Asian Games: Jom Burger, Card Bullet Reload, Fly-A-Way

I tried quite a few games at the recent Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. I check my list of games I have played and will write about, and I currently have 22 titles to talk about. Gosh I have a lot of homework to do! 

Jom Burger is the latest title from Specky Studios (Malaysia). The designers are my friends Ah Hong and Buddhima. This is a simple dice drafting game about the local Malaysian street burger. This would be a great collaboration project with Ramly Burger. Everybody loves Ramly Burger! 

Every player gets a little player board - this burger card above. There are spaces for 12 dice, 2 in each colour. Dice represent food ingredients. Pink is drink and fries. They turn your burger into a set meal, but you need to have at least a completed basic burger for them to score points. Every round you roll some dice, and then you claim them. The pips are your points. When claiming the first die, you do it in player order. For the second die, you do it in reverse player order. 

Everyone starts with two special ability cards. They let you draw a new die or reroll a die. They will hopefully help you increase your score, but it is not guaranteed. If you don't use them, they are worth 2 points each at game end. 

You will score points if you complete a basic burger or a deluxe burger. The first player to achieve these score extra points. 

We had a preview play before the event started with Buddhima (right, one of the designers).

Card Bullet Reload is from Mousou Games (Japan). The artist NONNKI came all the way to Malaysia to attend the festival. 

The game is designed by Hiro's son. This is a first person shooter in microgame form. Every round is a melee, and you shoot at one another until only one player remains standing. That player scores one point. You then start a new round. The game ends when a player scores his second point and wins. 

There are only 5 types of cards in the game. There are simple attack cards which you play to inflict damage on any opponent. There is a counter card which you can use to deflect an attack to anyone else, including your attacker. If you get hit, you place the attack card before you indicating that you've taken a hit. Get three hits are you are out of the round. There is one card which allows you to give a damage card to another player. That's almost like an attack card.

On your turn you either play a card or draw a card. To attack, you need to play a card. One thing the game does in an interesting way is you don't always play in clockwise order. If you attack, and someone gets hurt, it is the player who gets hurt who goes next. If you draw a card, then the player on your left goes next. In this game you don't want to get mired down in a duel. If the two of you keep spending cards, you will soon get pounced on by the others. 

This is a simple game with plenty of player interaction. I love the art. 

Fly-A-Way is a game from Play Logue of Singapore. It is a successfully Kickstarted game. It is a game about the paths of migratory birds. 

The map shows most of Asia Pacific. At any time there will always be three pairs of destinations showing the two ends of the migratory paths of bird species. Your job is to connect the two destinations using your player pieces. This actually feels like a train game. Whenever a pair of destinations is connected, everyone who has pieces involved scores points. 

Cities with different shapes affect scoring. Some cards you claim give you points based on these shapes. 

When you complete a path, you claim the bird card, score points for it, and you also get to start using the special ability. 

This is a beautifully produced game with lots of research done on the bird species. The game mechanism is not particularly noteworthy for seasoned gamers, but it is something casual gamers can quickly pick up. Also this is quite educational and will be attractive to bird lovers. And this is not at all like Wingspan.