session report: Indonesia

Indonesia from Splotter is one of my favourite games. I had not played it for many years. Recently in a chat with fellow game designer friends Jon, Cedric and Chee Kong, we mentioned this game, and I said I have a copy and we should arrange a time to play. So we did. I checked my records and realised that the last time I played this was more than 10 years ago. So much for "one of my favourite games". Now I don't sound sincere at all. We set a Sunday afternoon, and we did a 4-player game - the best player count for Indonesia. 

Indonesia is a heavy eurogame and an economic game. You start businesses in Indonesia producing goods or delivering them to cities to make money. You can be a producer or a shipping company. Producers need to pay shipping fees to have the shipping companies move their goods to cities. How much you have to pay depends on shipping distance. The most important mechanism in the game is the mergers between companies. You can do hostile takeovers. You can also force others to buy your companies at a steep price. Our game lasted about 4 hours, but we were fully engaged throughout and time just flew by.

This is the tech chart. You use markers in your player colour to mark which level you are at in each of the technologies. To be able to own and operate multiple companies, you need to have the necessary technology. Otherwise you will always be stuck with just one company. Every round, turn order is determined through a single-round bidding. One technology in the game allows your bid amount to be multiplied. At the highest tech level, every rupiah you spend can be treated as 400 times the value. This is a hint at how important turn order can be.

The large square tiles are the companies you can start. At this point we had just entered the second era out of three eras. The game is played over just three eras. In the first era you can only start rice companies, spice companies and transport companies. In the second era, rubber companies come into play. Rubber is a more profitable product. 

When you force two companies to merge, they must be of the same type. For example a rice company can only merge with another rice company. A shipping company can only merge with another shipping company. There is one exception. A rice company can merge with a spice company to become a microwave meal company. In the photo above, yellow is rice, green is spice, and red is microwave meal. They are different goods and they do not compete with one another. Cities accept all types of goods, but in limited quantities for each type. Once enough of one good is delivered, that good is no longer accepted. Later in the game, that rice company on the left merged with a spice company to become a microwave meal company. This resulted in competition with the older microwave meal company on the right. Turn order became important for them because whoever delivered first would get the deal done. The other might not have any more buyers, or the buyers might be far and incur a high shipping cost. In Indonesia, you must deliver goods to buyers if you can, even if it means losing money on the transaction due to shipping costs. Your shipping partner is not necessarily your friend. 

Chee Kong was orange. His tech in managing companies was at Level 4 now, which meant he could own and operate four companies. I was green. My merger technology never developed, which meant I never proposed any company merger. I could only join in the bidding if someone else proposed a merger. I could not initiate any attack.

This was the third era. Now we had oil companies. Old is the most profitable product in the game. However in our particular game our third era was quite short. The oil companies did not have time to grow big. Instead it was the rubber companies from the second era which managed to grow big and become highly profitable. One decisive play in our game was when Jon initiated a merger and bought my large rubber company. At the time I did not have as much cash as he did. I bid the maximum I could afford, but it was not enough. I was forced to sell my rubber company to him. He went on to win the game. His winning score was slightly above 1500 rupiah. I was about 50 rupiah behind him. Oh my condom company! 

We had several important mergers in our game, which is expected of Indonesia. There were big shifts on the board. Cedric became the king of shipping. He had two large shipping companies spanning the archipelago. I had both production companies and one shipping company. The shipping company was somewhat profitable, but more importantly it helped me save on shipping costs because my production companies could make use of my shipping company. Left pocket right pocket. 

This was the situation at the end of our game. I must say Indonesia is tedious to manage. If it weren't such a great game I wouldn't be able to forgive this level of fiddliness. So many small pieces to lay down, to flip over, and then to flip back again. One sign of a good game is you are still thinking about it and discussing it afterwards. You can trace back to the decision which caused you to lose the game, or to win the game. You find that you can only blame yourself and no one else. You can't blame luck. It feels great to be able to play Indonesia again. I can truly say this - after 10 years, you are still as beautiful as I remember. The game does not feel aged. When I play it, I understand better why I like some of the games from that era, and why I dislike some of the newer popular games. Oh no... I am becoming that grumpy old guy.  

