Tea Time Hopping Race（午茶跳跳）

The Game

Tea Time Hopping Race is a name I came up with. The original name is in Chinese, and in order for me to create an entry for the game at www.boardgamegeek.com, I need to come up with an English translation. It's not a literal translation, and hopefully I'm doing it some justice. 

This is a family game from Taiwan. Bunny and Chick (I came up with these character names too) are competing. Every player supports one of them, but we only know who the start player supports. The loyalties of the rest are unknown and will only be revealed at the end of a race. Bunny and Chick will have three races. During a race the players play cards to make them advance. You will have opportunities to gain cakes (which are worth victory points). Whoever helps one of the characters cross the finish line earns a cake (even if you are not on its team). Then all its supporters share the prize as evenly as possible, in player order starting with whoever pushed it across the finish line. This sounds like a team game, but it is not one. Among those supporting the same character, you will compete to try to get more cake. Everyone wants to be the finisher. After 3 races, there will only be one winner - the player with the most points on the cakes collected. 

The tin box is beautiful, and can be mistaken for a cookie tin. 

The race track is created using cards. This character here is Bunny. The arrows on the track means if you land there, you must move backward or forward a specific number of steps. 

These cards are used to randomly determine which character you secretly support. The cards are shuffled and dealt out at the start of a round. The start player uses a different card and freely decides who to support. The rest are randomly assigned. It is possible that every player supports the same character. That doesn't necessarily make the race less interesting. 

Some spaces on the race track have a plate, and you place a piece of cake on these plates. When you make a character land on a cake, you claim the cake. This character here is Chick. 

The is the card back of the support card. A support card tells you who you secretly support, Bunny or Chick. You don't reveal this card until the current race ends. 

Before a race starts, place five cakes at the finish line as the prize. Whoever helps a character cross the finish line claims one cake, even if he or she is not a supporter of that character. After that, starting from the player who crossed the finish line and going clockwise, every supporter takes turns claiming a cake. Some may end up claiming more than one if there is enough. If you happen to be the only supporter of a character and it wins, you may be able to claim all five cakes! Being alone is not necessarily bad. 

The Play

This is a simple game. I would classify it as a children's game too. You have a hand of three, and every turn you just draw a card and play a card. Most of the time you play a card to move the character you support, but not always. The game may seem simple, but there is some subtlety in the competition among supporters of the same character. Ultimately this is not a team game. It is still everyone for himself / herself. Sometimes you don't want to advance your own character because it will set your teammate up to cross the finish line. Also sometimes you advance the other character because you want to claim a cake on a plate. 

I played with my wife Michelle and younger daughter Chen Rui. I was a little surprised when I managed to win in a 1 vs 2 situation, and my character was Chick, which has smaller cards. Being the sole supporter allowed me to claim many cakes. Then in the final race, although Michelle was on the same team as me, she played to let Chen Rui (on the opposing team) win. She felt I was too far ahead and it was impossible to catch up, so she decided to do something crazy and see whether she could make Chen Rui win instead. Unfortunately for me, it worked. 

Absolutely lovely cakes

This card lets you decide who takes the next turn. If you know who the opposing team members are, you can play this to skip over them and let your teammate play next. 

The point values are mostly between 2 to 4. 

The Thoughts

Tea Time Hopping Race is cute and well produced. It's a great gift for non-gamers and families. It's not the kind of game seasoned gamers pick to play, but I must admit I really enjoy the art and the  production. 

Dancing Queen at Asian Board Game Festival

24 - 26 Nov 2023 was the Asian Board Game Festival held in Singapore. I could not participate and could only browse photos of the event from Kuala Lumpur. A big thank you to Xiu Hong of Centlus Board Game for bringing along Dancing Queen to the festival. 

I love showing off photos of gamers with great taste in games, especially those who support Dancing Queen :-) 

The game box is small. It is convenient and fits in your pocket, but for photoshoots it doesn't stand out. I'm going to blow it up a bit:  

SpellBook

The Game

SpellBook is a 2023 game by Phil Walker-Harding (Sushi Go, Cacao, Barenpark). You are wizards competing in gathering gems (they call it Materia in the game) in order to learn spells. Spells generally help you gather gems more efficiently, so that you can then learn more other spells to help you gather even more gems even more efficiently. The game ends when a player learns all 7 types of spells. Spells you learn are worth points, and the highest scorer wins the game. 

During game setup everyone takes 8 cards. 7 of them are spell cards, and the 8th is just a reference card. The spell cards each list 3 levels of a particular spell. You need to collect at least 3 gems of the same colour to learn the beginner spell in that particular colour. 4 gems for the intermediate spell, and 5 gems for the expert spell. 

Every player also starts with a familiar. I think of it as your magical beast. One action you can perform in the game is to feed your familiar a gem. If anyone's familiar is full, i.e. you fill up all the spaces, the game also ends. You score points for having fed your familiar. 

The reference card lists the things you can do on your turn. You have up to three actions, for the morning, midday and evening phases of your turn. The basic morning action is to either take a gem from a public board or to draw two random gems from a bag. You have a hand limit of 10 gems and you may never exceed that. Once you reach 10, you can't take or draw any gem. You may forgo this basic morning action to cast a morning spell instead, that is, after you have learned one. Usually a morning spell is related to gathering gems, and it is more efficient that the basic morning action. 

The midday action is similar. The basic midday action is to feed your familiar one gem. Instead of doing that, you may cast a midday spell.  The basic evening action is to learn a spell by spending gems. The alternative action is, of course, casting an evening spell. Learning spells is not just for the purpose of giving yourself more action options. Spells are also worth points. 

The long thin board on the left is the public board. It will always have at least 5 gems. Every turn one more gets added. If it becomes full, all gems are discarded and it is refilled to 5. The gems in the game come in 7 colours and 3 icons (called runes), making 21 different combinations. The colour determines what kind of spell you can learn. The icons are for other game purposes. For example one spell lets you claim two gems instead of one from the public board, but the gems must have the same icon. 

The game comes with many different spells. In all 7 colours there are more advanced spells than what we played in our introductory game. You can mix and match and play with many different combinations. This is a game with many variations in setup. 

The Play

The gist of the game is collecting resources (gems), improving your ability to collect resources (learning spells), and ultimately scoring points. The flow is simple. There is some luck in the gem colours you get. Often you will want to draw from the bag because you get double the resources. That is very tempting. So you will leave things to fate a little to see where it leads you. Sometimes you do have to take charge if your own fate and pick a specific gem. You want to be purposeful so that you don't waste time waiting for a lucky draw. There is a nice balance between leaving things to luck and exercising choice. 

There are many different spells to learn. If you combo them well, they help you a lot. Learning spells is not always for the actions they offer you. Sometimes it's just for the points. Or sometimes it's for the sake of ending the game when you are in the lead. The game ends also when a familiar is fully fed. Players collectively have control over when the game ends. This is something to watch out for. 

I was unlucky with my draws. In the early game I mostly drew from the bag. My colours were too spread out. I needed at least 3 gems of the same colour to learn any spell. I ended up consistently spending gems on feeding my familiar. It is a basic action and it is not very efficient in terms of scoring points, but doing something is better than doing nothing. I became the human countdown timer in our game, feeding my familiar every single turn. I only learned one spell, and it was one which helped me in feeding my familiar. I could feed it two gems instead of one, if the gems were of the same colour. I felt like I was playtesting the game, trying to see if it broke if I applied this extreme strategy. I am happy to report that the game is well balanced. This basic strategy is not too strong or too weak. I was nowhere near winning the game. The winner was one who managed to learn quite a few spells and managed to make good use of them. I was not the last player either, which meant if I were able to execute this familiar feeding strategy with better spell support, it would be a viable strategy. So feeding the familiar is a good benchmark. When you decide not to feed it and use your gem for other purposes, that other purpose had better be more efficient than this feeding action. This is like buying Silver in Dominion. 

This was the only spell I learned, worth 2 points. 

My familiar was almost full now. I knew even if I fed it the last gem to end the game I wouldn't win. I went ahead anyway because the longer the game went on, the further I would fall behind the rest. Might as well get it over and done with. 

Too bad I didn't get to experience the proper spell learning part of the game. I played a rather extreme strategy. I could only see through the eyes of my competitors. There are many nifty spells. One allows you to take two gems from the public board instead of one. Another one allows you to discard a gem of a particular icon to draw 4 random gems. Yet another allows you to treat gems of specific icons as jokers. They are variations of collecting gems more efficiently and using them with more flexibility. There are many more advanced spells in the box we haven't tried. 

The Thoughts

SpellBook plays at a brisk pace. The overall flow is simple and easy to grasp, yet there is some strategic depth to chew on. You're just collecting gems to learn spells, and the spells make you more efficient in collecting more gems to learn more spells. But how do you make good use of the spells? How do you decide which ones to go for first? How do you make the most of the gems you happen to draw from the bag? I like the tricky balance between leaving things to luck and taking charge of your fate. Getting lucky feels great. Yet sometimes you want predictability and guaranteed progress. 

This is an entry level strategy game, good for gamers who have been playing casual games and want to get into something a little meatier. For experienced strategy gamers, it still offers interesting decisions despite appearing simple. 

Fit to Print

The Game

The graphic artist for Fit to Print is Ian O'Toole, who is currently the graphic artist in the boardgame industry. I wasn't aware it was him initially. I thought the art was fantastic and evocative. It was after the game that I realised it was his work. Good artwork contributes a lot to the play experience. 

Fit to Print is about newspaper editing. It is a real-time, spatial game. Over three rounds, you will be arranging the front cover of your own newspaper. It will be for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday editions of your paper. Players work on their own personal newspapers. You try to arrange your front page well in order to score points. After three rounds, the highest scorer wins. 

During setup, you get your own player board (your newspaper front page) and a work desk. The desk is 3D, although you can't really tell from this photo. It's a nice touch. At the start of a round, all tiles are spread around the table face-down. You need a countdown timer to play a round. We were all new to the game, so we agreed on 5 minutes. Within 5 minutes, you have to claim tiles from the centre of the table, and also fit them all onto your newspaper. The tiles are articles, photos and ads. Everyone does this simultaneously. 

When you take a tile. You flip it over to see what type it is. You can decide whether to keep it. If you want to keep it, you place it on your desk. Otherwise, you return it face-up to the centre of the table. That means others can see it and they can decide to take it. When you are still claiming tiles, you can't arrange them on your newspaper yet. Only when you are done with claiming tiles can you switch to tile arrangement. 

Ideally you are able to place all your tiles. Any leftovers entail a penalty. There are rules around tile placement. Articles of the type (business, entertainment or technology) cannot be adjacent to each other. Ads cannot be adjacent. Photos either. Some photos score points based on adjacent articles. You want to place them next to relevant articles. Every round everyone gets a special headline article which provides some special ability or an additional way to score points. Articles can be cheery or gloomy, and your newspaper needs to be balanced. Imbalance leads to a penalty. You also don't want to leave too much blank space. Players will compare their largest blank space at the end of every round. They gain and lose points based on how well they have managed their blank space. 

This particular headline offers an additional way to score points.

This was my newspaper from the first round, i.e. Friday. The difference between the three rounds is the size of your canvas. Friday is 7 x 14, Saturday 8 x 16, and Sunday 9 x 18. 

The ads are orange, and they have $ signs. Over the three rounds you total up your advertising income. Whoever earns the least is automatically disqualified. Only the rest get to compare points to see who wins. This can be quite brutal. 

There are three types of articles - green, blue and pink. Articles of the same colour must not touch. If you make a mistake, you have to flip over the offending tile. This will cause you to score fewer points. In the photo above, my photo tile on the left scores points for each adjacent green and pink article. So it scores 3 points in total. 

Some news articles are positive (cheery), some are negative (gloomy). The positive ones have yellow circles, and the negative ones blue circles. Your newspaper must try to be balanced in this. Any imbalance causes you to lose points. In this photo above I have 3 positive icons and 4 negative icons. This imbalance forces me to lose 1 point. 

The Play

The real-time aspect of Fit to Print feels like Galaxy Trucker, but this is a simpler game and is probably better for families. Being real-time makes the game exciting and engaging. It is not easy to accurately gauge whether you have claimed just the right number of tiles. If you claim too few, you are missing out on scoring opportunities and too much blank space can cost you points. If you claim too many, tiles you cannot place cost you points. 

This is mostly a multiplayer solitaire game. There is some player interaction, but it is not direct. You can look at tiles discarded by others to see whether they suit you. You can't really meddle with other players' newspapers. You do have to pay attention to the ads. Being faster than others is useful, because for the next round you'll get to pick your headline tile first. Most of the time you're working on your own paper. 

I noticed Albert tended to be the first to complete his work. He applied a clever tactic. He specifically chose larger tiles of about the same size. This way he didn't have to claim many tiles, and arranging them was easy, almost like laying out a checkered floor tile pattern. This also helped in minimising blank space. However I am not sure how effective this is in scoring points. With fewer tiles, it seems points will be less too. 

Some photos have good scoring abilities. I took a different approach, and claimed many small tiles. I wanted to fulfil the scoring conditions of the photos as much as possible, by placing many relevant articles around them. 

This was my Saturday (Round 2) paper. The rule in this game is similar to that of Blokus. Tiles touching at corners are not considered adjacent, but tiles sharing an edge are. In this photo above, my three photo tiles are touching at the corners, so they are not considered adjacent, and thus their placements are legal. 

At the top right I have a vertical article placed in a weird position. The reason is I wanted to avoid creating a large empty space. Had I placed it along the right edge, I would have a 10-square empty space. Now I had a 6-square empty space and a 4-square empty space. When players compare empty spaces, you don't add up all empty squares, you only look at the largest empty spaces and compare their sizes. My largest empty space is that at the bottom right: 8 squares. 

My Sunday paper. This time I didn't plan as well as previous rounds. I had one extra ad left at my desk (on the right) because I couldn't squeeze it in. This time my headline allowed me to earn extra $ for each ad above the fold, i.e. in the top half of my board. It turned out to be crucial for me. Without this $2 more, I would have come in last in ad revenue, and would have been disqualified. With that $2, I barely managed to squeeze into second last place. This is an interesting mechanism. I know Cleopatra and the Society of Architects has this too. It can be brutal, and that's why it's fun. 

The Thoughts

Fit to Print is pretty, engaging and also easy to learn. It is a pleasant play experience. In real life, newspapers are on the way to become a relic. How many still read them in physical form? Playing this game is like playing a historical game. You get transported to a past age. There is not a lot of player interaction, but the real-time aspect and the spatial element keeps you busy enough. 

Completing Dorfromantik

Younger daughter Chen Rui and I have "completed" Dorfromantik, after playing 10 games. "Completed" as in we have unlocked all the game components and rules. We actually did that at the end of Game 9. We played Game 10 with all components in play. The campaign doesn't end there. There is no end, technically. It's just that there won't be new components to unlock. 

Spoiler alert! Photos and descriptions below include content which is only available from Game 2 onwards. If you want to fully experience the component unlocking yourself, you may not want to read on. You can read the spoiler-free blog post here. I don't think spoilers will affect your enjoyment much though. 

I found the early games of Dorfromantik unexciting. Most of the time it's better to draw mission tiles. However as more and more special tiles are added, the decision on which tile type to draw becomes trickier. There are many special tiles which you will hope to be able to draw earlier, especially before completing your missions, because they can double the points of your missions. It is no longer straight-forward, and that's a good thing. 

Some new tiles make the game more challenging, e.g. the one with both train tracks and a river (see photo above). More challenge = more fun and satisfaction. There are many ways to score points, and it's not easy to keep track of them all. You often have to prioritise and be ready to sacrifice some. 

When Chen Rui and I became more familiar with the tile mix, we planned around what we knew would be coming. E.g. if a certain tile had not come out, we knew we could play our current tile this way, because that tile which was coming would help us to complete this particular terrain type. 

The balloon is a fun special tile. Whenever you play a tile next to the balloon, you have the option of moving the balloon onto the new tile. When the game ends, the balloon scores points based on how far it is from its starting tile. 

When you play a regular tile, you have the option of placing a heart on it. The heart scores 1pt for each edge where the terrain matches that of the adjacent tile. This example above is a perfect 6 points. Three edges are villages, two are train tracks, and the last one is a plain. Train track and river edges must match. If they don't you can't even place the new tile. However villages, wheatfields, forests and plains need not match. 

So many missions! 

In this particular game, the balloon went quite far. When we drew a useless tile, we used it to make the balloon go further. 2pts is not a lot but it is something. 

The map can become quite oddly-shaped. 

That building at the centre is the train station. If the tracks it is connected to terminate at the other end as well, you score 1pt per tile. 

This fog tile was the last component we unlocked. It is a joker, and that's a powerful ability. You can treat any of the edges as any terrain type you like. At this point in the game we were building a river, and we used the fog tile to extend it. There is a drawing of a river on the fog tile itself. We oriented it to look like it was actually extending our real river. It wasn't necessary, but it was fun. Thematic! 

The longest river scores points. In this game, we prepared to have this long river terminated by the harbour when we drew it (that special tile at the top right). This meant we scored the river twice, once for being the longest river, and then again for the harbour's power. A river connected to the harbour, if terminated at the other end, scores 1pt per tile. 

The railroad tracks connected to the train station is pretty long too. 

At the bottom right there is a special tile - the shepherd. All sheep connected to the shepherd score points. In this particular game we managed to get many sheep close to the shepherd. He scored 16 points! It was cool to make a donut from rivers too. It didn't score points, but it was photo-worthy. 

This is Chen Rui and my record after having played 10 games of Dorfromantik. This is the campaign sheet you use for tracking progress and unlocking components. When we played our 10th game, we were able to exceed the highest rank of 400 points. That was why we felt contented and we were happy to reset and return the game to Han, to let new players start their own journey. 

TTGDMY playtesting session

21 Oct 2023. I made it to the TTGDMY (Tabletop Game Designers Malaysia) playtesting session. This time it was in Kajang. Poon Jon is currently the active organiser. Mostly the sessions are in Kajang or Subang Jaya.  

This is Haireey's game Al-Kisah, about mythologies around the world. So far he has Malaysian mythologies, Greek mythologies and Chinese mythologies. Each of these are a complete set, and different stories within each set can be mixed and matched to create different play experiences. For example you can swap out the Puteri Gunung Ledang cards from the Malaysian mythologies set and swap in cards from a Chinese mythology. This system works well for creating expansions. 

Al-Kisah is a 2-player game. The game has 18 cards, 3 each in 6 different colours. You have a hand size of two. During the game you will draw cards, play cards into a common grid, and change the positions of cards. Every card has a different way of scoring points. Most of the scoring methods are along the lines of being next to a card of a particular colour, or being next to a specific card. Basically the board positions. The game ends when the deck runs out. You will still have two cards in hand. Their colours are your scoring factions. The cards with these colours in the grid score points for you. At most you will score points from four cards. 

During play, you will be choosing between what cards and colours to play, and what to keep, knowing that the colour you keep decides your scoring faction. If you have a powerful card, playing it won't help unless you have another card of the same colour. Throughout the game you need to guess what colour your opponent is going for too. 

Each player has 4 action cards, which you can use to move cards in the grid. Moving cards affect how they score. Some will score more, some less. If you refrain from using these cards, you score points. If using an action card helps your other cards score many points, it's worthwhile making use of it. 

Art in the playtest version is AI-generated and looks good. We all should learn to use AI to help us be more productive. 

This is Formation of Rome from Poon Jon. It has a bit of a Reiner Knizia feel. There are six classes of citizens in Rome, and you are competing for their support so that you can be emperor. This is a majority competition game. Playing a card of a particular faction means gaining support in that faction. You compete on having the most cards played in each of the factions. One of the factions is the brigands. If you "win", you lose points instead. When you play a brigand card, you play it in front of an opponent, not in front of yourself. 

This is the card distribution. Some cards have special powers. If you play it for the power, you won't be able to keep the card in front of you. This is sometimes a difficult decision. 

The cards with three icons are monuments. If you claim such a card, you need to have citizens in the depicted factions to score it. 

Card powers vary, and they can significantly affect the game landscape. It is often good to keep a powerful card for the most opportune moment. 

This is Faris' pitching game. It has a roleplaying element. Humankind is colonising the stars, and we are interviewing specialists for the colony ship. We know what the target planet is like, and we need to make sure we pick the right team to set up the new colony. Every player gets dealt a hand of cards. Cards can be used as characters, strengths or weaknesses. If you use it as a character (photo above), there will be various traits like age, gender, cleverness, charisma, physical strength and hobbies. 

Every round you must propose one character to be sent on the trip. Everyone takes turns to convince everyone else why his or her candidate is most suited for the mission. Then everyone votes. You rank everyone else's candidates based on who you think deserve a spot on the colony ship. You don't rank your own candidate. After all votes are cast, the top three candidates win spots. If your candidate is in, you score points. If the candidates you support win, you also score points. 

The back of a card has two parts - strength (blue) and weakness (red). These can be stuck beneath a character card to give him or her a strength or a weakness. During play, anyone can add a strength or a weakness to any character at any time. A character is limited to at most one strength and one weakness. Adding these help you convince others why they should support a character, or not support the character. You certainly don't want a hot tempered explosives engineer on the crew. 

These were the 8 characters in Round 1. Only some of them had strengths and weaknesses attached at this time. 

This is Chee Kong's Zodiac Go. It will be released very soon. It is on a ship to Malaysia now. Zodiac Go is not only a game. It is a game set with which you can play multiple different games. I've played the standard game included in the box. This time Chee Kong taught us a different game, about making bets. 

Player tokens

The three rows are where you get to place your bets. You place your token at a corner where four Chinese Zodiac animals meet, or between two animals, or on a colour. If your token is in a corner, it means you are betting that all four animals will appear. If your token is on a colour, it means you are betting this colour will appear most among the cards drawn for the round. 

The two rows at the bottom are cards flipped from the deck and they represent the results of the round. A few cards are revealed before players make their first bets for the round. More are drawn before more bets are placed. The players will have some basis for making bets. After all bets have been placed, the rest of the cards are drawn. Then you check whether make money from your bets. 

There is a first mover advantage, because this is like a worker placement game. Each betting position only allows one player to place a bet. 

To preorder Zodiac Go, visit this link: https://zodiacgo.games/