boardgaming in photos: Hong Kong trip, boardgames and adult learning

Of the four games I have published under Cili Padi Games, Dancing Queen, Snow White, Ali Baba and Pinocchio, the first three now have a second printing. Pinocchio was released just this year, but at this rate, I probably need to plan for a reprint next year. This photo was taken when I received the second editions of Snow White and Ali Baba. Thankfully my games are all small box card games. I still have enough space to store them at home. 

When I planned my Hong Kong trip in November, I was going to meet Charles of Hong Kong publisher Time2Play, so I asked my fellow Malaysian game designers and publishers whether they wanted to gift some of their games to Charles, to introduce Malaysian titles. I ended up bringing 12 different games for Charles. 

This trip I did a rather IG (Instagram) generation thing. I took lots of photos of my games and posted them on IG. My hotel was at Tsing Yi. When booking the hotel, the room was said to have a harbour view. It was technically correct, just that a more precise description would be a port view. 

I strolled down Nathan Road and kept an eye out for suitable backdrops for my games. I thought jewellery store signs would be appropriate for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

The iconic red taxis of Hong Kong

Temple Street entrance

I found this Pinocchio magnet at a bookstore on Nathan Road. The series is about fairy tale characters set in the modern day city life. Adult Pinocchio looks rather sad. My younger daughter Chen Rui commented that the colour scheme was exactly the same as my version of Pinocchio. I didn't realised that until she told me. It is not surprising though, because both the drawings are based on the Disney Pinocchio. 

Underground icon

Train to Disneyland

Underground station

We do have Watsons in Malaysia, but not with the Chinese name

Hong Kong mini bus

We visited Macau too. When we walked past this restaurant, I said I must stop to take a photo. It's a Pinocchio restaurant! This is a Portuguese restaurant. 

My old friend Horace was our guide

Jetta from Hong Kong is also a professional trainer like me. I got to know him through a trainer community, and this was the first time we met in person. He got into boardgames only a few years ago, but he has played many games, quickly becoming an expert. He has won several game competitions in Hong Kong. 

We have played games online before. This was the first time we played face-to-face.

I have played Boop before on BGA. 

It looks cute, but this is a 2-player perfect information abstract game

Cats and kittens

For many years I call the Chinese version of Ticket To Ride "che piao zhi lu"《车票之旅》 which roughly means journey of a ticket. The more commonly used name now seems to be "tie dao ren wu" 《铁道任务》 which means railroad mission. 

Jetta and I played at a boardgame cafe in Fo Tan called Board Game Station. It is spacious and they have a great library. 

My friend Seet Han is active in a Buddhist association, and they run training camps twice a year. They use games as part of their learning activities. They have just developed a new game, and they invited fellow Buddhists to do playtesting. Seet Han invited me to join too. This is a three-hour activity. It is mostly a cooperative game. As a team of 11 people we needed to work together to complete a mission. 

Every round we had to discuss and decide what to do. Then we had to roll a die to determine whether we were successful. Different decisions have different success rates and possible consequences. Our die rolls, all done by our team leader, were unbelievably lucky. As I played the game, I observed the players and thought about the mechanisms mostly from a game designer perspective. I did calculations based on the laws of probability, and several times I found that our group decision was not sound. However our team leader was so lucky that our die rolls threw all these odds calculations out the window. They didn't matter. We were just amazingly lucky. 

One of the game props

After the three hour game, we had dinner. We did discussions and feedback after dinner. It took us almost 2.5 hours. Everyone was keen to share. Several suggestions were offered. A few days after that Seet Han met up with me again to ask for input. Hopefully my feedback and suggestions are helpful to them. 

The Asian Board Games Festival was held in Singapore 28 - 30 November. It was held at the Singapore National Library. I did not participate as an exhibitor, but my games were there via Choon Ean of LUMA. She sold many Malaysian games at her booth. She sent me this photo above of Smoox from Taiwan Boardgame Design helping his friends buy my games to bring back to Taiwan. Thank you so much to Taiwanese gamers! 

In my full time job as a leadership trainer, I sometimes let my students play Pandemic as part of the training course. Pandemic is a popular game worldwide, but in Malaysia not many people know about it. Having done this so many times, there has been only one instance when one of my students had played the game before. It is not easy for new players to beat Pandemic. This particular group I taught recently managed to do so. 

DISC Personalities and Boardgames

My full time work, the one which is able to feed my family, is leadership training. One topic which many trainers conduct training on is the DISC Personalities. This is a simple framework which categorises people into four personality types. It is a tool you can use to understand other people and also yourself. By understanding people’s behaviours, we are able to communicate and work better with them. We reduce conflicts and build better relationships. I have taught this topic many times, and I realise when I look at it from the lens of a boardgamer, the DISC personality types can be described using boardgames! Let’s take a closer look. 

