Boardgames and parenting

On 20 Jun 2025 I did a seminar for SJK(C) Taman Connaught primary school (康乐华小) on boardgames and parenting. It was a 45-minute seminar plus 45 minutes of play time. The attendees were parents only, and they got to experience first-hand modern boardgames. For the hands-on experience part, I invited several of my local game designer friends. I wanted to get them some exposure and to help them sell their games. Unfortunately we were not allowed to do selling at the event, so we could only give out business cards and invite parents who were interested to search for us on the internet. 

They gave us certificates of appreciation

Allen's wife (in black) was one of my helpers. She was a helper in last year's activities too. 

Buddhima is my game designer friend. He is from Specky Studios and they are publishing my game Malaysian Holidays. 

Jon helped take care of this group playing my game Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves when I was busy with something else. Jon is also my game designer friend and he is currently the most active guy organising many activities and meeting many people. 

Chee Kong, designer of Zodiac Go

Qing Ye from Specky Studio

Local games in play - Chinese Flower Card

Local games in play - Furmation of Rome

King of Tokyo Duel

The Game

King of Tokyo is a highly popular game by Richard Garfield, designer of the even more popular Magic: The Gathering. These two are very different games. I have read about King of Tokyo but have not actually tried it. Now I have tried the two-player version. 

King of Tokyo Duel is a kaiju (monster) game. You are the monster. You fight the other monster while rampaging the city. This is a dice game. You roll dice to see what you get to do. You can reroll up to twice, and each time you can decide which dice to reroll and which not to. After rolling, you use your dice to perform actions. 

The different icons on the die faces mean different things. There is an icon for smacking your opponent. If you reduce your opponent's health points to zero, you win. There is an icon for healing. You can recover from your injuries. Two icons are for a tug on war on the game board. You compete to see who is causing more damage to the city and to the (human) army. This is translated to two tracks on the game board. You try to pull the marker to your end of the track. If you manage that with either one of the tracks, you win. Alternatively, if you manage to get both markers to move to about the mid point on your side, you also win. 

The other two icons are lightning bolt and exclamation mark. The bolt is money. You get to buy power cards, some of which are single-use, others give you a permanent ability. Exclamation marks are used for activating your monster's unique ability. The game comes with many different monsters, and every game you can pick a different one to play. They have different health values and unique abilities. 

The shop offers three cards. 

Some power cards come with tiles you can add to the tracks on the game board. They augment the tracks, possibly extending or shortening them, and creating new functions on some of the spaces. 

The Play

This is a simple and quick game. To win, you either knock out your opponent, or cause massive destruction. You are at the mercy of the dice. This is a game with some luck. Collecting lightning bolts to buy power cards is long-term investment. This can be risky if your opponent is going for speed. By the time you build up your abilities, you might be near defeat. So the tempo of the game is something you need to be alert about and respond to. 

Both the blue and red markers are in the lighted region on the right, which means game over. 

The Thoughts

This is a short and speedy game. It is fast and furious. There is some strategy so it is certainly not brainless. At the same time there is a fair bit of luck in the die rolls. The game is so-so for me, because I feel I don't have a lot of control. 

Dancing Queen international edition officially released

21 Jun 2025 is a special day for me, because this is the official launch date of the international edition of Dancing Queen from Matagot. They signed the game about 2 years ago. However they have a huge list of publishing projects to work through, and it really does take about 2 years from signing a game to getting it officially released. Matagot picked up Dancing Queen because they were looking to release a series of pocket games - microgames which use only a small number of cards and can fit in your shirt pocket or jeans pocket. This is the style of games which ButtonShy publishes. 

The game includes two languages, English and French

This is the wallet after removing the paper band.

The back of the wallet. 

When you open the wallet, you see two transparent pockets where you can slot cards in. These two are the French and the English rulebooks. 

Reference cards (English)

The main game components are these nine cards. In this international edition the cards are not divided into boy and girl. They are divided into green and orange types. The card powers are represented by icons and not text. This is to keep the cards language neutral. Text descriptions can be found on the reference cards. The card names, i.e. song names, still remain. 

The seven trophies and the disco ball.

Rulebook

Seeing the Cili Padi Games logo printed next to that of Matagot is a touching moment for me. 

Comparison between the Malaysia first edition (2022) and the international edition (2025). 

The rulebook of the first edition looks very minimalistic in comparison. 

