boardgaming in photos: City of the Big Shoulders, Pax Pamir, Russian Railroads, Tokaido, Barrage

City of the Big Shoulders is a shareholding game. The best known shareholding game series is probably the 18XX games. I have never been comfortable with shareholding games because I feel there is a disjoint. You don't own a company. You own shares of a company. It is not your company. Of course, this is the whole point of shareholding games. So it's not a problem of the game mechanism. It's my personal preference. I am uncomfortable that I can't call this my company, and someone may manipulate me out of my own company, the company I founded! Companies are just tools for making money. You can and should destroy "your" company if it hurts your opponents more than you. In City of the Big Shoulders I think the chances of companies switching majority shareholder are small. Yes you can invest into your opponents' companies, and you can manipulate the share value through buying and selling shares, but mostly you are still managing the companies you founded, and generally you want them to do well. So compared to other shareholding games, City of the Big Shoulders doesn't make me anxious as much. 

This game is very much like an entrepreneurship simulation. You are starting companies, attracting investors, recruiting employees, buying raw materials, producing goods, and selling them. This sounds like work! This is running a business. I like declaring dividends, because as the majority shareholder of my companies (ok, "my" companies) I earn the most. As you can see I can't quite get away from the "my" company mindset. I probably should explore alternative strategies like intentionally damaging a company just to make others lose money too. 

When investing in others' companies, you do have to survey the board situation. What product is it producing and how is the demand? Is there competition? Do the competitors have a stronger brand? You can get a sense of how well the company will do. Of course, it is still subject to whether the majority shareholder decides to take good care of the company. An older and better established company may not be more attractive than a young startup. The startup probably has cheaper shares and also more room for growth. In the end it is all about return on investment. You want to be the richest individual. It is not about owning the biggest companies. 

I have played Pax Pamir several times now, but I am still not entirely sure I know how to play it properly. This time I did a three player game with Han and Jon. Both Jon and I decided to support the Russians. Han supported the British. This became a tough game for Han because it was two vs one. 

I got into an awkward situation. I did not plan my card purchases well, and got stuck with a maximum tableau size of three for most of the game. I had a huge hand size though. Unfortunately that wasn't very helpful. I worked hard on playing my discs. Discs represent player influence. Many of my discs were on player cards, both mine and my opponents', as spies. I had three discs used for marking gifts purchased. This was a huge sum invested. I was a little stuck. If I were to switch allegiance to another faction, I would lose these three discs. 

Russia was much stronger than Britain, and Jon's score and mine were soon much higher than Han's. So my main competitor was now Jon, technically an ally. I did not have much influence on the game board itself. I did have many spies, and I could do assassinations and dirty work like that. While holding the lead in the number of discs deployed, I triggered a dominance check to initiate scoring. This gave me more points than Jon, putting me 4 points ahead. That allowed me to win the game. At that point I had no discs at all on the game board. I did not control any region. 

This was the end of our game. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure I know how to play the game. I feel most of the time you have to analyse what cards are available in the market and you just make the most out of the situation. It is about surviving the chaos and grabbing opportunities that come along. You can't do much deliberate planning. 

I have a physical copy of Russian Railroads. It was a birthday present from my wife. This is a worker placement game and a development game. In this particular game, my main strategy was to develop the main Trans-Siberian railway, to upgrade the tracks and to score points from that. I completely abandoned industrialisation (the purple track at the bottom). 

Jon's player board

Han's player board

I'd say Russian Railroads is yet another typical heavy Eurogame. There is a lot you can do, but you have to choose to focus on only a few areas so that you can score points efficiently. I often complain about these heavy Eurogames being of a similar mould, but I enjoy Russian Railroads. It is familiar and comfortable. I also like it because of the theme and the art. The game mechanism is a little different from other Eurogames. Hey, at least you don't have the resource collection and contract fulfilment. But yes, you do have the track progression thing. I like the development game element. I guess it is human nature to be happy when you make progress and you build something that makes you proud. 

