C2AGE Exhibition 2024

The C2AGE (Cosplay, Comics, Anime and Games Exhibition) event is happening this weekend 7 - 8 Sep 2024, at Jaya Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya. Entry is free. My booth will be on the Ground Floor. There is a free game play area on the 1st floor where my games will be available for play. Come visit me if you are in the area! 

Asian Board Games Festival (Penang 2024) interview

I was part of an interview series when I was in Penang for the Asian Board Games Festival - Malaysia 2024. The interview is in Mandarin. Link: https://youtu.be/OqfP2HogfRc?si=CYLFV0WSjaF6zi9V&t=444 

Counting down to Essen 2024

The Essen game fair held in October in Germany every year is the largest boardgame convention in the world. Essen is the Mecca for boardgamers. I have been a boardgame hobbyist for 20 years, and every year I take note of what the interesting new releases at Essen are. There is no way to avoid news about Essen when you are a boardgamer paying any attention to boardgame media. It is simply huge. It has a gravity well and everything revolves around it. This year, 2024, will be my first time ever visiting Essen. I'm going not as Cili Padi Games (a publisher) or as a game designer. I am just a boardgamer. Just a kid in a candy store. With about 4 weeks to go, I am feeling pretty excited. 

Flights and hotels have been booked. In fact they have been booked quite some time ago. Finding a hotel is crazy. I probably should have booked within 2 months after the previous convention. Convention time is super peak season. The hotels are not just much more expensive, they are also often fully booked. I first checked availability of accommodation in January. At the time I could still find some options. About 3 weeks later when I checked again, all the places I had considered booking were fully booked. Nuts! And lesson learned. 

Map of the convention halls

This will be my first time visiting Germany. Thankfully some of my friends have been to Germany and also to the Essen game fair specifically, so I can ask them for tips. My wife Michelle is going with me. We will do some sightseeing before the convention. The convention days will probably be intense and exhausting, so if I do the sightseeing after the event, I might not have much energy left. 

When researching for and planning our trip, I realised that there really is not a lot to see or do around  the city of Essen. So we will be visiting Cologne, and will also be spending a little time in Bonn, where Beethoven was born. Michelle has traveled in Europe before, and she says it gets dull quickly because it's all churches, castles and museums. We will try to experience the local culture and foods. That should be more interesting for us. They say Germen beers are the best. I don't normally drink, but I'm certainly interested to try. 

 

The event organisers developed an app for the convention. This looks pretty nifty. You can keep track of publishers and games you are interested in. You can even use AI to create a schedule for you based on the publishers and games you want to see. Many gamers make highly detailed plans when they go to Essen, drawing out exact paths to specific booths to buy specific games. I don't have the patience to do that. I plan to just stroll at a leisurely pace, and stop whenever I come across anything that catches my interest. I'll listen to the game introduction and I'm happy to watch others play. I don't necessarily have to sit down and play. 

I don't buy as many games as I used to. I still have plenty of opportunities to play new games, but I don't often come across games which surprise me. Aaaahh... the jaded gamer speaking. I don't often find games which I'm eager to have in my collection, which already has more games than I can play. I bought the 4-day pass for Essen, but I'm not entirely sure I will be there for the whole four days. Okay I know that's blasphemy. The true gamer should have no hesitation about fully utilising the four days to play as many games as possible, and to also use the evenings and hotel lobbies to play more games after leaving the convention halls. My plan is to take it easy. I'm there to experience the vibes. I don't intend to pack my schedule. I'll take my time to discover little gems and innovations. 

For many years I have told myself I won't be making any trip to Essen. I live in Malaysia. Germany is a long way from home and thus rather expensive. Spending that amount of money for four days of playing games and visiting game booths doesn't seem worthwhile. All that information about the games will become available on the net very quickly. The hot games will eventually make their way to Malaysia anyway. The money I save will allow me to buy many games. Only more recently I changed my mind about making the pilgrimage to Essen. It's not just about playing games or buying games. It's about the experience being part of such a large international event. It's about soaking in the atmosphere. As they say, YOLO. Sometimes we allow ourselves to indulge a little. 