From left: me, Cedric, Jon, Chee Kong. 

Ketupat Rendang

The Game

Ketupat Rendang is a short card game about your favourite Hari Raya dishes. This is the latest game from Malaysian publisher Meja Belakang, the team which brought us Drama Pukul 7 and Nak Makan Apa. Everyone is randomly assigned one main dish and one side dish. This is kept secret. Throughout the game, you lay down cards which have dishes and also fire which is used to cook the dishes. Parts of cards can overlap, hiding some dishes and even fire. Dishes are only cooked if they are adjacent to fire. At the end of the game, you score points for your dishes which are cooked and whoever has the most points wins.

Your secret objective card

Regular cards

You have a hand size of two. On your turn, you simply draw a card then play a card. Cards can be played next to existing cards and they can also be played partially overlapping other cards. Every card is divided into three equal sections. There are many ways cards can overlap. The golden rule is no single card can be completely covered by other cards. That means if two sections of a card have been covered, the last section is protected.

This is how fire works. A section containing one fire cooks one dish in every orthogonally adjacent section. If the section has two fires, then it cooks two dishes in every adjacent section. The game ends after the last card is drawn. You check the play area. For each of your main dish which is cooked, you score 2 points. For your side dish, you score 1 point each. In case you have any fire in hand, you lose points.

At the moment my main dish rendang (red background) scores 8 points because 4 are cooked.

The Play

The gameplay is smooth and fast. Initially, no one knows who has which main dish and side dish. However, there will be clues if you observe your opponents closely. At the same time, you may also want to play in a way which hides your intentions. It is not easy to hide your main dish until the end of the game. After all, you do want to manipulate the play area to show as many of them as possible, and to cook them. It is always a little nerve-racking to play a card with your main dish. It is not always easy to protect your main dish from being covered. The board situation is fluid. There can be many attacks, as in players covering one another’s dishes, or at least what they think are their opponents main dishes and side dishes. You can attack your own main dish if you want to, but I am not entirely sure this is a good idea. The game is short. Shooting yourself, even just a little bit, might set you back significantly.

Don't worry. This is not Overcooked. Too much fire will not burn your dishes.

The Thoughts

This is a pleasant and breezy game. It is of just the right length that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and there is enough time and space for you to make meaningful plays. So this is satisfying. The board is open information. Player cards is hidden information. The game reminds me of Carcassonne. You can only play one card, but there are several possible positions on the board where you can play it. I am glad I backed the game when it was crowdfunded. 

Point Salad

I must say the name of the game did not inspire confidence. The term "point salad" has a negative connotation to me. It reminds me of soulless games which are a mishmash of different ways to score points. I want to play a game. I do not want to play the role of an Excel formula trying to maximize numbers. I played my first game of Point Salad with a little trepidation.

The Game

This is a pure card game in which you collect vegetables and also scoring criteria which help you score points based on those vegetables. A turn is super simple. You are just taking a card from the centre of the table to add to your collection. Everyone takes a card until all cards are gone, and then you score points to see who wins. 

The game is set up like this: three draw decks and six face-up vegetables. Depending on the number of players, some cards will be randomly removed from the game. In this game the card backs all have a scoring condition, and the card fronts are vegetables. On your turn when you take a card, you can take any of the six vegetables, or you take a scoring condition at the top of one of the draw decks.  If you take a vegetable, you must refill that spot with a card from the draw deck of the same column. This means the scoring condition previously available is now converted to a vegetable, and you have a new scoring condition. 

The scoring conditions vary greatly. Some give you points per a specific vegetable type. Some give you points per set of specific vegetables. Some give you points for certain vegetables but penalises you for others. Some give points based how many you have compared to other players, for example when you have the least, or when you have the most of a certain vegetable. 

The Play

What you do on your turn is super simple. You are just picking a card. But which card? That is a juicy decision. First there is the tricky balance between collecting vegetables and scoring conditions. You need both to score points. Collect too many scoring cards, and you may have difficulties fulfilling them all. Collect too few, and you may not be competitive. You still need the vegetables to fulfil the scoring conditions. When a vegetable you need turns up, but there is also a scoring card which matches your collection well, you will be forced to make a difficult decision. And this is just things that affect only you. You also need to watch your opponents. If there is a scoring card that is going to help your opponent a lot, you might be forced to take it. Well, you don't necessarily have to take the scoring card itself. You may take a vegetable in the same column, and that scoring card will be flipped over to become a vegetable. Sometimes you also want to stop your opponents from collecting certain vegetables. You only have one simple action every turn, but there can be a lot to consider behind that one simple action. 