Matagot gave me a few free copies because I am the designer. I took the opportunity to buy a small quantity of stock. The Malaysian second edition of Dancing Queen is coming out soon. I am not sure whether this international edition will become available in Malaysia. If you are in Malaysia and you are interested to get this international edition, contact me privately. 

Ancient Knowledge

The Game

This is a card game about a human civilisation on earth before our current human civilisation. You are scientists and scribes of that lost civilisation, and as your civilisation declines into chaos and oblivion, you do your best to record and safekeep the knowledge of your civilisation, in the hope that one day when a new civilisation rises, this knowledge will come to light again. 

The most important mechanism in this game is the decline. Every round, monuments decline one step, until they eventually crumble, and any knowledge on them not yet properly recorded is forever lost. When you build a monument, you place knowledge tokens on it. During the game you do your best to remove these knowledge tokens before the monument expires. Otherwise any knowledge still on the monument becomes lost knowledge, which means you lose victory points. Monuments have point values and also unique abilities. You will be making use of them. 

There are two rows above your player board to place monuments. Every round they are shifted one step left, until they eventually move off your board. They become monuments in your past. Only these monuments score normally. The game ends when one player has 14 monuments in their past. Any monuments still standing only score 1 point each. 

You have 5 slots on your player board for artefacts. Artefacts have all sorts of nifty powers. They, together with monuments, give you ongoing abilities. Monument abilities are active as long as they have not yet fully declined. 

These are the third type of cards - the technologies. These have one time effects. Some can be claimed as you like, some can only be claimed if you fulfil a certain criteria. There are Level 1 and Level 2 techs. The Level 2 techs only score points. 

This is one of the artefacts. Whenever you learn a new tech, you get to remove one knowledge from any monument. In this game you must carefully manage the knowledge on your monuments and do your best to remove them before the monuments crumble. 

The Play

Choosing which monuments to build is an interesting puzzle. The monuments and artefacts have all sorts of powers, and it is fun to work out good combos. When you can do that, you will be removing knowledge tokens efficiently and also scoring efficiently. There is a default position for all monuments. If you want to place them somewhere else, you need to pay. So space is something you need to manage. Every round the monuments are shifted one space left, which means some spaces will become occupied and others freed up. 

Hand management is important. Cards are a precious resource. One action in the game is to simply draw a card, but ideally you never want to take that action. You should be making use of the powers of your monuments, artefacts and techs to draw cards. One action to draw one card is a bad deal. 

There is also an action which lets you remove one knowledge token. Again, this is an inefficient way to remove knowledge. You want to make use of the powers of your cards. This game is very much about setting up systems that auto run or are triggered by events.

Managing your monuments is challenging. The march of time is merciless. One interesting situation is lost knowledge is not always bad. Some cards have abilities which only activate if you have lost knowledge. One particular monument only activates if you have 20 lost knowledge (which is a lot). When it activates, you remove 15 lost knowledge. That effectively means you are scoring 15 points. If you have this monument in hand, you can freely build monuments and let them decline leaving tons of lost knowledge, only to do a major clean-up afterwards using this monument. 

Techs you have learned are placed on the right. They might help you score points at game end. Monuments which have fully declined are stacked and placed on the left. Along the top are your active monuments. 

You can always examine the monuments in your past.

The monument card specifies which position it should be placed (number at top left), knowledge tokens which come with it (scroll) and point value (star). 

The Thoughts

Ancient Knowledge is a delightful tableau game. Every card has a different power. It is fun to work out synergies and to manage your portfolio of declining monuments. The decline mechanism gives a feeling of urgency and inevitability. You feel doomed, and you are doing what you can given the limited resources and time. Such is life! You must prioritise and you must know how to plan. Not an easy job, but future mankind will thank you. 

Behind the scenes: Pinocchio

Pinocchio has gone to print. It is estimated to land in Malaysia in July. Here's a sneak peek at what happens behind the scenes. The manufacturer Magicraft sent me this video for production check, to make sure the components are complete and correct. Of course the music was added by me. That's not part of the game manufacturing process. Pinocchio will contain rules in three languages - English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. 

Space Base

The Game

This is a game which reminds me of and makes me feel nostalgic about two other games - Machi Koro and Catan.  Every turn two dice are rolled, and based on the numbers rolled, you make money or score points, or get to do something else more fancy. Every player manages his own space base, which has 12 space ports. You start the game with the same fleet of spaceships, each parked at one port. Spaceships help you make money and score points when you roll their numbers. Throughout the game you will keep buying more spaceships and improving the abilities of your fleet. The first to score 40 points wins the game. 

Every turn you roll two dice. You can decide whether to use them separately or together. For example if you roll a 1 and a 5, you can choose to activate ships 1 & 5, or you can activate ship 6. In the early game most ships generate a measly income. You need money to buy better ships. Every ship you can buy is associated with a port number. When you buy the ship, it must be parked at that specific port. The previous ship sitting here must now be deployed. Being deployed changes the ability of the ship. It is now triggered on your opponent's turn instead of yours. So yes, you get stuff on other people's turns. What you earn from a ship may change after you deploy it, but usually it is something similar to before.  

At the end of your turn, if you can't finish spending your money, it goes to waste. You don't keep money over multiple turns in hope to buy that super expensive spaceship. One power in the game increases your permanent income. You always earn this base income at the start of your turn. 

This above is the market. There are three tiers of space ships. The more expensive a ship is, the more powerful it is, generally speaking. Whenever a ship is purchased, a new one is immediately drawn to replace it. 

Some ships have special abilities. This ship when activated lets you place a marker on it. In future, you can spend that marker to increase your die roll total by 1. 

There is a special type of ship called a colony ship. Normally when you buy a ship which generates points, you only get the points if the ship is activated. Colony ships are activated immediately, but only once. They are an immediate way to score points. However they are also expensive, and once purchased, they lock up the port they are in. You cannot buy another ship for that port any more. The colony ship has no ability after you buy it. Normally you'd buy them only near game end when you are rushing for points. 

The Play

This is a game that makes me happy. You roll dice to collect stuff. You collect stuff when your opponents roll dice too. And you get to go shopping! This is a development game. You are shopping to improve your base. You want to make more money to buy even better ships. Eventually you want to buy ships that will get your lots of points. Some ships combo well and support one another. You may have a ship which scores many points but is placed at a high numbered port. This means it is hard to activate. When you roll two dice, the most frequent result is 7. It is hard to roll high numbers like 11 or 12. If you have a ship which lets you add 1 to your total, it improves your chances. 

What I enjoy about the game is that every die roll is a lucky draw. You'll get something, whether it's on your turn or on your opponent's turn. Lucky draws are exciting. The fun part of the game is how you develop your base. It is satisfying to develop a coherent strategy for your base and watch your vision take shape. 

As part of setup your high numbered ships all have the green Jupiter icon which means increasing permanent income. 

By late game you will have many deployed ships. They are tucked above your ships still at port, showing only the red parts. As you plan the growth of your fleet, you hope to be able to gain something useful no matter what numbers are rolled. 

The Thoughts

This is a pleasant and brisk game. The core mechanism is simple. The game is a breeze to play. However planning your space base will takes some thought. You should not be buying ships randomly. You want to put together ships that help one another. The game has a good balance between luck and strategy. There is certainly some luck. It is nice that you get to choose between using your dice separately or together. This gives you a bit more control. You do make meaningful decisions in developing your base. If you plan well, chances are you will get good results. There is no directly attacking your opponents, but you do have to watch their progress. You need to gauge the tempo of the game to decide when to switch gears and go for points. 

Dine & Dine event

The Dice & Dine event was held over the weekend of 14-15 Jun 2025 at Lalaport shopping centre in Kuala Lumpur. Compared to last year, I am participating in fewer events in 2025. Some because of schedule clashes, but some also because I decide not to. From my experience last year, events which are not directly related to boardgames are less effective. So I would rather save my time, money and energy. 

This time many of my local designer and publisher friends also participated, so I didn't need to bring their games to help them sell. Choon Ean (from publisher LUMA which is based in Penang) did not participate this round, so I brought her games Petal Plotters and Trishaw Frenzy. 

Some of my friends came to support me and to try my games. 

I introduced Dancing Queen quite a few times. Some visitors came alone or in pairs, so a 2-player game worked for these situations. I would play if the visitor was alone. Too bad I was out of stock. My second edition is being produced now and hopefully it will reach Malaysia by early July. 

My booth was busy for almost the full two days. I had little time to rest or eat. Every day by the time I packed up, my voice was hoarse. 

It makes me happy to see others enjoy my games and have good interaction and happy moments. 

A group of ladies came to play Ali Baba, and later they came again bringing two more friends because they wanted to play Snow White. Snow White needs at least 7 players. 

Pinocchio is not yet released, but I took the opportunity to showcase it. 

The next event I'm exhibiting at is the Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) in Penang, 11-13 Jul 2025. Come play with me if you are in Penang or in the north!