And this is me. If you are going to be in Essen this year, if you see me, please stop me and say hi. My name is Chok-Sien. Hiew is my surname. I would love to meet friends who know me through my blog. If you want to support my games Dancing Queen or Snow White, message me privately and I can bring them to you at Essen. 

Seven!

Seven! (with exclamation mark) is a game I bought in June at the All Aboard game fair. Being a game designer and indie publisher means I often attend local boardgame events as an exhibitor. As an exhibitor, I have to take care of my booth  and teach people to play my games. I don't usually have time to visit other booths or play other people's games. This time I did not participate as an exhibitor due to another commitment, but I had time that weekend to visit the fair as a visitor. That was nice. I could take my time to browse the booths and all sorts of games new to me. There were demo copies of many of the games and I could examine the components and skim the rule books. 

Seven! first grabbed my attention because of the unusual cover. It made me curious. I read the description at the back of the box. It's a card game that's good for casual play. That means it's the kind of game I am working on myself. Yeow Meng from Swan Panasia gave me an overview of the game. Eventually I decided to get a copy. It was the only game I bought that day. After I got home, I opened the game to take a closer look at the cards. I realised that unusual wasn't the right word to describe the art. It was just ugly. That was worrying, because if the art of a game is poor, it might mean the publisher is an amateur (which should not be the case for Swan Panasia - they've been around for 20 years) or they didn't bother to do a good job. I didn't want to jump into conclusions. I waited until I'd actually played the game myself. After actually playing it, my opinion changed again. It turned out to be a game I enjoy and admire. 

The Game

Seven! is a set collection card game. There are seven sets of cards in the game, each having seven cards. Every card is unique. It is an object. Each set has a theme, and the objects are all related to that theme. E.g. there is a billionaire's toys set, a burglar's tools set and a body parts set. The game is played until every set is completed. Whoever has the most number of completed sets wins. 

The game starts with everyone being dealt 10 cards. A turn is simple. You ask for cards, and then you draw cards. You may ask anyone for a specific card, and if they have it, they must give it to you. When you demand a card and get it, you get to demand again. This continues until you demand a card which your target doesn't have. Then you end your turn by drawing from the draw deck. Every card in the game is named. Names of cards belonging to the same set are listed on the cards, so as long as you have one card in a set, you know what other cards you can attempt to ask for. 

The moment you collect all seven cards in a set, you must play them before you and end your turn. So everyone knows how many complete sets everyone has. In addition to the basic cards, there are three other types of special cards. There are jokers. If an opponent asks you for a card but you don't want to surrender it, you may play a joker instead. This ends your opponent's turn too. This can sometimes be a life-saving play. Then there are power cards. These have all sorts of abilities, some hurting your opponents, some helping you collect sets. Some are crazy powerful, e.g. one allows you to take over a complete set from an opponent (but you still need to give him 5 cards). Finally there are some disaster cards. They are, of course, bad. When you draw one, you apply the effect immediately. 

The pink set is related to baking cake. They are all ingredients you need for making a cake. The white card on the left is a power card. It can stand in for any other basic card in the game. When I have six cards of a set and I'm missing just one, this Artist card can represent that missing card, completing my set. 

This is the Joker. If an opponent asks for a card and you have it but don't want to surrender it, you can play the Joker instead. This only delays your opponent by one turn, but that one turn can be crucial. On your turn you can counter-attack by demanding cards from him. 

The one with a black star is a disaster card. The one with the yellow star is a power card. This particular disaster card lets other players each steal one random card from you. The power card here lets you look at all hand cards of one opponent. 

