Golden Meeple

 

Yay, I have a Golden Meeple! This is my avatar on BoardGameGeek.com. I recently received a GeekMail informing me that I have a new achievement microbadge - the Golden Meeple. This is for reaching 10,000 likes. I've been on BGG since August 2003. I used to upload many files - my concise reference sheets. That is why I have that fourth microbadge, Herculean file uploader. I didn't realise getting 10K likes would take 23 years. In the age of social media, I would have expected likes to be much more abundant. At the time of writing, 3812 BGG users have this microbadge. The next level up is 100,000 likes. I don't think I'll live to see that! 

Why boardgame industry people are nice

This is my theory, and it might not be entirely correct, but I'm sure it is at least partially true. 

I have been a hobby gamer for many years, but I have only been in the industry side of it for about 5 years. I count from 2022, the year Dancing Queen was released. I have met many, many nice people in the industry. Game designers, game publishers, play organisers and so on. My theory is that for many of us this is a passion industry. We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t have enough passion for it. And that’s why I meet nice people. If you’re doing this out of passion, you are not desperately fighting for survival. You are not competing. You are not plotting to get rich out of this. You just enjoy the love of playing, and of spreading the joy. Maybe this is a naïve perspective. There are many people making a living from boardgames. To them it is life and death. So I consider myself lucky being a struggling wannabe game designer. I may never make it as a professional game designer. I may never be able to build a sustainable boardgame business that can feed my family, or even just me. But perhaps that’s okay. If someone plays my game today and it makes them laugh, it is a good day. 

I always have an urge to go around asking people, how do you make money from your boardgame business? I am curious because I can't get the numbers to work for me. At least not yet. A game designer is not a real job. This is the kind of thing I'd say, looking at my financial statements for Cili Padi Games. My little indie game design studio is not being sustained by profitability, but by passion. The financially responsible side of me says I am investing in a business that may grow into a stable source of passive income. The honest side of me says you can afford this hobby so just do what you want. My boardgame business is not a distraction or escape I need from a stressful full-time job. I do love my job and take pride in it. I am just greedy and I want to do all the things that make me happy.

At TOBE 2026 my wife Michelle met some of my boardgame industry friends for the first time. Out of the blue she said to me that Milk is such a kind person. She had just met Milk, and they didn't even have much time to chat. It was Michelle's comment that made me realise I do meet many nice and sincere people in the boardgame industry. Before TOBE 2026 Milk knew Michelle was going (and they had never met), and when she saw a small red chilli hairclip at a night market in Taipei, she decided to get it for Michelle. That was really thoughtful of her. 

I met Ming again at TOBE, and his wife accompanied him too. I can totally imagine our wives rolling their eyes at each other, and talking about how crazy their husbands are, and how they are humouring their husbands by coming along. 

I am grateful for my friends, and I wish them joy. And money, if they want more of it. 

boardgaming in photos: Goa, Eslite, Nemesis, Pokemon Code Talk

I asked my artist Edwin to design a roll-up bunting for Pilgrim Poker. I plan to bring this to exhibitions. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. 

I was at Eslite Bookstore (诚品书局) on Sun 16 Aug 2026 to demo Malaysian Holidays. Eslite ran a small event showcasing Malaysian themed and locally designed tabletop games. I was one of several designers at the event. 

Events like these are important because they help us reach out to the general public. In Malaysia, most people know little to nothing about modern boardgames. So it is important to create more awareness. 

I demo'ed at one table and Buddhima of Specky Studio demo'ed at the next one. 

Buddhima also showcased games from LUMA designed by Choon Ean. I joked with him that he looks like a rapper. 

Ray demonstrated Teh Tarik Game. This was the game which won the Malaysian Design & Play game design competition in 2025. 

I saw this game Workplace Dilemma at Play Play Asia (the game shop at GMBB Mall specialising in Asian games). I skimmed the rules and it sounds promising. This is a play copy but I did not have time to try it out. This game pokes fun at the typical workplace. The boss has a project to be done. Everyone must contribute. The project will succeed only if you collectively put in enough effort. If it succeeds, the most visible guy (not necessarily the one who put in the most effort) gets the reward. If it fails, the one who put in the least effort gets penalised. Can you get away with not putting in enough effort because someone else put in even less that you? 

Jon brought this back from Korea. 

Think of this as advanced tic-tac-toe. To win, you need to create three-in-a-row. There are nine sectors each with nine spaces. The spaces are numbered 1 to 9. When you place your pokemon, the number you put it on determines the sector the next player must place his pokemon. That's it. 

The game looks great!

Bulbasaur!

This can be quite thinky. You need to play smart to restrict your opponents' options. If you look at the situation above, green has lost because in all nine sectors there is a space orange can win with. 