It is nice to play Tokaido on BoardGameArena.com. This is a very pretty game. I've never found the game mechanism particularly captivating, but I must say it is a beautiful game. 

On BGA all the cards you collect are laid out neatly. Those panorama cards which form a picture look fantastic. They make you want to complete the picture. 

I played with the expansion too. In the top row above, those sakura (cherry blossom) trees are from the expansion, and the bathhouses on the right too. When you visit a scenery area, instead of taking a scenery card of the corresponding type, you can choose to take a sakura tree. When collecting scenery cards, the earlier ones aren't worth much. It is the later ones which will be worth a lot. So if you have no intention of collecting cards for a particular scenery type, it is probably better to just take a sakura tree, because it gives 2 points and 1 money. It's nice to have a choice. You feel you have a bit more control. However I don't find this expansion very important. It's just a nice-to-have. In fact I think it is good that sometimes you are forced to take a low value scenery card because you want to deny your opponent. I like games which give you decision angst, and not games which treat you with kiddie gloves. 

Bathhouses are also a new choice you get. When you visit an onsen (hot spring), normally the onsen card you draw will be either 2 or 3 points. If you are willing to pay 1 money, you take a bathhouse card instead, which is a guaranteed 4 points. 

I played Barrage online. I have played a physical copy before. I did not do a proper rule revision before playing online. I relied on my not-that-great memory of the game. That meant a fair bit of stumbling around. This is a complex game, and stumbling around means you won't do very well. 

Pick Eat

Pick Eat was the first game from Malaysian publisher Specky Studio. It is an educational game about a healthy diet. Specky Studio specialises in making educational games, and Pick Eat certainly contains valuable knowledge and messages. Now this is not the type of educational game which many of us gamers are wary of. This is a proper game, and not learning content trying to be a game. You can tell that this is a game made by a gamer, and not by a non-gamer educator. I've known about Pick Eat for quite some time, and I have always assumed it is a game designed for primary school children, i.e. I am not the target audience. So I've never spent time to understand it more. It was because Buddhima and I went to the Thailand Board Game Show together that I found time to ask him to teach me the game. I was pleasantly surprised. It isn't what I had assumed. 

When you open the box it looks like someone eating

Pick Eat is a set collection game. You collect different types of food. Each card is a food, with different properties and ways of scoring points. The mechanism for choosing and collecting cards is interesting. The active player draws three cards, looks at them, and then offers them to the next player with one card revealed and the other two face-down. The next player then either claims the revealed card, or looks at the two face-down cards to pick one. Whichever option the next player takes, the active player is left with the remaining one. So the active player will also claim one card. This sounds simple, but when actually doing it you'll realise there are some interesting thought processes. 

Let's say you are the active player and among the three cards you draw, there is one particular card you really want. Should you reveal that or keep it face-down? If there is another card which is attractive to the next player, you can reveal that one and hope he takes it, so that you will get what you want too. However if there is no such card, what do you do? Maybe you can show him that good card, and try to trick him into thinking that there is an even better card among those two face-down cards? From the perspective of the next player, choosing a card is sometimes hard too. If the active player shows you a lousy card, it's a no brainer and you'd pick up the two face-down cards. The difficulty lies with those cards which are somewhat good but not great. It's a simple mechanism, but sometimes it gives you analysis paralysis. 

When you claim a card, you add it to a row before you. If the card you claim is face-up, it stays so. Ditto if it is face-down. This matters because it affects scoring. You may add the new card to the left or right end of your row of cards. Where you place it may affect the scoring of some cards which score based on their immediate neighbours. In this photo above some cards are placed slightly lower to indicate that they are face-down. When the game ends, you need to flip them over to score them, and being slightly offset reminds you that they are the face-down cards. 