The Thoughts

Technically, I guess you can still call this a point salad game, because indeed there are many ways to score points. And yes, if you look at the various ways of scoring points, they seem to be pretty arbitrary and general. You've seen these kinds of scoring criteria is many games. Yet, Point Salad turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I not only did not dislike it, I truly enjoyed it. I like the difficult decisions it presents. You need to carefully balance between collecting scoring conditions and vegetables. You also need to watch you opponents. There are many factors in play. And yet the game is short and succinct. It is not the kind of tedious cube conversion exercise that many point salad games are. So this gets a thumbs up from me. 

Isn't this just a relaxed daily life? （てか、ただのゆるい日常じゃないですか!）

The Game

This is a game entry I submitted to the BoardGameGeek database. I Googled the meaning of the original Japanese title and submitted the English translation - Isn't this just a relaxed daily life? That's quite a mouthful indeed. I'm going to just call it Relaxed Daily Life. This is a simple card game. The three main characters in the game are the policeman, the thief and the rich musician. The policeman wants to catch the thief. The thief wants to steal from the musician. The musician wants to bribe the policeman. They have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. To win the game, you need to collect a main character and help him catch his target. 

You have a hand size of three. On your turn you play a card then draw a card. There are 16 different characters in the game and they have different powers. E.g. peeking at an opponent's cards, swapping cards with an opponent, skipping the next player, reversing the direction of play and protecting yourself for a full round. Some powers are actually handicaps, e.g. one card can never be played, which means you may be forced to play another card which you normally wouldn't want to play. After you play a card, it is placed in front of you and added to your collection. Everyone can see what cards are out. 

The game mechanism of the main characters is interesting. You need to have played two cards of the same main character before you in order to use his power. When you use the power, you are attempting to win the game. You pick another player, and if that player has the target of your main character, whether in front of him or in hand, you win. For example you have played the second policeman card. You want to pick a player who has a thief, whether before him or in his hand. If you fail to catch the thief, you discard the second played card, but you still keep the first card in front of you. This is dangerous, because that policeman card is vulnerable to the musician. The second card requirement means if you attempt to win, you are also taking a risk. Playing main characters is not to be taken lightly. 

If the deck runs out before any main character manages to catch his target, you need to check the secondary victory conditions. There are four rare cards in the game. Whoever has more wins. If there is a tie, the player with the most main character cards wins. 

The Play

This is a party style game. I am probably making it sound more strategic that it is. This is a straightforward game and you don't really need to think very hard. The game is in Japanese so if it is your first time (and you don't read Japanese) it will be a little cumbersome to play. You need to regularly refer to a cheat sheet. Some of the characters are of the same animal type, e.g. there are two bears, and two cats too. So on my cheat sheet I needed to differentiate the two types of bears and cats. Still, this is a simple game. Once you get familiar with the characters, it plays smoothly. 

There is a big dose of luck. Whether you draw a main character is luck. Whether you attack the right person is often also luck. Many of the card powers do let you do things which reduce the luck element. But then whether you get good cards is also luck. That said, since this is a casual and relaxing game, luck is not an issue. The card powers do give you some control, so you don't feel it is the game playing you. You still get to make meaningful decisions and take useful actions. 

Main characters have a black border.

I made a reference sheet. 

The Thoughts

Relaxed Daily Life is a light and casual game. It has the kind of attack cards which casual gamers like. Or perhaps I should say publishers making casual games think casual gamers like this kind of attack cards. I like the game mechanism around the three main characters. You need to hold on to cards, gather information, and wait for the right time to attempt to win. You want to minimise risk and maximise your odds of winning. 

In recent years I am no longer easily impressed with heavy Eurogames. I have become more interested in clever and minimalistic Japanese-style games. Now that I have tried more and more of these, the halo effect of Japanese games is starting to wane. The earlier Japanese designs I got to play were mostly famous titles. I heard of them because they had gone through curation by boardgame reviewers and influencers. So they were generally good games. They gave me the impression that all Japanese games were good like they were. Now that I have played more Japanese games, I become more grounded. There are average games from Japan too, and also games which don't click with me. I don't mean to say I dislike Relaxed Daily Life. I do admire the game mechanism, even though it doesn't get me super excited. This game is a keeper for me, because my non-gamer friends who are fans of Japanese culture will like it. This is a nice souvenir from Japan. 

Imperial Miners

The Game

In Imperial Miners you develop your own mining complex over ten rounds of play, adding a mine every round. You get to activate the powers of a series of mines, and these powers do all sorts of things like earning money and scoring points. Every card in the game is a mine, and there are four levels. The level of a mine determines how deep it must be placed. Usually the deeper it is, the stronger the power. Also the deeper mines are more costly to build. 

You can only build a level 2 mine after you have a level 1 mine, because you need to dig further down from the level 1 mine. The same principle applies to level 3 and 4 mines. Every time you build a mine, you trigger its power. You trace a shortest path from there to the surface, and you also trigger the powers of every mine along the way. 

Player board

4-player setup

In addition to levels, mines are also divided into factions. Factions affect the powers of some mines. Along the edges of every mine card there are six half mine carts. Some contain gold. Mines are built next to other mines. When a half cart that contain gold lines up with another which also contains gold, you score points. So this is another aspect to consider when you develop your mining complex.

The Play

You need to do a lot of planning in this game. This is like a project manager’s heaven. Or hell. You need to work with what mine cards you draw, deciding which to build, where to build them, how to create effective activation paths. You need to plan for generating income so that you can afford to build the right mines every round. There are many factors to consider. Every round there is one event which affects everyone. Often these are opportunities you want to utilise.

Event card

These are called progress charts. Some actions allow you to move your token along these tracks. Whenever you do this, you gain some benefit. If you manage to reach the top, you get a handsome reward. After that, you get to pick another track and start doing the progression again. 

There isn’t a lot of player interaction. You are kept busy enough with your own mining complex. This is a tableau game. You want to collect mines which combo well. Usually mines of the same faction work well together. The interesting challenge in this game is how to plan your activation path every round.

The Thoughts

This is a complex development game. There are many elements you need to consider and you make plans meticulously. This is the kind of game many heavy Eurogame lovers like. I didn’t like that there is little player interaction. There is a lot of work to keep you busy and engaged, but for me I didn’t find much which is new or interesting.

Seven Vice

Seven Vice is a micro game from Japan. It is a set collection game. Cards come in seven colours. If you collect four cards of the same colour you score 1 point. If you collect seven colours you score 2 points. To win the game you need to score 3 points.

You have a hand size of one. On your turn you draw a card and play a card, exactly like Love Letter. The card you play is added to your collection in front of you. You also use the power of the card. The card powers are the main attraction of the game. They help you collect sets. They also help you stop your opponents. Some powers let you steal others’ cards. One power forces a card swap. One power lets you take an extra turn. One power gives you a random card. All these powers are simple.

The art is in a Japanese comics style

This is a straightforward game that non gamers can easily learn. At the moment there is only a Japanese edition so it’s a little troublesome to learn if you don’t know Japanese. The game comes with English rules but the cards are in Japanese only. 

This is a very Japanese minimalistic style game. After trying it, I feel it is just okay, because I have played many similar games. So there is nothing new and interesting for me. However I must say the powers are well designed. Some allow players to suddenly catch up. Some allow leader bashing. So there are moments of surprise as you play. You also have good player interaction. 

Boardgaming in photos: about Malaysia and holidays

Once in a while I do a gathering with Ruby, Edwin and Benz, my ex-colleagues. This time Xiaozhu had a last-minute matter to attend to and couldn't join us. I asked them to help me playtest Malaysian Holidays. They are all big fans of Japan, so when the Japan destination card came out, everyone was keen to score it. 

I initiated a small collaboration project with fellow designers and publishers in Malaysia, to help one another promote and sell games. I place some of my games with them, and they place some of theirs with me. Whenever I attend any boardgame related event or gathering, or even on some private occasions, I bring a bag of local-published games to sell. Doing boardgame publishing in Malaysia is difficult. You wouldn't be doing it if not for a great passion for boardgames. The market in Malaysia is tiny. It is underdeveloped. There are Malaysian gamers. Most play international games and not many pay attention to local games. I was one such gamer myself. Local designers and publishers need to work together to grow the local market. 

A gamer from Belarus visited Malaysia, and bought a copy of Dancing Queen. I'm always excited to learn that Dancing Queen has reached yet another country. Even I have not been to Belarus. 

Those few days after the designer diary of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was released on BoardGameGeek, I received several international orders. They kept me busy packing games and making post office runs. I'm happy to be able to sell my games internationally. The effects of publishing this designer diary remind me that I need to do a better job at marketing my games. A big part of doing publishing well is marketing, and I know it is one of my weaknesses. Also it is not exactly what I enjoy doing. Just that I know I should be doing it. I still hope to find good publishers for my games. I would prefer to let people with the skills and the reach to do it than to do it myself. I enjoy doing the game design and development part. 

One first time experience for me was selling to a gamer from Saudi Arabia. Being able to sell Ali Baba, an Arabian themed game, to a buyer from Saudi Arabia is a wonderful feeling. 

I had the joy of playing again No Thanks. This is a game from 2004, which was roughly when I got into the hobby. I remember first playing it using cards from Category 5 (6 Nimmt). I also remember playing a copy at Witch House in Taiwan. For many years I never properly owned this game. Only last year I bought the latest version. Now it comes with expansions. I have not yet played the expansions. I find even the base game great fun. We did a 6 player game.

In this game you want to minimise taking cards, because the numbers on the cards are all negative points. Every round a card is revealed and when your turn comes, you either take it or pay money to a pool. Money is positive points. The pool will grow. When you take a card, you take the money in the pool too. So at some point the pool will be attractive enough for people to be willing to take the card. Sometimes someone will run out of money and will be forced to take the card. The important twist in the game is when you have consecutive numbers, only the lowest number in the sequence counts. If you have the 24, you do not fear the 25. The 25 card does not affect you, but it's minus 25 points to others. You will be happy to let others contribute a ton of money to the pool before you take the card. It's a simple game, but very clever. 

This is a game design I am working on - Sabah Honeymoon. This is my entry for a game design competition run by an organisation based in Singapore which promotes trade and tourism in Sabah. I come from Sabah, so I was excited to learn about a competition which is about my home state. This time I decided I needed to make a game with a board. I feel to make a game about tourism, having a map makes the game more relatable. 

Buddhima and Jon helped me playtest Sabah Honeymoon and gave me several good suggestions. 

My old friends Ah Chung and Moh Yen helped me playtest Malaysian Holidays. I have two works in progress related to holidays. I have decided that Malaysian Holidays will proceed to publication. I hope this can be released in 2025 too. However this publishing project may be a little different from my previous games. Hopefully it works out. 

Malaysia is a country with many public holidays. I wanted to make a game which is relatable for Malaysians, and I thought this topic of public holidays would be great. On social media, every year near the end of the year there will be people doing analyses about the public holidays of the following year. They list public holidays which fall on Mondays and Fridays, because these mean long weekends. They also list public holidays which fall on Tuesdays and Thursday, because by taking a one-day annual leave (on Mondays or Fridays) you can have a four-day stretch of holidays. You can plan traveling during these long weekends. This kind of thinking is common among Malaysians. The game aims to convey the joy of public holidays. Photo courtesy of Choon Ean. 

Dancing Queen on Dice Tower

The Dice Tower is the number 1 English-language boardgame media channel. My game Dancing Queen just turned up on their show, reviewed by Chris. This is an exciting moment for me, seeing my game on The Dice Tower. It wasn't a standalone review video. Dancing Queen was reviewed together with several other card games. 

The segment for Dancing Queen was short. When I watched it, my heart sank a little. The video says that you play your objective card face-up, and you play other cards face-down to try to fulfil your objective. The correct way to play is you play your objective card (called your lead dancer) face-down. A key point in Dancing Queen is you don't know what your opponent is trying to achieve, and you must observe and guess. This is how bluffing and feints come into play. If the lead dancer were face-up, the game wouldn't work. No wonder Chris didn't like the game.  