The game is for 2 to 4 players

The Korean version of this game is called Hands Up. The original English version is a game from 2015 called Hands. 

You have a hand of cards showing various hand gestures. Every round, everyone simultaneously makes a gesture following one of the cards in hand. You want to find someone who is making the same gesture as you. If that happens, both of you score points. You score your card, and you get to draw a new one. 

That means you have to watch what other players are doing. If you see a gesture that you have the card for, you should do it next and hope the other player will do it too, or notice you and soon do it. 

Some gestures require two hands. If you choose to do one of these, you have to put down your hand cards because you'll need both your hands. Whenever you see someone do a two-handed gesture, drop everything and follow him, because the last person to do so will be penalised. 

This as a rowdy party game. 

I played Nemesis Retaliation on BGA. We played a cooperative scenario. Everybody calls Nemesis the Alien boardgame. They are right. 

In the cooperative game, all of us wake up from hibernation, and we don't really know what's going on on the spaceship. We have even forgotten the layout and have to relearn it by exploring the spaceship. The scenario tells us what our objectives are. In this particular game, we have to discover all rooms of two types, and at least one of us need to survive and bring an alien egg away. 

When we move about the spaceship, we make noise and attract aliens. When we shoot at them, we make even more noise. This is a pretty stressful experience because the aliens keep coming. Also the spaceship itself is not in great shape. Fires break out, systems break down. I got myself killed because the room I was in ran out of oxygen. 

This was my character. 

I must admit I did not learn to play this properly. This is the same problem with me when I play complex games on BGA. Nemesis uses a deckbuilding mechanism. Each character has his own deck. I don't think I utilised my deck well. 

Goa is a game from 2004. I have the first edition. This year it is released again through Kickstarter. The new version is certainly pretty. I played on BGA. 

I remember it being compared to The Princes of Florence, because you also do an auction followed by actions which others cannot interfere with. However I'd say they are quite different games. The auction phase is done on this 5x5 grid above. Players collectively trace a connected path to mark tiles which will be auctioned off. The tiles give you all sorts of benefits and resources. 

This is your player board. You have five tech tracks, each associated with an action type. When you advance on a tech track, you make your action stronger. Advancing is important because you score points for your progress. 

boardgame shopping in Japan

I visited Kyushu, Japan on a family holiday. Needless to say, being a gamer, I looked up boardgame stores to visit well before the trip, and also took the opportunity to look for games at bookstores, 100 yen shops and such when I was there. I found some games at Don Quijote. Don Quijote is a discount store which sells lots and lots of different stuff. Most of the games I found seemed to be heavily language dependent. So I didn't buy anything. 

The Google Translate app on my phone has been tremendously helpful. I point my camera at the box, and Google Translate does the translation from Japanese to English for me. The translation is decent. I can get a rough idea of the games. This particular game above seems to be popular. It has grown into a series. 

Back of the box

This one has sold 300,000 copies! 

Something to do with marriage proposals

50,000 copies sold! Not as impressive as 300K, but still very impressive.

A game about nasty LINE messages maybe?

This is not a boardgame. This is a map showing merchant ship routes approaching the port of Nagasaki. This is displayed at a museum. When I saw this I immediately wondered whether this could be turned into a boardgame. 

I visited Sunny Bird boardgame cafe and shop in Nagasaki. It was a 4-minute walk from where I stayed in Nagasaki. I did not sit down to play, but I did take a look at the cafe section. They have a huge library. One title that caught my eye was the early edition of Power Grid, when it was still called only Funkenschlag. This was the 2001 edition. The play area is cosy, not big. The cafe is in the city area, so I imagine rent must be expensive. Space is a premium. It's nice to have a boardgame cafe and shop so conveniently located. 

The shop section was not very big, but there was plenty for me to browse. I think there were more Japanese designed titles than foreign designed titles. That was perfect for me. I mainly wanted to look for Japanese designed games. I can find international titles easily in Malaysia. The shopkeeper was friendly and helpful. He recommended me several titles. It took me a while to browse, since I needed the assistance of Google Translate. 

I found a copy of the latest Japanese edition of Ra. I already own one, but Benz had asked me to find a copy for him. Mission accomplished. This edition comes in a pretty small box. It is compact and the price point is low. JPY 2200 is about MYR 55 or USD 13.50. 

These were the games I bought at Sunny Bird. Loop is by a designer from Nagasaki itself, so this is a meaningful souvenir. I bought it not only because of that. The gameplay did intrigue me. Let's see how it plays. I have not played it yet. The third game here is not by a Japanese designer, but the gameplay description is interesting enough that I decided to buy it. 

At one of the malls I visited, I saw this shop selling lots of TCG (trading card game) cards. There were tables for gamers to play. 

The cards were arranged in shelves like this. This might be the norm everywhere around the world, just that I am not a TCG player so I'm not familiar with this sight. 

At a bookstore I visited, I did not find boardgames or card games, but I saw many tarot card sets. I think people use these for fortune-telling or self-help. 

There were sample copies provided to allow shoppers to browse the content. 

Tarot cards is a whole new world I know very little about. 

One Piece version of UNO. I saw UNO with many other IP's attached. 

I saw a shop in Canal City Mall, Fukuoka selling a Gundam TCG

These are starter sets. JPY 1650 (around MYR 42 / USD 10) for one pack. That's quite cheap. I'm assuming one set is sufficient for one player to play. 

These starter sets come with three figurines. 

Player mat for the Gundam TCG

There were people playing another TCG. I wanted to take photos, but I didn't want to interrupt them or make things awkward. I took these quick shots while walking past. That's why the photos are poorly framed. Many players brought their own playmats. The play tables had player guides printed on them. 

We visited several cities in northern Kyushu, and our last stop was Fukuoka. I was pretty happy with the few games I bought in Nagasaki. Although I knew there was a Jelly Jelly Games cafe and a Yellow Submarine shop in Fukuoka, I listed them as optional destinations. If I had time I would go. By the last day, I almost decided not to go. I only changed my mind the evening before we flew back to Malaysia. It was late afternoon. We didn't have plans for the evening. The next morning we would be heading to the airport at 5:30am. Although I was tired, I decided to visit Yellow Submarine. They were still open. 

They are on the third floor of a commercial building. If you don't know about them, you would not discover them by chance. They are a destination store, not a shop you will chance to walk past at a shopping mall. More than half the shop is dedicated to TCG's. They have play tables. However they have a boardgame section too, and for me there is a lot to browse. They too have many Japanese designs, not just foreign designs. 

This is a weird one. It is a game about investigating the colour and pattern of a lady's underwear. I guess this is humour in Japan, slightly risque. In many other countries and cultures this would be inappropriate. 

Love Letter is one of my favourite games. It has a legacy version! Unfortunately this seems to be pretty language heavy. I did not buy this. I wonder whether there will be an English version. 

Back of the box

Trendy is an older game from Reiner Knizia. I have played it many years ago. I absolutely love the cover of the Japanese edition. It looks like a fashion magazine cover. I'm already starting to regret not buying this. I remember the game was just okay. That was why I didn't buy the game. Now that I think about it, this would have been a nice souvenir or memento, even if I don't buy it for the gameplay. 

Back of the box

This is another game I almost bought but didn't. I like the art direction. I looked up reviews on BGG, and most people think it is just so so. 

I find that many games come with English rules. 

I ended up buying 7 games from Yellow Submarine, more than I expected. I didn't go to Jelly Jelly Games after that, because it was getting late, and I was already feeling a little guilty for having gone on a splurge. Ukiyo-e is a design by Michael Schacht. I like his games. This game is originally called Crazy Chicken, later published as Drive. Ukiyo-e is the Japanese edition, and it has a very Japanese theme - Japanese art. This is definitely a good souvenir for gamers visiting Japan. 

There is a game called New Old in the photo above. It looks like two boxes, one new and one old, but this is actually one game. The cover design is done this way intentionally to make this look like two games placed side by side, a worn out copy next to a new copy. 

Later I discovered that Cat Poker is actually Panda Panda. I already own Panda Panda. I didn't know Cat Poker is the original Japanese version. Rikka (六華) - the black box - is by Hashimoto Atsushi, who designed Tiger & Dragon. That was what made me buy it. I really admire Tiger & Dragon. 

By looking at the box cover and the box back of Ult: Coldburning, it seems this is mostly played with numbered cards in different suits. There are some cards with some text, probably scenario cards or something along those lines. I thought this should not be too much work so I decided to buy a copy. 

After opening the game, I realised how wrong I was. This game is fully packed with cards. It has two huge stacks. And guess what, almost half the cards are text cards! See that stack below on the right. I'm going to spend a lot of time translating all those cards. 

If I sleeve these cards there is no way they can still fit in the box. 

Sai Beppu is a superstar in the Japanese boardgame industry. So many games are illustrated by her, and she has such a wide range of styles. I also notice how prolific Kaya Miyano is. He is best known for Trio / Nana.  

I bought three decks of poker cards from various 100 yen stores. I bought one deck because during the trip I had an idea for a game design, and I wanted to playtest my idea with my family. I bought the second and third decks because they looked nice and they were cheap. 100 yen is MYR 2.50 or USD 0.60. The Sanrio deck is cute, and the fruit one too.