The Play

The early game is pretty random. There are still many cards in the deck, so most likely none of the sets can be completed yet. You don't know what cards your opponents have, so you are just trying your luck. When you ask for a card, you are at the same time giving clues about what you have. You can only ask for a card from a set when you have at least one other card from the set. So by attacking, you are also making yourself vulnerable. Gradually more and more information becomes known as players ask for cards. There is a memory element in this game. 

If you find that another player is trying to collect the same set as you, things get exciting. It becomes a race. If you can't collect the complete set on your turn, by your opponent's turn he might be taking all those cards from you if he keeps asking for the right cards. You can't defend against this, unless you have a Joker. 

If there are still some cards of a set in the draw deck, it may not be useful to have many cards of that set. You can't complete the set anyway. It is dangerous when other people know what cards you have. As long as they remember correctly, and they have at least one card in those sets, you can lose many cards on the same turn. This is why Seven! is nerve-wracking. Tables turn very quickly and dramatically. This is a game with plenty of player interaction. It can get rowdy. With the right group you'll get lots of banter and trash talking. 

As the draw deck dwindles, the game builds up to a climax. This is when the tension shoots up. Some sets will become fully available. It is a matter of who will beat the rest to complete them. 

Some of the power cards are crazy strong. Once you get familiar with the game, these power cards create a strategic layer. One particular power card forces all opponents to give you their cards in the rubbish set. If you have this card, you'd want to keep it and use it only in the late game, when you expect there are no more rubbish cards in the draw deck. This power card also makes players reluctant to collect the rubbish set. It's a high risk set unless you have that power card. The power cards give the game character. 

You get nervous when you collect cards. The process of successfully asking for cards is also the process of exposing what you have. Even when you have 6 cards in a set, it is not guaranteed that you will eventually complete the set. An opponent with that last card can easily demand all the other six from you. When this happens you will feel like committing murder. 

Being middle-aged uncles we found some of the text small and hard to read. We are going to let our Karens out and complain about accessibility and inclusion. 

The Thoughts

Seven! was a pleasant surprise. Now the kind of game I am designing is of this type - short but interesting card games. I enjoy learning from how other people make this kind of game. Had I designed a game like Seven! I would feel proud. It's simple, easy to learn, rich in player interaction,  and exciting. It gives you an emotional roller coaster ride. There is plenty of luck, but due to how there is sufficient player interaction, you feel more in control than you actually do have control. You would imagine the power cards to make the game more random and luck-based. I found the opposite. There are many power cards, and usually everyone will get some. Since players can choose who to attack (i.e. demand cards from and play power cards on), the players naturally balance the game during play, with leading players getting attacked more often. Luck evens out. When a game with a large dose of luck makes you feel it is strategic and that it has meaningful tactics, that's a successful design. When you win, you feel smart and that you deserve it. When you lose, it's just bad luck. 

Seven! (with exclamation mark) is a 3 to 5 player party type game which plays in just 20 minutes. At first it may sound like the kind of forgettable and brainless take-that game which non-gamers tend to like. However when you look deeper, you'll discover how clever it is. Not many games create such anxiety between gaining and losing cards. 

Rainforest City

The Game

Rainforest City is a game from Singaporean designer Daryl Chow. It is a game about nature and developing habitats. It has an educational element. Players build rich habitats and fill them with plants and animals to score points. They set up food chains. The game is played over a fixed number of rounds. The highest scorer at game end wins. 

These are the tokens in the game. Those numbered 1 are plants. Those numbered 2 are herbivores, and they need to eat plants. They can only survive (i.e. score points) if they are supported by a plant in the same habitat. The tokens numbered 3 are the carnivores, and they in turn need to be supported by herbivores. The background colours represent the terrain types these plants and animals live in - forest, sea or marshland. The otter is a special type of carnivore which can live on any terrain. 