I hurriedly left a comment below the video to clarify. Chris responded quickly. It turned out that he did play the game correctly, just that he explained the game incorrectly in the video. The shot was taken at the end of a round, and that was why the lead dancers were face-up. 

I imagine The Dice Tower must be receiving tons of review copies of games. I'm happy that Dancing Queen stood out enough that they made time to introduce it. It's disappointing that it didn't click with them, but I need to learn to accept that not everyone will enjoy my games. I always appreciate it when people take time to try my games and share what they think. That is always precious and I always learn something. Sometimes when I send out review copies, the reviewer never mentions my games. I do ask beforehand whether they are interested, and I only send review copies if they are. Still, there are some whom I don't hear from anymore. I guess that's part of life being an indie publisher. I need to continue to work on marketing my games and getting exposure for them. 

The international edition of Dancing Queen will be released by Matagot in June. This will be an important opportunity for me to observe how an established international publisher does marketing and promotion. Got to keep learning.  

Dancing Queen segment on The Dice Tower here. 

Zenith

The Game

Zenith is a two-player (or two-teams-of-two) card game about exerting influence across the solar system. It will be released mid 2025, and it is already available on www.BoardGameArena.com. In addition to Earth, four other planets in the solar system are now colonised and populated. Your goal is to exert enough influence to form an interplanetary government. 

The main board shows five tracks representing the players’ influence. These are tugs of war.  You want to pull the tokens to your side of the board and your opponent tries to do the same to his side. When a token reaches your edge of the board, you claim that token. A new token is then placed at the middle of the track, and you start competing again for this new one. To win the game, you need to collect three tokens of the same colour, or four of different colours, or any five tokens.

On your turn, you just play a card and then refill your hand. A card can be used in three different ways. The basic usage is to pull a token towards you. Most cards have secondary effects, so you can gain something else in addition to pulling the token. Some effects are conditional so you want to play the card only when the condition is met, so that you gain more. The second way to use a card is to play it to advance yourself on a tech track. You gain some benefit, and this benefit is cumulative. When you advance further, you also claim benefits of all previous steps. The third way of using a card is to just exchange it for some resources, depending on the card type. 

Cards come in five different colours, one each for the five planets. The colour determines which planet you can influence. Cards also come in three types - humans, robots and animods. The type determines which tech track you can advance on and also what resource you can exchange the card for.

Cards you play to your side of the board stay there. This is an important part of the game. The cards you have in play give you a discount for the next card you play to the same planet. There are card powers which manipulate these played cards, e.g. discarding your opponent's cards, getting some free cards, and even stealing your opponent's cards. 

The Play

Zenith plays smoothly. There are many cards with many different powers and it is fun to see what you can do with your cards. You have two currencies to manage. Money is needed to pay for card plays to exert influence. Another premium currency zenithium is needed to advance on the tech tracks. Both currencies are tight and need to be managed carefully. There are five different colours and three card types, so you don’t always get what you need. That is an interesting challenge to manage.

One interesting mechanism is the leadership token. Some actions allow you to claim the leadership token, and when you control it, you can take take an action to upgrade it. The leadership token increases your hand size to five or six, depending on whether it is upgraded. This gives you more flexibility. There is only one leadership token in the game so you are fighting with your opponent over it.

There is some engine building in the tech track aspect of the game. If you invest effort in it, in the late game, the tech actions are very powerful. The tech tracks are not static. They can vary from game to game, so there is variability.

This is a resource management game. There is some luck in what cards you draw, and you do your best with what you get. It is an everchanging puzzle to figure out. At the same time you must watch your opponent and which planets he is aiming for. Although this is a game about maximising efficiency, sometimes you must sacrifice efficiency to prevent your opponent from sneaking in a early win. 

Hand size is 6 when you control an upgraded leadership token, but once your opponent steals it away, you go back to 4. 

The Thoughts

Zenith is a well polished mid-weight strategy game. Don't let the cartoonish box cover fool you. This is not a simplistic or light game. It has plenty of tactics to keep the gamer in you engaged.