I tend to be wary of them. OnStage / SangDen from Vietnam turned out to be delightful. It has several neat ideas, and they come together splendidly. 

Other new-to-me games I like are Hegemony, Ticket To Ride Legacy (Legends of the West), Sky Team and 300: Earth & Water. 

The number of plays I had in 2024 is less than in 2023. In 2023 I had 813 plays, of which 678 were Race for the Galaxy, Star Realms and Ascension. After deducting these three which greatly distorted my total, the total becomes 135. In 2024, I had 534 plays, of which 440 were the same three games plus Dominion. Deducting the big four, the total becomes 94. The big numbers come from games with digital versions. That is why I manage play a lot. Some are played with Han, and some against AI's. In 2024 I played 72 different games, slightly more than 2023 when I played 61 different games. I knew I was playing less in 2024, because I was busy with work, and also my boardgame time was spent not only on purely playing games, but also on designing, playtesting, publishing and selling games. 

I published two games in 2024, Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Snow White was originally slated for end of 2023, but it was delayed and released only in early 2024. Ali Baba was scheduled for December 2024, but I managed to get it out by early November. I guess that's an improvement. I have started work on my 2025 game. I have decided the next one will be Pinocchio. I have been thinking about which game to choose for some time. I pick Pinocchio because I want my next game to be something simple and has wide appeal. That means it needs to be something casual gamers and non-gamers can easily learn and enjoy. The price point needs to be low. Non-gamers find it hard to accept the typical price points of games that gamers are used to. 

My first published game Dancing Queen has sold out. I have no more stock available. There may still be stock at some of the retailers which have bought copies from me. Dancing Queen will have an international release by a large publisher likely within the first half of 2025. Since an established and experienced publisher is publishing and marketing it, normally I would not need to work on the publishing part of the game any more. They have many more resources than I do and can do it much better than I can. However there is something about the older art and theme that I still feel attached to. So I decided to still do my own small print run, with the agreement of the main publisher of course. So there will be a second Malaysian edition of Dancing Queen, in addition to the international edition. This edition will have Chinese added, because I want to enter the Chinese language market, not just in Malaysia but also hopefully in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. The international edition will be in English and French, and will likely be focused on the US and Europe markets. So I'm hoping to do something for Dancing Queen to prepare for expansion to Asian markets. 

The second Malaysian edition of Dancing Queen will be different from the first. This time I am getting Magicraft to do the printing. I won't be using the custom-made Ricola-style box. It will have normal paper based cards and not PVC cards. It won't come pre-sleeved. So the 2022 first edition of Dancing Queen will become a rare edition. If someone offers to buy your copy at a high price, please don't sell it. Either that or take the opportunity to charge an arm and a leg. The second edition will have a lower price point, because those changes above will help me lower my production cost. 

2024 has been a busy year for me in the game design and publishing part of my boardgame hobby, especially in the marketing area. I counted that I have participated in 7 events as an exhibitor. Game On Lah in Putrajaya in February, HELP University Open Day in May, BOXCON (KLIA2) in June, Asian Board Game Festival in Penang (Malaysia) in July, MTG Family Day in August, C2AGE (comics, cosplay, anime & games) in September, Thailand Board Game Show in November. I don't always break even with my sales at events, but events are more about exposure and marketing than profitability and sales. Breaking even is nice, but it is not always something to be expected. Or maybe I need to learn to do my sales better. 

The Malaysian boardgame market is small. We the people in the industry still need to work hard to grow the market. We need to invest much effort in creating awareness, in spreading the love of boardgames. We are far behind many other Asian countries. 

Having spent much time, effort and money on many different events, I have learned much and I strive to be more selective in 2025, and to manage my booth better. I need to be clear about the objective I'm trying to achieve for each event, be it building my brand, connecting with other people in the industry, selling my games, getting my games playtested by strangers or learning from others. Certainly my trip to Bangkok to exhibit at the Thailand Board Game Fair has been eye-opening. 

Other than exhibiting, I have also attended other types of events. I went to some Tzu Chi activities. I visited the boardgame club at Monash University. Some of these help to introduce more people to this wonderful hobby of ours, and that's something I'm happy to do. 

I took part in the Pegasus pitching day, in the Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia (YBAM) game design competition, and in the Hippodice game design competition. All were good learning experiences. 

With so much time spent on all these activities, it is no wonder that I have been spending less time playing commercially published games. 

Boardgames is no longer purely a pastime. It is something bigger to me now. Not only a business I am trying to grow, but also a mission to bring happiness to people, and to help people create memorable moments. Got to work hard in 2025 too!