At the start of every turn the centre of the table must be set up like this. There are four sets of two cards each. There are two types of cards - terrain cards and animal cards. Two of the sets will have one card of each type (in the photo above, those two sets on left and right). One set will have two terrain cards (the set at the bottom). One set will have two animal cards (top). The active player may choose any set. To choose a set, he must turn the central dial so that his fruit (every player is assigned one) points at the set he wants. The dial determines which sets the other players get access to. The other players may pick one from the two cards they have access to. 

When claiming a terrain card, you must add it to your territory. Connected squares of the same terrain type in your territory form habitats, and when you do final scoring, it is done separately for each habitat. Terrain cards usually come with some free tokens. 

When claiming an animal card, you don't add it to your territory, but you'll get to place tokens. Tokens must be placed following the pattern shown on the animal card. Also the terrain type must match your territory. If you are unable to place an animal (or plant), there is a penalty. This can be because you don't have the matching terrain, or the position where you are supposed to place a token is already occupied. In this photo above, I was able to place all three tokens. 

Here is how tokens score points. All the number 1 tokens score 1 point by default. These are plants. Each plant supports one herbivore within the same habitat (connected group of same terrain type). If a habitat has two plants and three herbivores, only two of the herbivores will score points, because you don't have enough plants. Similarly, each herbivore supports one carnivore. The 3 points of a carnivore is lucrative, but they are not easy to score. You need to set up the whole food chain. 

Some terrain cards have houses, i.e. human habitat. These are worth 3 points each, so that's attractive. However when you pick a card with a house, it forces you to discard a specific token. Also if you place any token next to the house, you lose 1 point per token. 

I had a large sea habitat (blue), and it had three dolphins. However only one of them scored 3 points, because I only had one fish. So I could only support one dolphin. 

This is used when playing the advanced game. If you fulfil a specific condition, you score bonus points. 

The Play

I played Rainforest City with my old friends when we went on a gathering trip to Ipoh. Chee Seng brought the game. Chee Seng has played many different boardgames, although he's not as crazy as I am about them. Cherng Liang is not really a gamer and doesn't play often. The three of us are at different points on the gamer spectrum. For Chee Seng and I, the game was pretty straight-forward. However Cherng Liang complained why we picked something so complicated to play. However he went on to win the game. So it's not really that complicated. He was just not accustomed to playing games like this. 

We played quite many games during our trip to Ipoh

I would say a big part of Rainforest City is a solo game. Or multiplayer solitaire. You build your own little kingdom and your opponents can't really mess with you. The player interaction in the game comes from how you pick cards when you are the active player. Your choice determines the options available to your opponents. If you think you are going to give options which are too good to them, you can intentional make a suboptimal move for yourself for the sake of not benefiting your opponents too much. We didn't really play that way. We mostly focused on just optimising our own moves. If you want to, you can examine what animals and plants your opponents may want, and avoid giving them what they want.  

In our game, Chee Seng's fruit (i.e. player icon) and mine are on opposite ends of the central dial. That means in the early game when we tended to want two terrain cards on our turns, we were forcing the other to pick from two animal cards. Cherng Liang's fruit was 90 degrees from ours, so on our turns he was able to pick from one terrain card and one animal card. Maybe that's why he eventually won. 

My kingdom towards late game. 

The player icons: rambutan, durian, banana and mangosteen. 

The card backs of the three types of cards form a montage

The Thoughts

Rainforest City is a light to mid weight family game with an educational element. You learn a little about the environment and the ecosystem. The player interaction is low, and you can peacefully develop your own little kingdom. If you are the competitive type, you can still play that way by paying more attention to your opponents' play areas and watching out for what they need. Optimising your play within your play area does give your brain a little jog, but overall I'd say the game is pretty straight-forward. Primary school children will be able to handle it. So this is a good educational tool. 

Ali Baba and the Forth Thieves - counting down now!

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves will be my third game. The scheduled launch is Nov 2024. I looked at my playtesting records, and found that my first ever playtest was Aug 2022. So it took me about two years to bring this game from initial idea to publication. This game started with the mechanism. It didn't even have a theme initially. I decided on the Ali Baba theme quite late. However I think it is quite fitting. It matches well the feeling I try to convey through the game. It was a moving moment for me when I first saw the concept art for the cover. Two years is not that long, but not short either. 

My first two games Dancing Queen and Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs had art in the style of 80's Japanese manga. For Ali Baba I engaged the same artist Edwin. I thought he might continue with the same style, and make it a branding thing for Cili Padi Games. It wasn't what I anticipated, but I was delighted. I fell in love with the characters. 

Card back

This is the leader of the thieves. In the first prototype, this was not called the boss. It was called the bomb. If you draw it, you die. OK, it isn't that dramatic. You just lose the round and you lose money. What's your favourite part of the boss? The beard? Or the hippo teeth? 

There is a reason I made this x2 card a genie. In Ali Baba when it is your turn and you flip over a card, you usually want to reveal small numbers, so that the sum of all visible cards do not reach or exceed 12. So revealing the x2 is usually bad news. Its value will be double that of the previously revealed card. However sometimes the x2 can be a lifesaver. If the previously revealed card is a 0, then 0 x 2 is still 0. That was why I chose a genie to represent the x2 card. A genie is powerful. It can hurt you, but it can also save you. 

What's your favourite part about the monkey? For me, it's that bad boy earring. 

Ali Baba is set in mythical Arabia. I did not limit the art to using only elements from the original Ali Baba story. I added in other Arabian fairy tale elements. Thus the genie, the magic lamp and the magic carpet. In an earlier version I had a bit too much influence from Disney's Aladdin, and I had to tone that down. 

The art for Ali Baba is now done and submitted to the manufacturer. So this is it! I look forward to bring you my next creation in November! 

Petal Plotters

The Game

Petal Plotters is a game from Malaysian game designer Evan Cheah, winner of the Malaysian Boardgame Design Competition in 2023. It is a small-box microgame using only cards. The garden is on the brink of war, and you have to decide whose side to be on. The grasshopper? The snail? The monkey? If you successfully pick the ultimate victor, you win the game. 

At the start of the game, deal all cards out to the players. You then take turns playing a card to manipulate the end game. When everyone has just one card left in hand, the game ends. Your last card is the faction you have chosen. If the end game situation meets the condition on that card, you win. 

When you play a card, there are two ways you can use it. You can play it face-down before you. Every card has two numbers, one at each end, and usually one is positive and the other negative. When you play a card face-down before you, you must choose one of these numbers. When the game ends, the numbers on all the cards played by all players are added up. This is the outcome of the war - it's going to be a number. The condition on your faction card will be along the lines of this total being less than zero, more than eight, more than 12, and so on. So during the game you try to influence the total, while your opponents are doing the same. Since cards are played face-down, you don't know what the others have played. 

That brings us to the other use of a card. You may play a card face-up to use its special power, after which the card is discarded. Special powers can help you see the face-down cards played by your opponents. They can also help you manipulate the end game total. E.g. one card lets you look at an opponent's card, another one forces everyone to pass one card to the left. The drawback of playing a card for its special power is you won't be able to keep it face-down before you to add or subtract from the total. From your opponents' perspective, there is less hidden information they need to worry about.

At game end, all the face-down cards are flipped over, and you sum up the card values. The last card you keep is your faction card. If the sum meets the condition on your faction card, you win. Sometimes more than one player meet their conditions. Among the conditions there is a ranking based on how difficult it is to fulfil them. The player with the higher ranking wins. 

The Play

This is a short game, but by no means a simplistic game. A card has four uses. I count the two different numbers as two different uses. When you get your hand of cards, you have to think hard how best to make use of your cards. You have to plan which card to leave to the end as your faction card. You will normally want to keep your options open for as long as possible. At the same time your card plays should help you towards the eventual faction you pick. As you observe your opponents play, you want to guess their intentions because their plays affect the end game total. You have to decide how best to make use of the card special powers. This is a compact game with much to think about. You have many options, and you must choose wisely. You have to pick some and forgo others. This is the dilemma you face. 

The Thoughts

Petal Plotters may be a short microgame, but it is a thinky game. You need to read your opponents to guess whether they are adding or subtracting from the total. You have limited actions to manipulate the total and gather information. There are tough decisions to be made.  

I have heard that some do not like the art. I was surprised by that. Indeed the art is not typical of the type of art used in boardgames, but I think that's a good thing. I find the art beautiful and the box cover attractive. We should push boundaries. The graphic design is functional, and the art doesn't hinder gameplay. When LUMA published Petal Plotters, it was the first game in the Tropika series. This series has nature as the theme, and I'm looking forward to more games. 

Trick & Snipers

The Game

Trick & Snipers is a trick-taking card game from Japan. I bought it when I was on holiday. I am not specifically a fan of trick-taking games. I don't dislike them, but I don't actively seek them out. When I browsed the Yellow Submarine game store in Sapporo, I was in a bit of a hurry. I wanted to buy some Japanese designed games. I knew I could skip international games from the big brands which have been localised. I could get those in Malaysia. I zoomed in to Japanese games I had not seen before. The cover caught my attention and I picked it up. I can't read Japanese and had to use my phone app to translate the Japanese description at the back of the box. It sounded interesting, so I decided to buy it. At the time I didn't realise it was a trick-taking game. In hindsight, it was obvious. The title said so. Forehead slap. 

I won't describe the basics of trick-taking games (e.g. Hearts). I'll just describe how Trick & Snipers is different. It has four suits and the cards are numbered 1 to 12. This is very simple and you can play the game with a regular deck of cards. Tricks are by default not worth any points. To score a point, one way is taking a trick which includes a 7. The other way is to win a trick by sniping. This gets a little complicated. If the card you play is not in the leading suit, and its value when added to the supposedly winning card makes exactly 13, you snipe successfully and win that trick instead. Such a trick is worth one point too. To win a game, you need to score two points. 

The card back and cards in the four suits. The 7's have gold foil. 

The Play

The rules for Trick & Snipers are short and simple. You need to really sit down to play it to appreciate the nuances. I realise that memory is an important element. I think it is true for all trick-taking games if you want to play well. It's just that I'm often lazy to memorise every card play. I just try to roughly remember which of the higher cards are out. It is important to remember the higher numbers because the 7's are vulnerable to them. Lower numbers are still important in this game though, because they can be used for sniping. A lowly 1 can beat a 12 because they add up to 13. Don't be overconfident with your 12's and 11's. I like how things can be a little unpredictable. It is exciting. I don't play trick-taking games in a very competitive manner. If I play with serious players, I'm going to get destroyed. Thankfully I tend to play with others who also play in a relaxed manner. We do put some effort into playing it well, but we aren't experts. 

3-player and 4-player games feel a little different. With four players, we get fewer cards and the cards are more distributed. It seems to be quicker for players to run out of a particular colour. That is dangerous. Once anyone runs out of a colour, sniping becomes more likely. I am still thinking about the tactics to increase one's chances of sniping. I've tried saving different low cards. However that doesn't always work. Once the 7 in the lead colour was about to win a trick, and it was sniped by a 6! 

Sometimes this game makes me feel that had I wanted to, I could remember every card and based on my opponents' plays calculate what cards they have. If someone keeps playing the high numbers in one colour, he's probably trying to exhaust that colour from everyone else's hands, hoping to force the 7 out and win it. Or maybe has the 7 and he's trying to force others to play the high cards which would threaten to win his 7. However one twist which throws things off a little is this - every game a few cards are set aside unseen. This means you can't 100% calculate the cards in the game. There are still some unknowns. 

This game reminds me of mahjong. It's the kind of game that friends can play together repeatedly for a whole afternoon or evening. You get different cards and situations every game, and thus different problems to solve. The game mechanism is interesting and the replayability is high. This works well for non-gamers who, unlike us gamers, don't like spending a lot of time learning yet another new game. 

The Thoughts

Without deliberately trying to, I have played many trick-taking games. Most of them have their own unique twist. Sometimes I wonder whether making a trick-taking game is a shortcut for game publishers to create a product. Most people are already familiar with the trick-taking mechanism. It is a solid foundation which you don't have to work on. You are just adding a bit on top of that. Since many players are already familiar with the basic mechanism, your game will be easier to teach. There are people who specifically like trick-taking games, so you already have a ready market. 

I quite enjoyed Trick & Snipers. I am reminded of the fun of playing the same game with a few close friends for half a day. I did that with some old friends when we had a hiking trip to Ipoh. We chatted as we played. We made fun of one another. The game was quick to learn and we didn't have to keep moving on to the next game. It was comfortable and relaxing playing this game. Don't let this make you think that Trick & Snipers is a simplistic game meant for non-gamers. It is still a game with decent depth and it rewards skillful play. 

MTG Family Day event - 4 Aug 2024

This event will be at Lumi Market Place, Tropicana, on Sunday 4 Aug 2024. If you are in Klang Valley, come play some games! 

An Infamous Traffic

The Game

Being ethnic Chinese myself, this subject matter in the game An Infamous Traffic is a heavy one. It is about a dark part of Chinese history - the opium trade and the Opium War. British merchants with the collusion of corrupt Chinese officials smuggle opium into China, creating a severe narcotics problem. The game designer is Cole Wehrle, designer of Root, Pax Pamir and John Company. I think this piece of history being tabled and discussed is a good thing. We learn from history so that we don't repeat the same mistakes.  

The game board is part of the Chinese map. Each province has at least one supply chain - a row of spaces. These supply chains represent the opium business. When a chain is completely filled, you are open for business. Everyone who has a counter in the chain makes money. A supply chain can involve more than one player. 

This is the player board and on the right the player counters. There are two tracks on the player board. The one with a black background is for tracking the number of investments you've made in the current round. Some actions reduce your profitability, and these are called investments. The number of investments you can perform within a round is limited by your revenue level. Your revenue level is the other track with the white background. 

You have three types of counters - ships, merchants and goods (opium). Creating a counter is one of the actions you can perform. You need to create a counter (bringing it into play from your supply) before you can place it on the board. You set prices for your counters. This determines how much money you earn when your counter opens up a supply chain. 

Revenue of your company is but a means to an end. You don't win based on revenue. Your ultimate score is the prestige points on these Prize cards. Every round some Prize cards are randomly drawn and placed face down. Each player may look at one of the Prize cards. Each round when you are done with all your actions and decide to pass, you send your scion to London to mingle with the aristocracy. How well he does depends on your revenue level at the time. After everyone has passed, you compare the reputation of your scions, and the most respected get to claim Prizes. If tied, the player who passed earlier has an advantage. So all that drug dealing is just for your kid to fraternalise with rich brats.  

Black dice in the provinces represent demand. A province must have demand for business to be viable. The game has a dice pool. Certain actions allow you to move a die from the common pool to a province. Black counters in the provinces represent illegal activities. Those skulls are smugglers. The cross is  Christians. Yes, that's illegal too. The number of black counters determines the number of black dice. The dice total of a province is its demand for opium. A supply chain has a total price - the sum of the prices of all its counters, and that total price cannot exceed the demand of the province if that supply chain is to be activated. 

Yellow counters belong to the Chinese Qing Dynasty. Those on the supply chains are corrupt officials benefiting from the opium trade. Those in the provinces are army units. Some army units do policing and remove black counters when deployed. The presence of army units represent the strength of the Chinese government and that prevents or delays the Opium War. 

The red and yellow tracks here are what determine whether and when the opium war breaks out. Red represents how many times the Qing government has angered the British. Think of it as excuses the British can use to take action. Yellow represents the strength of the Qing army. When red exceeds yellow, the Opium War is triggered. This can happen more than once during the game. When war breaks out, the British army can eliminate Qing army units and Qing officials. The Qing government may be forced to open some ports to trade. 

Along the top there are spaces for eight groups of counters. These are randomly set up at the start of the game, and every round counters will be added. One of the actions you can perform is to move counters from these holding circles to the map. So in this game you are not just doing opium trading. You have some control over the British government, the Chinese government and the illegal activities. 

Business is business. You are here to make money. Often you want to collaborate with others to open supply chains. When you join forces, you can get things done quicker. Who doesn't want to start making money earlier? After supply chains are established, they can be disrupted. Sometimes counters are removed and the chain is broken. There can also be price wars. Your opponent may undercut you by placing a counter with a lower price, kicking your counter off. That means they are desperate enough to earn less for the sake of grabbing market share. 

The Play

When playing games, there is an attraction to playing the bad guy, because we don't get to do it in real life. In a game world, we can do something different, be someone different. That is the joy of gaming. So I must say I was a happy drug dealer destroying families and bankrupting enterprises. In our game I chose to focus on producing opium, and since I was the biggest producer, I had the power of monopoly. No one else could undercut me. 

Our game was unusual, in that we had many Qing army units in play, and few British army units. With the Qing Dynasty being so powerful, the Opium War never occurred. We played an Opium War game with no Opium War. 

At this point the inland provinces of Guangxi and Henan had completed supply chains too. Opium was flowing further inland. Getting a supply chain up is actually not easy. There are several conditions to fulfil. In our game we did not get many Qing army units which could do policing. We had some which came up earlier when we didn't have many illegal activities yet anyway. So later on many of our illegal activities went unchecked. It certainly helped with the opium business. Despite not having the Opium War or the British navy forcing ports open for us, we were able to do business well enough. 

Our game ended in revolution. This was an alternative ending. When there are too many illegal activities, the dice in the common pool will be exhausted, and that will cause the downfall of the Qing Dynasty. In this case, the Prizes no longer matter. You determine victory based on your presence in China instead, i.e. the counters you have on the board. Since we knew the revolution was likely going to happen, in the final round we worked hard deploying our counters, even to supply chains which we knew we wouldn't be able to complete, and even when we knew we wouldn't be generating revenue. It was about branding and exposure now, not profitability.    

This was the situation at game end. There seems to be many counters on the board, but if you look closely, the opium business is only running in Guangdong (Canton), Guangxi and Henan. Jiangxi has a completed supply chain, but it is dependent on the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. Neither has an operating supply chain, so Jiangxi has the infrastructure, but no goods to sell. Zhejiang is only short of one counter to start selling opium. We are short of one smuggler. The light blue shallow sea space can only be filled with a smuggler. 

The Thoughts

This is a simulation type game. It is certainly thematic. This is the kind of game with a fair bit of work  involved because there are many rules created to represent historical elements. This is a complex game. Not very long, but it is complex. It portrays well this chapter in Chinese history. From a gameplay perspective, it has solid mechanisms. There is player interaction, plenty of competition, and at the same time players do want to cooperate for mutual benefit when the situation is appropriate. We are all shrewd businessmen, but when there is profit, we are willing to sleep with the devil. This is not an exercise in reenacting history. Our game certainly turned Chinese history upside down. No Opium War, no Nanjing Treaty, and Hong Kong never ceded to the British Empire. 

I enjoy seeing history being told (despite not exactly being true to the original in our case), and I like this unusual topic. An Infamous Traffic is an immersive experience. Drug dealing has been great fun! One thing that I like is Lin Zexu (林则徐) being in the game. He was a powerful official who cracked down hard on the opium trade.