These cards are from an optional module. They are missions. At the start of the game you draw two then pick one. If you fulfil the mission by the end of the game (in the form of having only specific types of food) you score bonus points. These missions are all real diets, e.g. a low carb diet. 

Water cards (e.g. the leftmost one in the photo above) are the most valuable. Most of the time they are a no-brainer. Always take one when you have the opportunity. This may seem unbalanced, but I like this kind of design decision. It sends a message that staying hydrated is important. And I believe perfectly balanced and symmetrical games are boring. You should have cards that feel overpowered. If the active player offers me the choice of a face-up water card, I will be suspicious whether there is another even better water card among those two face-down cards. 

The scoring conditions are linked to the theme. For example some fruits help our bodies better absorb vitamins. Such fruits score points for vitamin type cards you have. When you understand the reasoning behind the scoring conditions, you find that there is much knowledge about nutrition you can teach using this game. You don't need to be a nutritionist to play the game well. You simply apply common sense about eating habits. You will do well when you apply healthy eating principles. So the game feels natural. 

Pick Eat is a light game. It has a simple core mechanism which non-gamers can execute without trouble. Ultimately it is only about collecting cards. Gamers will appreciate the subtle strategy and psychology in the card offering and card choosing. I am glad I tried the game. It is certainly not of the same type as many typical educational games I have played. It feels more like a hobby game. Yet at the same time it is founded solidly on an important subject - healthy eating. 

Hardback

Hardback can be quickly described as Scrabble meets deck-building. It’s a neat idea. I wondered whether there has already been other deck-building word games, so I did a quick search and found a few. Hardback itself is a reimplementation of a 2014 game called Paperback. That is apt indeed. Upgrades, folks! 

Here’s the basic idea. Every turn you draw five new cards from your personal deck. Every card is a letter of the alphabet. You try to make a word with your cards. If you manage it, you gain the benefits on every card. It can be points. It can be money which you can then spend to buy new cards for your deck. There are also other powers. You can flip some cards face down. When you do this, that card becomes wild. Often you need to do this to be able to make a word. However you won’t enjoy the benefits from face-down cards. You don’t need to use every card. You can discard some. Naturally you don’t get benefits from unused cards either. You don't save money from turn to turn. Leftover money will be used to buy ink. 

This above is an example of how I spelled PERIL. In hindsight, I should have spelled PRUNE, making the L wild instead. It would have given me an extra point from the U.  

Throughout the game you will buy new cards for your deck to augment it. You may remove cards from your deck too. Newer cards are generally more powerful and help you score points more efficiently. The game ends at the end of a round when someone reaches 60 points. 

The core idea is simple. Here are some mechanisms which make the game more interesting. In addition to the basic cards, there are also genre cards in four types - horror, romance, adventure, and mystery. These are all better than the basic cards, and each type provides some unique bonuses. The powers of genre cards usually have two parts. One part will be activated as long as you use the card in your word. The second part will also be activated if you have another card of the same genre in use. What this means is you probably want to specialise in one or two genres so that the chances of you drawing two or more cards of the same genre are higher. 

One card power lets you double the point or money value of an adjacent card. If you manage to pair this with a high valued card, it becomes a huge bonus. One card power lets you reserve a card in the purchase pool. Since this is a deck-building game, there is also a power which removes weak cards from your deck, so that your chances of drawing strong hands increase. 

One mechanism which I find a lot of fun is the ink and ink remover mechanism. At the end of every turn you can decide to spend some of your money to buy ink. You spend ink to draw more cards. This way you can make words longer than five letters. This means you can earn more money and score more points within the same turn. In the game, there is a bonus for having made the longest word. There is some risk though. A card you draw using ink must be used in your word. It cannot be turned face-down to become a wild card nor can it be discarded. If you are unlucky, you may be forced to pass because you can't make a word. You waste a turn. Here’s how the ink remover might save you. This is a rare resource. You can use it to turn a card drawn using ink into a normal card. That means you are not forced to use it and you can flip it face-down to become wild.  

In this example above, the B and O are of the same genre, and the Y and D are of another. This means I am able to use both the basic power and the genre power of these cards. The G and U are wild. I need to flip the L and the C to become G and U respectively. It is always satisfying to be able to spell long words. 

There's one mechanism called timeless classics. These are cards which have their letters in landscape instead of portrait orientation. You can see an example in the screenshot above - the V. When you are able to make a word using a timeless classic card, it stays in front of you and gives you benefits every round, regardless of whether you are able to use it in future words. Your opponents can force you to discard such timeless classics by making a word including your letter. They don't gain anything from your letter though. They only force you to discard your letter. 

I had much fun with Hardback. It is certainly something different from what I usually play. The deck-building and card power parts might feel a little complex to non-gamers, so if you are using the word game premise to lure them to play, do be a little patient in explaining these aspects. I like that this is a game in which you can ask your opponents to help you make a word. They will get a small reward. It is satisfying to be able to puzzle out a decent word. The option to turn cards wild offers much flexibility to players. This will work as a family game. Although adults will have an advantage over children, being able to help one another with making words can turn this into an educational game at the same time. Even when you play with friends, you might learn some new words from them. 

Monolyth

Monolyth is a design from Phil Walker-Harding. This guy again! Why do I keep coming across his games? He is truly prolific! In Monolyth you collect bricks in various shapes to build a monument block. In the process there are several ways you will score points. The game ends when a player completes his monument. 

At the start of the game bricks are randomly set up around the board. A shared pawn is placed at one of the spots. On your turn you must move the pawn between 1 to 4 steps, then claim the brick where it stops. You immediately refill that spot with a random brick from the box. 

You have your own little player board. This is where you build your own monument. Each of the four sides has a designated colour. You try to match your bricks on each side to the corresponding colour, because this will help you score points.

From another angle

The point tokens on the main game board come in three different shapes, each associated with a different scoring method. For every game one design card is randomly drawn (that square card above). If you are able to create that exact design while building your monument, you claim one square score token. Naturally you will claim the highest one available at that time. Using this card above as an example, the design you need to make is one complete layer of bricks and one complete wall on just one side. 

The hexagonal score tokens can be claimed whenever you complete one layer of your monument. You always take the highest valued token still available. The last type looks like a seashell. You don't claim these by fulfilling any criteria. Instead, you have to forfeit a turn to claim one. You don't necessarily take the highest valued token available. You get to choose. You attach the seashell token to one of the four sides of your player board (see below). By game end, if the number of squares on that side matching the designated colour is at least as many as the number on the seashell token, you score the token. If the requirement is not met, that seashell token is wasted. 

Seashell tokens are limited in quantity, so you have to fight for them. In a 4-player game, you can build at most three layers high, so my black side can score at best 8 points. I have maximised my seashell score. If there is no more 8 by the time I take a seashell, I would have to settle for a lower value. 

When taking a brick, you can choose to discard the one you are supposed to take and claim a small single-unit cube in the same colour. These are limited. They are not an efficient way to build your monument, but they are flexible. Sometimes they are your best choice. 

Monolyth is easy to learn. It works well as a family game, and it is a visually-appealing gateway game. The rules are all intuitive and it is a pleasure to learn to play. There are only three ways to score points, and they are all straight-forward. The most important player interaction is making sure you don't set up great options for the next player. You can see your opponents' structures and what they need. Sometimes you think not just about the next player, but also those after that. In fact in our game we all watched out for the leading player and worked together to avoid giving him his ideal piece. One tactic you can use is spending the turn taking a seashell token so that the pawn doesn't move. The seashell tokens often present a dilemma. How soon should you start claiming them? If you are overly ambitious you might fail and waste your tokens. But if you are slow, you lose out on the good tokens. You can choose to take a seashell token even when you know you can't score it, for the sake of denying others. That's evil, but it's legal. 