The four personality types are Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. The Dominant type are people who are direct, want to be in control, are impatient, and are action oriented. They are decisive. They can be sometimes blunt. They get straight to the point. In boardgame terms, they are the minimalistic Japanese games. No fluff. Deep Sea Adventure, Love Letter, Hanamikoji. They are the open information abstract games. Chess, Blokus, Patchwork. They like both the good and bad laid out in the open. They take responsibility for their actions. They like a healthy debate. They are the Splotter games - unapologetically honest. They don’t beat about the bush. Antiquity, Food Chain Magnate, The Great Zimbabwe. 

Love Letter

Blokus

Antiquity

Who would have thought? Antiquity, Blokus and Love Letter in the same category!

To work well with the Dominant type, show your competency, be well prepared, and be direct. They respect these. Don’t spend too much time on pleasantries. Respect their time. As opposed to proposing actions, give them options, because they like to feel in control. They like making decisions. Let them feel they are doing that. 

The Influence type are people who like to be the focus of attention. They like to talk and express themselves. They tell stories. They are performers. They care about how others think of them. They like making connections with people. They are often extroverts, often cheerful and bubbly. They are the type who talk about ideals and dreams, about lofty goals. In boardgame terms, they are your party games. Charades. They are the kind of games when you need to impress the judges, like Cards Against Humanity. The kind of games where you chat a lot with your friends. The social deduction games. Negotiation games, to some extent. Dexterity games and speed games. Codenames, Animal Upon Animal, Dixit, Halli Galli. 

Charades

Dixit

Animal Upon Animal

To work well with the Influence type, be a good listener, praise them, and be more casual with them. Convince them through stories and anecdotes and not numbers and statistics. They can talk but may not be as good in detailed execution, so you may need to monitor their work closely and help them when appropriate. They can get bored easily, so keep them entertained. Do have pleasantries even at the start of formal meetings. They appreciate making personal connections. 

The Steadiness type are people who tend to be quiet but supportive. They enjoy being part of a close-knit team. They can be a little resistant to change because they like predictability. Sometimes they find it hard to say no. They are kind. They like to feel appreciated. In boardgame terms, they are the modern Euro family games. No player elimination. No direct aggression. Mostly singing kumbaya and holding hands around a campfire. They are the pleasant point salad games where everyone scores points. Think 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, Agricola, Splendor. Everyone feels like a winner. The Steadiness type are the cooperative games. Everyone works together to try to win. Like Hanabi and Forbidden Island. They are the games which offer catch up mechanisms, because they don’t want anyone to feel left out. 

Carcassonne

Agricola

Hanabi

To work well with the Steadiness type, take time to build trust, and let them know you appreciate them. Be patient with them. Don't rush. Be sincere. They may be slow to warm up, but when you earn their trust, they will be steadfast supporters. 

The Compliance (or Conscientious) type are rational people. They are logical, fact-based, and may sometimes seem a little cold. They follow rules and they pay attention to details. They are the kind of people who collect large amounts of data and analyse them to death. They are disciplined and meticulous. They set high standards. In boardgame terms, they are the heavy Eurogames, the complex economic games, the spreadsheet games. They are also the wargames. Those games in which we see rules lawyering. Brass: Birmingham, Through the Ages, Here I Stand, Paths of Glory, High Frontier. 

Brass: Birmingham

Here I Stand

Paths of Glory

To work well with the Compliance type, stick to facts and figures. Present logical arguments and supporting data. Be punctual, be precise, be realistic. Don't talk airy-fairy. Don't tell them your hopes and dreams. Tell them why they are feasible and how they are to be achieved. Pay attention to detail. Give them time to think through and gather information to come up with their own conclusions. 

So here you are, something not so much about boardgames, but about a framework which you can use in your work and also personal life. I always tell my students, when you consciously observe people and make the effort to understand them, you will be able to work better with different types of personalities. You will be more productive and you will enjoy your work more. 

What are your top three games, and what DISC personalities do they have?

boardgaming in photos: working, playing and testing

I used a game I designed in one of my recent leadership training sessions - Tradition and Innovation. The game was not originally designed for training or learning purposes, but I realised it was fitting for the particular training programme I was doing, on leadership. The core idea I wanted to convey in Tradition and Innovation was that two competing factions have a common objective, but they pursue two very different ways to achieve it. The game was originally designed for 2 to 6 players. To turn it into a training activity, I made it playable for 12 participants. 

You have the tradition faction and the innovation faction. Both want prosperity for the world. However one wants to achieve this by honouring tradition, while the other believes innovation is the only way forward. In game terms, the tradition faction wins by pushing prosperity level and tradition level to 20 or more. The innovation faction wins by pushing prosperity level and innovation level to 20 or more. They have a common goal - prosperity. The game is played over at most 6 rounds. If neither faction achieves their winning condition, the game ends with both of them losing. 

The game was designed to explore human nature and human interaction in an organisation where people have both common goals and conflicting agendas. If an action would help the other party a lot, would you choose not to do it even if meant hurting yourself a little? Since there is a common goal, will you then focus your resources only on your own goal, and just let other people take care of the common goal? Because it's in their interest anyway? How willing are you to contribute to the common goal? 

