28 Dec 2024. Jon organised one last TTGDMY playtesting session before the end of 2024. (TTGDMY = Tabletop
Game Designers of Malaysia) This time it was done at FnD Mindspot in Wangsa Maju. We had the highest attendance numbers in the whole of 2024. That was a splendid end to 2024. There was a teacher who came all the way from Seremban bringing a group of primary school students. They are from a boardgame club so they are experienced players. One of them, a 12-year-old girl, designed a game, drew and handcrafted it herself, and brought it for playtesting.
This is one game design I'm currently working on - Malaysian Holidays. I want to design a game that is suitable for non-gamers and casual gamers, and one which is attractive to them. Thus this topic. Malaysia in a multi-racial and multi-cultural country, with many different religious beliefs and traditions. So we have many public holidays, more than many other countries around the world. The typical working Malaysian adult loves having public holidays fall on Mondays or Fridays, because that means we get a long weekend. If a public holiday falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, that's good too, because by applying for one day of annual leave, we get a 4-day break. Now the absolute worst is for a public holiday to fall on a Saturday. Many companies don't work on Saturdays anyway. At some companies we only work half day on Saturdays. Public holidays on Saturdays are a waste. This game I am working on aims to convey this Malaysian salaryman mindset. In the game you have an HR Manager who will cancel holidays. For example the company is running a roadshow, so you have to work even though it's a public holiday. Is this too realistic?
This is another game I'm working on - I Will Survive. I plan to submit this to the ButtonShy contest. The special rule for this particular contest is interesting. As usual, you can only use 18 cards when designing the game, but what's different this time is for any particular game you play, you will only use half the cards, i.e. 9 cards. The other 9 cards will not be used at all. This can create much variability, because the game will be different depending on which 9 cards are in use. This rule plus another training activity I have learned before gave me the idea for I Will Survive. You are shipwrecked and stranded on an island. You need to salvage equipment from the slowly sinking ship, but you don't know the situation on the island so you don't know exactly what you need to survive. The cards in the game are mostly equipment you need for survival. Only half the cards are in play, and which ones being in play determines your survival condition. One of the players is a lunatic. He's not trying to survive. He's trying to get everyone killed.
This is one of Cedric's latest projects, Tea Ceremoney (not a typo). It is based on the Chinese tradition, the tea ceremony which is done on wedding days. He has spent a lot of effort on the components, sourcing from Shopee and getting the right ones to create the right gameplay experience.
The player board is an angpow (red packet).
This is a prototype from Nick. It is a multiplayer melee dice game. You sit in a circle. You attack the guy on your right, and defend against the guy on your left. Whoever gets killed drops out of the circle. You play until you are the last man standing.
I bought this paper cutter recently, and it's one of the best investments I've ever made. I used to cut paper for making prototypes using a normal blade cutter and a ruler. It's slow, tedious and tiring. I felt I needed to get something better, and I asked around for suggestions from fellow game designers. I received many suggestions. Eventually I decided to try this Fiskars cutter. It's pricey compared to other options, but since I do a lot of cutting, I thought it would be worth getting one. I'm glad I bought it. It works great. I can cut much faster now. It has saved me much time and pain. Highly recommended.
I had a family holiday in Japan in December 2024. I am a big fan of many Japanese game designs, so when I have the opportunity to check out Japanese games, I try not to miss it. We visited the smaller cities this trip, so it wasn't easy to find game stores. I found toy and boardgame sections at some department stores. One surprise find was a small shop at Nawate Street (nicknamed Frog Street) in Matsumoto city. Nawate Street is a touristy area. The shop sold various souvenirs, but it also had a very nice boardgame section. Totally unexpected. The shopkeeper was an old uncle who enthusiastically recommended games to me in Japanese, and I had no idea what he was saying. I had to use Google Lens to translate the box covers and box backs. Eventually I did buy a few games I thought would be interesting. This trip I bought five souvenirs related to boardgames. They are on the right and bottom right in this photo above.
The one at the top right corner is a woodcraft puzzle. I have seen a similar Chinese puzzle called Hua Rong Dao (华容道). I think they are of the same concept. On the right there is a red box - Nine Tiles. It has a Hello Kitty (Sanrio) theme. I later realised this was not designed by a Japanese. It was not originally a Hello Kitty game. Oink Games published it in Japan and attached the Hello Kitty theme. This is a real time game and it's pretty simple. I consider it a children's game. I bought a cheap shogi set. I've read a comic book series about it. It's like chess but you can capture opponent pieces and then put them back into play as your own.
This is a thing called netsuke. A netsuke is an ornament used during the Edo period. You wear it on you. This netsuke is actually tiny. It is intricately crafted. This is not a souvenir you can buy. I took this photo in an art museum. This is a piece of art on display.