River of Gold

This is a heavy Eurogame. You play merchant families trading along the River of Gold and establishing influence as you do so. You have two trading ships sailing downstream, stopping to earn money and load goods. You can supply goods to clients. This is your typical order fulfilment mechanism. You can also build trading houses along the riverbank. Trading houses offer benefits to all ships which stop by. The owner also gains benefits whenever the house is visited. So these are the three main things you do - you sail, you fulfil client orders, and you build trading houses. The game ends when the trading house deck runs out. Highest scorer wins. 

The game board looks like this. There are many plots along both banks where you can build trading houses. The game starts with some already built. When you sail, the space where you stop will always touch four plots, possibly some with trading houses built. You'll get stuff from all the trading houses. You will also get $1 from each empty plot. So the worst case is you earn $4. You only sail downstream. If you reach the river mouth, you cycle back to the top and continue from there. 

The river is divided into six segments representing six different provinces. When you pay to build a trading house, you will be able to increase your influence in the corresponding province. At the end of the game, you compare your influence against others at all six provinces, and you score points based on relative position. When your influence reaches certain milestones, you also get to claim benefits. Influence is one reason you want to build trading houses. With the house you have built, you also hope that others will visit so that you can earn the owner's income. You can visit your own house. This way you earn both the visitor's income and the owner's income. Sometimes players naturally build houses close to one another, because such clusters are attractive to ship owners. Ships want to stop where they can reap the greatest rewards. If you want people to visit your house, you want to make it irresistible. 

Those tables on the right are for keeping track of everyone's influence at each province. The point values for the most influential players are listed here. 

One interesting mechanism in the game is your action is restricted by a die roll. You always roll a die before the start of your turn. The die roll determines where you can sail, where you can build a trading house, and which client you can deliver goods to. The die is numbered 1 to 6, so if you want to sail, you pick one of your two ships, and it sails as many steps as indicated by the die. It is possible to adjust the die value. You need to spend divine favour to do this. Divine favour is a type of resource. When you decide to build a trading house, the die value determines which province you can build in. When you decide to deliver goods to a client, the die value also determines which client you can deliver to. Every client is associated with a die value. You can only serve a client if you have rolled that die value. Thankfully you can always spend divine favour to adjust your die value before you perform your action. 

You always have two client cards in hand. When you successfully serve a client, you get to draw two more client cards and then you discard one. When you serve a client, they usually give you a one-time benefit, an ongoing benefit, and also bonus points at game end based on a specific criteria. 

In the top half of this screenshot above, you can see three missions. You get to score points when you complete them. The missions are, from left to right, serving clients of three different types, reaching a specific influence level in a province, and building all four types of trading houses. The game gives you yet another aspect to consider and plan for as you play. 

These are the currently available trading houses you can build. The icon in the pointy half is the visitor income, and the icon in the flat half is the owner income. The black banner in the middle means how much influence you will gain for building the trading house. 

Influence track for Province #6

River of Gold looks more complicated than it actually is. There may be many aspects for you to think about, but every turn you are only choosing one out of three options - sail, build or deliver. Sailing helps you gain money and goods, while building and delivering require spending money and goods respectively. 

It is interesting to watch how players collectively develop the board. There is an uneasy balance between helping yourself and creating opportunities for others. You do want others to visit your trading houses, so that you get income, but at the same time you are hoping you won't help them too much. Your customers are ultimately your competitors too. When you sail and visit others' trading houses, you will also feel a little torn. You want to gain the benefits from the trading houses, and you have to grudgingly accept that the house owners will gain something too from you visiting. I find this delicious. 

One feeling I get when playing this game is happy times fly by too fast. The game always seems to end earlier than I expect it to. The trading houses run out so quickly! I feel there are still many empty plots along the riverbank. I feel I can compete more. I think this play experience means the game is well designed and well balanced. It makes you feel just on the cusp of greatness, and that's when the game ends - on a high note. 