This training activity I ran turned out to be very exciting. In Round 4, one of the factions already had a chance of winning. However the events had to be resolved first to see whether the two required levels could be maintained. Unfortunately one of them dropped below 20, so there was no victory yet. In Round 6, again one faction was poised to win. So now it came down to the last three event cards. Event cards were all bad. It was a matter of which stat was hit. At this point the innovation level and prosperity level were both above 20. The innovation faction would win if they both stayed at 20 or more. The first event card revealed affected the tradition level. No problem. The second event card affected the prosperity level. Thankfully it dropped from 23 to 20. That was still good enough. So it came down to the very last card in the very last round. And... innovation level dropped below 20. The innovation faction groaned in disappointment. The tradition faction cheered so happily it was as if they had won. In fact they were just happy the other team lost the game together with them. I teased them - you should be ashamed of yourselves. 

This was a boardgame gathering with my BNI friends. They are all non-gamers, so I mostly bring light games. I often bring my game design projects to get some playtesting done. This round I brought some prototypes too, but we were so engrossed with playing other games I forgot to bring them out. Blokus is very easy to teach, but as you play, you'll learn that it can be quite tricky and strategic. 

I was finally able to play Potato Tomato, which I brought back from the Thailand Board Game Show. I also managed to play Jinx-O from Indonesia. More and more games checked off from my to-play list. 

Ubongo is a game with a spatial element. It requires a different kind of brain power. Even if you are smart and strategic, you may not have that spatial reasoning ability. Alex is one of the smartest guys I've met, and he had difficulties with Ubongo, so Susie had to come to the rescue. Susie grasped the techniques quickly, and was often first to solve her puzzle. 

The gems of Ubongo

18 Jan 2025. TTGDMY playtest session. This is Jon's Dive for Gold, a push-your-luck game about diving for treasures. You keep revealing cards hoping to get valuable treasures. Each card comes with an oxygen cost. If you exhaust your oxygen supply, you will be forced to return without taking any treasure. So you need to decide when is good enough. If you decide by yourself to return, you don't necessarily claim all the revealed cards. You only get the most recent cards, up to a weight limit. You must take treasures beginning from the most recent, and you must take as many as you can, up to the weight limit, even if it means some are rubbish. 

You can take at most 10 treasures. Once anyone has 10, the game ends. The bikini is a treasure with no value. It just takes up a slot. 

This is Chee Kong's new game. He continues to develop new games using components from Zodiac Go. If you have a copy of the game, you will keep getting new games. You can download them from the Zodiac Go website. This particular new game in development has a bit of trick-taking. You win tricks to compete in five areas. 

I continue playtesting and developing Taking Sides. Number 7 is Liu Bei (from Three Kingdoms). I am now focusing on playtesting the 3 and 4 player variant rules. The game has 10 characters, each with a different strength value and special ability. Every round, you draw a random character, and then you have to decide which of two factions to join. For just that round, members of a faction fight as a team, but next round they may be on different teams. Now that I am using the Three Kingdoms theme, I name these two factions the loyalists (to the Han Dynasty) and the rebels. In the early days of playtesting, I mostly played with 6 to 8 players. At a high player count, many character powers came into play, and there was enough interaction between the powers to make the game interesting. However at a low player count, the game became less interesting. That is why I want to introduce variants for the 3 and 4 player games. The idea is I want to always have at least 5 characters in play. 

With 4 players, during round setup, one of the unused face-up cards becomes the Han Emperor, an NPC (non-player character). This character is already in the loyalist faction. After knowing who is already in the loyalist faction, the (human) players take turns deciding which faction they want to join. Knowing which character is already in the loyalist faction affects players' decisions. If my character works well with the Han Emperor, I probably want to join him. If my character's power can neutralise the Han Emperor, I will not be afraid to join the rebel faction. 

With 3 players, in addition to the Han Emperor NPC, there is another NPC - the Yellow Turban Rebel. In the Three Kingdoms story, the downfall of the Han Dynasty usually starts with the Yellow Turban Rebellion, which is a religious movement. When playing Taking Sides with 3 players, the identity of the Han Emperor is known. There will also be four characters face-up at the centre of the table. When players take turns choosing a faction, whoever is first to pick the rebel faction gets to claim one of those four face-up characters. This will be the Yellow Turban Rebel, who of course joins the rebel faction. Being able to choose an NPC teammate is attractive, especially when one of those four combos very well with your character. When you see an opponent pick a character to be the Yellow Turban Rebel, that gives you some clue too as to who that opponent's character might be. 

This was a smaller playtesting session with just the five of us. Erin left slightly earlier. Darryl was camera-shy. Thus only the three of us (me, Chee Kong, Jon) in this photo. 

Chatting Rivers and Lakes with Tao

 

Brian Bankler from Tao of Gaming, a blog I have been following for many years, read my recent post on Rivers and Lakes, a business simulation activity I designed for my leadership training work. He was intrigued and contacted me to chat more. We did an interview through email exchanges. We went into more details about the activity itself, my experiences running it, and also the thinking processes behind the design. Here's our conversation. 

If you are interested in my leadership training, contact me. 

Email: cs@simplifypeople.com

Website: simplifypeople.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiewchoksien/