Rainbow

The Game

Rainbow is a clever card game from Japan by Mito Sazuki. What’s most special about it is that cards which you play in one round to compete for prizes in turn become the prizes in the following round. If you play powerful (i.e. high) cards to win lucrative prizes in the current round, beware they themselves will become lucrative prizes next round. Do you still have strong cards to compete for them next round? Are you offering too-good prizes to your opponents? 

Cards in the game are numbered 1 to 6. At the start of the game, most cards are dealt out to all players. The same number of cards as the player count are laid out at the centre of the table to become the prize pool. Every round, you play cards to fight for these prizes. The most powerful combo gets the highest prize, the second most powerful gets the next highest, and so on. There are only two types of combos, sets and runs. A set means multiple cards of the same value. A run means cards in sequence. You can play singles too. A single is both a set and a run, albeit with just one card. The start player of a round determines the combo type. If a single is played then it can still be any combo. The type is not committed yet. Once anyone plays a set or run with at least two cards, subsequent card plays must be of the same type (or singles). The strength of a combo is first determined by the number of cards and then by the card value. 

You must play a combo, even if it is weak. At least you must play a single. Once everyone has played, you start claiming prizes beginning with the player who played the strongest combo. After prizes have been claimed, cards played in the current turn are grouped by their values and in pairs if possible. You try to form pairs of 6’s, pairs of 5’s, pairs of 4’s and eventually you’ll have singles. These become the prizes for the next round. This means a prize can be worth up to 12 points (two 6’s). There will only be as many prizes as there are players. If you have too many prizes you simply discard them. The prizes you win don’t go to your hand. They go to your prize pile. 

The game goes on until at least 2 players have used up their cards. If you are first to run out of cards, you sit out until the game ends. The rest continue to play until the end condition is reached and they continue to score points till then. 

The Play

This is a game about winning the most points with the least effort. You don’t always need to “win” a round, as in playing the strongest combo. If the values of the prizes are about the same, it is probably better to conserve your resources. You need to do a little bit of planning. If you have many high cards, make sure you win some of them and they don’t all become your opponents’ prizes. The game end dynamic is also interesting. You need to think carefully when to use up your cards. Being first to go out and having to sit out for many rounds while others continue to play and score will be disastrous. When you are the player who can trigger game end, if you feel you are leading you’d want to end the game immediately and not let others have more scoring opportunities. 

One thing we tried to do in our game was to stay in play for as long as we could. That meant trying not to play big combos so that our cards lasted longer. We tried to make many small wins. We played the efficiency game. Sigh, these serious gamers are boring people. Where’s the drama? I realise small cards can be good too. If you use four 1’s to win a big prize, you are only making at most two sets of 2 points for the next round. The only drawback is playing four cards means depleting your hand faster. 

The Thoughts

Rainbow is a smart design. Certainly something a little different. It is short and quick, but not exactly a casual / silly type of game. There is some strategy to playing well. You need to respond to how your opponents play. Casual gamers can still handle this. Experienced gamers will find this an interesting challenge too. Despite the cute art, there is a certain seriousness to this game. This is essentially an abstract card game. At least I don’t get the unicorn theme at all. And I don’t mind that. 

Panda Panda

The Game

This is a design from Japanese designer Kaya Miyano, who is most known for Trio / Nana. He also designed Trick & Snipers. When I looked him up, I found that I have played an older game he designed with another designer - Zombie Tower 3D. I thought that was quite clever. The first edition of Panda Panda was released in Japan in 2023, and it was named Cat Poker. The international edition Panda Panda was released only shortly after the original, in 2024. 

Panda Panda is a simple and short card game. Every round, you race to be first to collect a winning combo. Whoever achieves that scores a point. You need to score two points to win the game. The cards in the game are labelled from A to G. A's are the most common. There are 10 A's in the game. The G is the rarest card. There is only one G in the deck. Here are the winning combos: 

To make a winning combo, you must have the exact number of cards, no more, no less. For example you want to make the C and E combo. That's a 2-card combo. You can't have more than 2 cards. If you do, you need to spend turns discarding the surplus cards. A turn is super simple. You either take a card or discard a card. When taking a card, you may draw from the common draw deck, or take the top card from the discard pile of any player. Yes, every player has his own discard pile. What this means is if someone wants a card you discard, chances are he will be able to get it, because that top card in your discard pile will not be covered by anyone else's card. It takes a full round before you can cover it with another discarded card. 

If you choose to discard a card on your turn, you simply place it face-up at the top of your discard pile. If you discard an A (the most common card), this triggers a special action. Everyone must pass a card to the left. This is an important mechanism. This can really mess up someone's plan. It is not easy to collect a winning combo, and an untimely (or timely!) A being discarded can really screw someone's plan. 

When you make a winning combo, whether by taking the last card you need, or discarding the last extra card you don't need, you don't score immediately. You still need to wait a full round until the start of your next turn. This is always a nerve-racking moment, because if anyone discards an A, you will be forced to break your combo. During the game if you see anyone getting cocky, you may want do discard an A to see whether you'd destroy his plans. One rule about A's - if the top card of a discard pile is an A, you can't take it. 

The Play

This is a quirky little game which I can't quite categorise. I guess you can call this a set collection game. It is brisk, and it'll work well as a filler for game night. The game is simple and doesn't require deep thinking, but if you do think about it, there are some tactics you can consider. When you pay attention to the cards others are discarding, you may be able to guess which combos they are making, or which ones they are not making. If anyone takes a card from another player's discard pile, that's a big hint too. Keeping some A's in hand is a good tactic. If you sense someone might be winning, discarding an A can severely delay him. It's always a pleasure to hear someone groan when you discard an A. 

One general strategy I use is to just keep drawing cards in the early game, and then depending on the cards I have, decide which combo to go for, and then start discarding. I'm not sure whether this is an optimal way to play. It seems sensible. When an A is discarded and everyone needs to pass a card, what you get from your neighbour might be a useful clue. 

I mention several tactics here, but you don't really need to think so much to enjoy this game. You can choose to focus on your own combo and just enjoy the race to make a winning combo. This is a light and casual game. 

The Thoughts

Playing Panda Panda was a refreshing experience. It is something a little different. It'll work well with non-gamers and casual gamers. This is the kind of game you can play while chatting. For gamers, this is something novel worth trying out. 

session report: Indonesia

Indonesia from Splotter is one of my favourite games. I had not played it for many years. Recently in a chat with fellow game designer friends Jon, Cedric and Chee Kong, we mentioned this game, and I said I have a copy and we should arrange a time to play. So we did. I checked my records and realised that the last time I played this was more than 10 years ago. So much for "one of my favourite games". Now I don't sound sincere at all. We set a Sunday afternoon, and we did a 4-player game - the best player count for Indonesia. 

Indonesia is a heavy eurogame and an economic game. You start businesses in Indonesia producing goods or delivering them to cities to make money. You can be a producer or a shipping company. Producers need to pay shipping fees to have the shipping companies move their goods to cities. How much you have to pay depends on shipping distance. The most important mechanism in the game is the mergers between companies. You can do hostile takeovers. You can also force others to buy your companies at a steep price. Our game lasted about 4 hours, but we were fully engaged throughout and time just flew by.

This is the tech chart. You use markers in your player colour to mark which level you are at in each of the technologies. To be able to own and operate multiple companies, you need to have the necessary technology. Otherwise you will always be stuck with just one company. Every round, turn order is determined through a single-round bidding. One technology in the game allows your bid amount to be multiplied. At the highest tech level, every rupiah you spend can be treated as 400 times the value. This is a hint at how important turn order can be.

The large square tiles are the companies you can start. At this point we had just entered the second era out of three eras. The game is played over just three eras. In the first era you can only start rice companies, spice companies and transport companies. In the second era, rubber companies come into play. Rubber is a more profitable product. 

When you force two companies to merge, they must be of the same type. For example a rice company can only merge with another rice company. A shipping company can only merge with another shipping company. There is one exception. A rice company can merge with a spice company to become a microwave meal company. In the photo above, yellow is rice, green is spice, and red is microwave meal. They are different goods and they do not compete with one another. Cities accept all types of goods, but in limited quantities for each type. Once enough of one good is delivered, that good is no longer accepted. Later in the game, that rice company on the left merged with a spice company to become a microwave meal company. This resulted in competition with the older microwave meal company on the right. Turn order became important for them because whoever delivered first would get the deal done. The other might not have any more buyers, or the buyers might be far and incur a high shipping cost. In Indonesia, you must deliver goods to buyers if you can, even if it means losing money on the transaction due to shipping costs. Your shipping partner is not necessarily your friend. 

Chee Kong was orange. His tech in managing companies was at Level 4 now, which meant he could own and operate four companies. I was green. My merger technology never developed, which meant I never proposed any company merger. I could only join in the bidding if someone else proposed a merger. I could not initiate any attack.

This was the third era. Now we had oil companies. Old is the most profitable product in the game. However in our particular game our third era was quite short. The oil companies did not have time to grow big. Instead it was the rubber companies from the second era which managed to grow big and become highly profitable. One decisive play in our game was when Jon initiated a merger and bought my large rubber company. At the time I did not have as much cash as he did. I bid the maximum I could afford, but it was not enough. I was forced to sell my rubber company to him. He went on to win the game. His winning score was slightly above 1500 rupiah. I was about 50 rupiah behind him. Oh my condom company! 

We had several important mergers in our game, which is expected of Indonesia. There were big shifts on the board. Cedric became the king of shipping. He had two large shipping companies spanning the archipelago. I had both production companies and one shipping company. The shipping company was somewhat profitable, but more importantly it helped me save on shipping costs because my production companies could make use of my shipping company. Left pocket right pocket. 

This was the situation at the end of our game. I must say Indonesia is tedious to manage. If it weren't such a great game I wouldn't be able to forgive this level of fiddliness. So many small pieces to lay down, to flip over, and then to flip back again. One sign of a good game is you are still thinking about it and discussing it afterwards. You can trace back to the decision which caused you to lose the game, or to win the game. You find that you can only blame yourself and no one else. You can't blame luck. It feels great to be able to play Indonesia again. I can truly say this - after 10 years, you are still as beautiful as I remember. The game does not feel aged. When I play it, I understand better why I like some of the games from that era, and why I dislike some of the newer popular games. Oh no... I am becoming that grumpy old guy.  

From left: me, Cedric, Jon, Chee Kong. 

Ketupat Rendang

The Game

Ketupat Rendang is a short card game about your favourite Hari Raya dishes. This is the latest game from Malaysian publisher Meja Belakang, the team which brought us Drama Pukul 7 and Nak Makan Apa. Everyone is randomly assigned one main dish and one side dish. This is kept secret. Throughout the game, you lay down cards which have dishes and also fire which is used to cook the dishes. Parts of cards can overlap, hiding some dishes and even fire. Dishes are only cooked if they are adjacent to fire. At the end of the game, you score points for your dishes which are cooked and whoever has the most points wins.

Your secret objective card

Regular cards

You have a hand size of two. On your turn, you simply draw a card then play a card. Cards can be played next to existing cards and they can also be played partially overlapping other cards. Every card is divided into three equal sections. There are many ways cards can overlap. The golden rule is no single card can be completely covered by other cards. That means if two sections of a card have been covered, the last section is protected.

This is how fire works. A section containing one fire cooks one dish in every orthogonally adjacent section. If the section has two fires, then it cooks two dishes in every adjacent section. The game ends after the last card is drawn. You check the play area. For each of your main dish which is cooked, you score 2 points. For your side dish, you score 1 point each. In case you have any fire in hand, you lose points.

At the moment my main dish rendang (red background) scores 8 points because 4 are cooked.

The Play

The gameplay is smooth and fast. Initially, no one knows who has which main dish and side dish. However, there will be clues if you observe your opponents closely. At the same time, you may also want to play in a way which hides your intentions. It is not easy to hide your main dish until the end of the game. After all, you do want to manipulate the play area to show as many of them as possible, and to cook them. It is always a little nerve-racking to play a card with your main dish. It is not always easy to protect your main dish from being covered. The board situation is fluid. There can be many attacks, as in players covering one another’s dishes, or at least what they think are their opponents main dishes and side dishes. You can attack your own main dish if you want to, but I am not entirely sure this is a good idea. The game is short. Shooting yourself, even just a little bit, might set you back significantly.

Don't worry. This is not Overcooked. Too much fire will not burn your dishes.

The Thoughts

This is a pleasant and breezy game. It is of just the right length that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and there is enough time and space for you to make meaningful plays. So this is satisfying. The board is open information. Player cards is hidden information. The game reminds me of Carcassonne. You can only play one card, but there are several possible positions on the board where you can play it. I am glad I backed the game when it was crowdfunded. 

Point Salad

I must say the name of the game did not inspire confidence. The term "point salad" has a negative connotation to me. It reminds me of soulless games which are a mishmash of different ways to score points. I want to play a game. I do not want to play the role of an Excel formula trying to maximize numbers. I played my first game of Point Salad with a little trepidation.

The Game

This is a pure card game in which you collect vegetables and also scoring criteria which help you score points based on those vegetables. A turn is super simple. You are just taking a card from the centre of the table to add to your collection. Everyone takes a card until all cards are gone, and then you score points to see who wins. 

The game is set up like this: three draw decks and six face-up vegetables. Depending on the number of players, some cards will be randomly removed from the game. In this game the card backs all have a scoring condition, and the card fronts are vegetables. On your turn when you take a card, you can take any of the six vegetables, or you take a scoring condition at the top of one of the draw decks.  If you take a vegetable, you must refill that spot with a card from the draw deck of the same column. This means the scoring condition previously available is now converted to a vegetable, and you have a new scoring condition. 

The scoring conditions vary greatly. Some give you points per a specific vegetable type. Some give you points per set of specific vegetables. Some give you points for certain vegetables but penalises you for others. Some give points based how many you have compared to other players, for example when you have the least, or when you have the most of a certain vegetable. 

The Play

What you do on your turn is super simple. You are just picking a card. But which card? That is a juicy decision. First there is the tricky balance between collecting vegetables and scoring conditions. You need both to score points. Collect too many scoring cards, and you may have difficulties fulfilling them all. Collect too few, and you may not be competitive. You still need the vegetables to fulfil the scoring conditions. When a vegetable you need turns up, but there is also a scoring card which matches your collection well, you will be forced to make a difficult decision. And this is just things that affect only you. You also need to watch your opponents. If there is a scoring card that is going to help your opponent a lot, you might be forced to take it. Well, you don't necessarily have to take the scoring card itself. You may take a vegetable in the same column, and that scoring card will be flipped over to become a vegetable. Sometimes you also want to stop your opponents from collecting certain vegetables. You only have one simple action every turn, but there can be a lot to consider behind that one simple action. 

The Thoughts

Technically, I guess you can still call this a point salad game, because indeed there are many ways to score points. And yes, if you look at the various ways of scoring points, they seem to be pretty arbitrary and general. You've seen these kinds of scoring criteria is many games. Yet, Point Salad turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I not only did not dislike it, I truly enjoyed it. I like the difficult decisions it presents. You need to carefully balance between collecting scoring conditions and vegetables. You also need to watch you opponents. There are many factors in play. And yet the game is short and succinct. It is not the kind of tedious cube conversion exercise that many point salad games are. So this gets a thumbs up from me. 

Isn't this just a relaxed daily life? （てか、ただのゆるい日常じゃないですか!）

The Game

This is a game entry I submitted to the BoardGameGeek database. I Googled the meaning of the original Japanese title and submitted the English translation - Isn't this just a relaxed daily life? That's quite a mouthful indeed. I'm going to just call it Relaxed Daily Life. This is a simple card game. The three main characters in the game are the policeman, the thief and the rich musician. The policeman wants to catch the thief. The thief wants to steal from the musician. The musician wants to bribe the policeman. They have a rock-paper-scissors relationship. To win the game, you need to collect a main character and help him catch his target. 

You have a hand size of three. On your turn you play a card then draw a card. There are 16 different characters in the game and they have different powers. E.g. peeking at an opponent's cards, swapping cards with an opponent, skipping the next player, reversing the direction of play and protecting yourself for a full round. Some powers are actually handicaps, e.g. one card can never be played, which means you may be forced to play another card which you normally wouldn't want to play. After you play a card, it is placed in front of you and added to your collection. Everyone can see what cards are out. 

The game mechanism of the main characters is interesting. You need to have played two cards of the same main character before you in order to use his power. When you use the power, you are attempting to win the game. You pick another player, and if that player has the target of your main character, whether in front of him or in hand, you win. For example you have played the second policeman card. You want to pick a player who has a thief, whether before him or in his hand. If you fail to catch the thief, you discard the second played card, but you still keep the first card in front of you. This is dangerous, because that policeman card is vulnerable to the musician. The second card requirement means if you attempt to win, you are also taking a risk. Playing main characters is not to be taken lightly. 

If the deck runs out before any main character manages to catch his target, you need to check the secondary victory conditions. There are four rare cards in the game. Whoever has more wins. If there is a tie, the player with the most main character cards wins. 

The Play

This is a party style game. I am probably making it sound more strategic that it is. This is a straightforward game and you don't really need to think very hard. The game is in Japanese so if it is your first time (and you don't read Japanese) it will be a little cumbersome to play. You need to regularly refer to a cheat sheet. Some of the characters are of the same animal type, e.g. there are two bears, and two cats too. So on my cheat sheet I needed to differentiate the two types of bears and cats. Still, this is a simple game. Once you get familiar with the characters, it plays smoothly. 

There is a big dose of luck. Whether you draw a main character is luck. Whether you attack the right person is often also luck. Many of the card powers do let you do things which reduce the luck element. But then whether you get good cards is also luck. That said, since this is a casual and relaxing game, luck is not an issue. The card powers do give you some control, so you don't feel it is the game playing you. You still get to make meaningful decisions and take useful actions. 

Main characters have a black border.

I made a reference sheet. 

The Thoughts

Relaxed Daily Life is a light and casual game. It has the kind of attack cards which casual gamers like. Or perhaps I should say publishers making casual games think casual gamers like this kind of attack cards. I like the game mechanism around the three main characters. You need to hold on to cards, gather information, and wait for the right time to attempt to win. You want to minimise risk and maximise your odds of winning. 

In recent years I am no longer easily impressed with heavy Eurogames. I have become more interested in clever and minimalistic Japanese-style games. Now that I have tried more and more of these, the halo effect of Japanese games is starting to wane. The earlier Japanese designs I got to play were mostly famous titles. I heard of them because they had gone through curation by boardgame reviewers and influencers. So they were generally good games. They gave me the impression that all Japanese games were good like they were. Now that I have played more Japanese games, I become more grounded. There are average games from Japan too, and also games which don't click with me. I don't mean to say I dislike Relaxed Daily Life. I do admire the game mechanism, even though it doesn't get me super excited. This game is a keeper for me, because my non-gamer friends who are fans of Japanese culture will like it. This is a nice souvenir from Japan. 

Imperial Miners

The Game

In Imperial Miners you develop your own mining complex over ten rounds of play, adding a mine every round. You get to activate the powers of a series of mines, and these powers do all sorts of things like earning money and scoring points. Every card in the game is a mine, and there are four levels. The level of a mine determines how deep it must be placed. Usually the deeper it is, the stronger the power. Also the deeper mines are more costly to build. 

You can only build a level 2 mine after you have a level 1 mine, because you need to dig further down from the level 1 mine. The same principle applies to level 3 and 4 mines. Every time you build a mine, you trigger its power. You trace a shortest path from there to the surface, and you also trigger the powers of every mine along the way. 

Player board

4-player setup

In addition to levels, mines are also divided into factions. Factions affect the powers of some mines. Along the edges of every mine card there are six half mine carts. Some contain gold. Mines are built next to other mines. When a half cart that contain gold lines up with another which also contains gold, you score points. So this is another aspect to consider when you develop your mining complex.

The Play

You need to do a lot of planning in this game. This is like a project manager’s heaven. Or hell. You need to work with what mine cards you draw, deciding which to build, where to build them, how to create effective activation paths. You need to plan for generating income so that you can afford to build the right mines every round. There are many factors to consider. Every round there is one event which affects everyone. Often these are opportunities you want to utilise.

Event card

These are called progress charts. Some actions allow you to move your token along these tracks. Whenever you do this, you gain some benefit. If you manage to reach the top, you get a handsome reward. After that, you get to pick another track and start doing the progression again. 

There isn’t a lot of player interaction. You are kept busy enough with your own mining complex. This is a tableau game. You want to collect mines which combo well. Usually mines of the same faction work well together. The interesting challenge in this game is how to plan your activation path every round.

The Thoughts

This is a complex development game. There are many elements you need to consider and you make plans meticulously. This is the kind of game many heavy Eurogame lovers like. I didn’t like that there is little player interaction. There is a lot of work to keep you busy and engaged, but for me I didn’t find much which is new or interesting.

Seven Vice

Seven Vice is a micro game from Japan. It is a set collection game. Cards come in seven colours. If you collect four cards of the same colour you score 1 point. If you collect seven colours you score 2 points. To win the game you need to score 3 points.

You have a hand size of one. On your turn you draw a card and play a card, exactly like Love Letter. The card you play is added to your collection in front of you. You also use the power of the card. The card powers are the main attraction of the game. They help you collect sets. They also help you stop your opponents. Some powers let you steal others’ cards. One power forces a card swap. One power lets you take an extra turn. One power gives you a random card. All these powers are simple.

The art is in a Japanese comics style

This is a straightforward game that non gamers can easily learn. At the moment there is only a Japanese edition so it’s a little troublesome to learn if you don’t know Japanese. The game comes with English rules but the cards are in Japanese only. 

This is a very Japanese minimalistic style game. After trying it, I feel it is just okay, because I have played many similar games. So there is nothing new and interesting for me. However I must say the powers are well designed. Some allow players to suddenly catch up. Some allow leader bashing. So there are moments of surprise as you play. You also have good player interaction. 

Boardgaming in photos: about Malaysia and holidays

Once in a while I do a gathering with Ruby, Edwin and Benz, my ex-colleagues. This time Xiaozhu had a last-minute matter to attend to and couldn't join us. I asked them to help me playtest Malaysian Holidays. They are all big fans of Japan, so when the Japan destination card came out, everyone was keen to score it. 

I initiated a small collaboration project with fellow designers and publishers in Malaysia, to help one another promote and sell games. I place some of my games with them, and they place some of theirs with me. Whenever I attend any boardgame related event or gathering, or even on some private occasions, I bring a bag of local-published games to sell. Doing boardgame publishing in Malaysia is difficult. You wouldn't be doing it if not for a great passion for boardgames. The market in Malaysia is tiny. It is underdeveloped. There are Malaysian gamers. Most play international games and not many pay attention to local games. I was one such gamer myself. Local designers and publishers need to work together to grow the local market. 

A gamer from Belarus visited Malaysia, and bought a copy of Dancing Queen. I'm always excited to learn that Dancing Queen has reached yet another country. Even I have not been to Belarus. 

Those few days after the designer diary of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was released on BoardGameGeek, I received several international orders. They kept me busy packing games and making post office runs. I'm happy to be able to sell my games internationally. The effects of publishing this designer diary remind me that I need to do a better job at marketing my games. A big part of doing publishing well is marketing, and I know it is one of my weaknesses. Also it is not exactly what I enjoy doing. Just that I know I should be doing it. I still hope to find good publishers for my games. I would prefer to let people with the skills and the reach to do it than to do it myself. I enjoy doing the game design and development part. 

One first time experience for me was selling to a gamer from Saudi Arabia. Being able to sell Ali Baba, an Arabian themed game, to a buyer from Saudi Arabia is a wonderful feeling. 

I had the joy of playing again No Thanks. This is a game from 2004, which was roughly when I got into the hobby. I remember first playing it using cards from Category 5 (6 Nimmt). I also remember playing a copy at Witch House in Taiwan. For many years I never properly owned this game. Only last year I bought the latest version. Now it comes with expansions. I have not yet played the expansions. I find even the base game great fun. We did a 6 player game.

In this game you want to minimise taking cards, because the numbers on the cards are all negative points. Every round a card is revealed and when your turn comes, you either take it or pay money to a pool. Money is positive points. The pool will grow. When you take a card, you take the money in the pool too. So at some point the pool will be attractive enough for people to be willing to take the card. Sometimes someone will run out of money and will be forced to take the card. The important twist in the game is when you have consecutive numbers, only the lowest number in the sequence counts. If you have the 24, you do not fear the 25. The 25 card does not affect you, but it's minus 25 points to others. You will be happy to let others contribute a ton of money to the pool before you take the card. It's a simple game, but very clever. 

This is a game design I am working on - Sabah Honeymoon. This is my entry for a game design competition run by an organisation based in Singapore which promotes trade and tourism in Sabah. I come from Sabah, so I was excited to learn about a competition which is about my home state. This time I decided I needed to make a game with a board. I feel to make a game about tourism, having a map makes the game more relatable. 

Buddhima and Jon helped me playtest Sabah Honeymoon and gave me several good suggestions. 

My old friends Ah Chung and Moh Yen helped me playtest Malaysian Holidays. I have two works in progress related to holidays. I have decided that Malaysian Holidays will proceed to publication. I hope this can be released in 2025 too. However this publishing project may be a little different from my previous games. Hopefully it works out. 

Malaysia is a country with many public holidays. I wanted to make a game which is relatable for Malaysians, and I thought this topic of public holidays would be great. On social media, every year near the end of the year there will be people doing analyses about the public holidays of the following year. They list public holidays which fall on Mondays and Fridays, because these mean long weekends. They also list public holidays which fall on Tuesdays and Thursday, because by taking a one-day annual leave (on Mondays or Fridays) you can have a four-day stretch of holidays. You can plan traveling during these long weekends. This kind of thinking is common among Malaysians. The game aims to convey the joy of public holidays. Photo courtesy of Choon Ean.