Thailand Board Game Show 2025: Quick Takes Part 3

This is the third batch of games I saw at the Thailand Board Game Show 2025. There are several others I played in full, and I will write about those as individual blog posts. 

Death Invitation is a hidden identity game. You have a murderer and an accomplice on one team, and the rest are the other team - the innocent. To win, the murderer needs to kill everyone. The innocent have several ways to win. They can try to kill the murderer, but if they kill the wrong guy, they immediately lose. They can find the secret passageway and escape. They can also find fuel for the car and drive away. In order to exchange information, you need to be alone with one other person in the same room. The risk is that person may turn out to be the murderer. The murderer does not lose for getting exposed. It's a little inconvenient to lose your anonymity, but it also means you can now blatantly hunt down your victims. The accomplice can be crucial in creating confusion. The accomplice may murder exactly once. When someone dies, the murderer must be nearby. So the accomplice murdering at the right time and place can effectively mislead the innocent. 

Everyone knows what kind of equipment everyone else is carrying. When someone is killed, you can tell from the wound what kind of equipment was used for the murder. This is a clue for you to narrow down who the murderer might be. 

Death Invitation is a Thai design

The Yellow House is not a Thai design. It calls itself a two-player trick-taking game, but after reading the rules I still don't quite understand how it is trick-taking. This is a game about Van Gogh and his friend Gauguin debating about what's most important to an artist - inspiration, passion, skill or money. These four topics are just the four suits in the game. 

The game board is made of cloth

The cards have suits, but no numbers. I don't fully understand the game mechanism even after reading the rules. I did not sit down to play. The game is played over several rounds. You win the game by winning three debates, or by winning two debates of the same suit. You start a round with 12 cards. You take turns supporting one topic. You need to play cards in that suit to be able to do so. Your opponent must then support a new topic by being able to play enough cards in that new suit. If he can't, you win the round. There are only four topics, so there will be at most four turns in a round. The player who is able to argue for the fourth topic automatically wins the round. Or if you are able to play all 12 cards, you win the round too. The rules look simple, but I still can't fully picture how the game works. I am curious. 

Tilt N Shout is a 2-player real-time game which requires speed thinking. It comes with a stack of cards, and every card specifies a category, like vegetables, countries, historical leaders. When you start a game, you reveal such a card, and the players take turns naming something in the category without repeating. You want to do this as quickly as possible. 

The main game component is a see-saw with a winding path. At the centre there is a hole where you can drop the metal ball. This is the starting position of the ball. When you name an item, you press your end of the see-saw down, so that the ball starts rolling in your direction. Your opponent now tries to name a new item, so that he can quickly tap his side, and make the ball roll towards him. You are fighting for that ball. When it reaches your end and drops out of the see-saw, you win. If the category is Malaysian food, you'd be saying things like satay, nasi lemak, Hokkien mee, panmee, Ipoh horfun, banana leaf rice. 

This is an exciting and nerve-wracking game. Sometimes your mind goes completely blank. 

On the verge of winning

Political Mess is published in Thai, but this is a game from Daryl Chow (Singapore). This is a small box card game for 2 to 4 players. 

When you play a card, it must overlap at least one other card. There are some rules you must follow. Empty spaces can be covered by monuments (those yellow structures), politicians or other empty spaces. Monuments and politicians can only be covered by matching monuments or politicians. It's not exactly easy to play a card, because overlapping is mandatory, and there are restrictions about what you can cover. 

When the game ends, you score every group of monuments. You check who has the most and second most number of politicians next to the group. You decide on your player colour at the start of the game. Whoever has the most politicians next to the group scores as many points as the number of monuments. Whoever has the second most scores half that. In the case of ties, the politicians with plus signs are tiebreakers. 

I played this at the airport on the airport bench. This is a microgame but it is pretty thinky.