Pilgrim Poker concept art

The 2026 game title from Cili Padi Games will be Pilgrim Poker. This will be my fifth game published under the Cili Padi Games label. I have been making one game a year since Dancing Queen in 2022. Edwin Chong has been my artist since my first game, and continues to be my artist for this year's project. This above is the concept art for Pilgrim Poker. Since the game uses the theme of the Chinese classic Journey to the West, Edwin is going for a Chinese brush stroke style. The box front being in the style of a traditional Chinese string-bound book is pleasing and evocative, but I was a little concerned that I would not be able to put much information on it. Then Edwin explained that he doesn't intend the final box to be that blank. That's just the general concept. There will be more stuff on the front, like designer name and brand logo. Something more like this example below. 

I'm certainly excited to see the rest of the art! 

I went to one of the Casual Friday gaming sessions organised by BoardGameCafe.net to do a cold test for Pilgrim Poker. That means asking a group of players who have never played the game before to read the rules by themselves and learn to play, without me offering any guidance. This is an important test for how clear the rulebook is, and also whether the visual design of the game components helps the players learn the game. Now I must admit I was pretty confident in how well written my game rules were. After all, I have already done this several times, and I have received comments about how clear and concise my rules are. As I observed the players, I found there were several elements in the rulebook I could improve. That was a humbling experience. I know the game so well that it's hard for me to look at the rules from a fresh perspective. I am grateful I forced myself to do this cold test. 

I diligently took notes as I observed the group play. 

I joined them for the second game. 

Here are some of the improvements I made after this cold test session: 

1. I added the card distribution to the game components section of the rulebook. I did have a component list section, but I did not mention that the cards went from 1 to 13, and that each number appeared twice. This was something the group asked when they played, and this information wasn't in the rules. They would have to check the actual cards. 
2. I was not clear enough about the maximum bet amount for a round being $10. In the section for Raising, I wrote that the maximum bet amount was $10. That was misinterpreted as when you Raise, you can raise the bet amount by as much as $10. The correct rule is you can raise the bet amount to at most $10. 
3. Naming the action Side Bet caused a misinterpretation by one of the players, that you can only issue a Side Bet to one of your immediate neighbours. I hadn't considered this possible misinterpretation. However this was quickly clarified by the other players. So eventually I just stuck with the same term. 
4. In one part of the rules, I used the phrase "you determine who wins the Side Bet at the end of the round". That caused some confusion because the word "determine" was misunderstood as meaning "decide", as opposed to meaning "check". The players were puzzled why the person issuing the Side Bet could decide who won. I rephrased this to "you resolve the Side Bet at the end of the round". I must minimise the risk of misunderstanding. 
5. I did not explicitly say that you should not tell other players what their cards are. In Pilgrim Poker, everyone holds up their cards facing forward, so that you don't know your own card but you can see everyone else's cards. In the game that was played, no one specifically told anyone else what their cards were, but there were a few times the table talk almost or effectively gave away this information. I realised I should mention this explicitly, because if players openly tell one another their cards, the play experience would be destroyed. 

Biggest lesson learnt of this exercise: stay humble, and please remember to cold test the next game too. 

I am still looking for help to read my rulebook and give me feedback. If you are able to help, please email me at cs@cilipadigames.com. 

Soothsayers

I can sense the future. I sense that Soothsayers is going to be one of my favourite new-to-me games in 2026. I had not heard of the game prior to playing it. The theme and the art are a little quirky. The backstory is mumbo jumbo to me. However the gameplay completely took me by surprise. I would say there is nothing particularly ground breaking, yet the whole package just works amazingly well. This is so much fun. This is a game from Play to Z, and Zev Shlasinger (who founded Z-Man Games) is the key man behind this relatively new publishing house. Zev has always had an excellent touch in picking wonderful games for publication.

The goal in the game is to win a certain number of Fate tokens (depending on the number of players). Everyone starts with four Level-1 cards which define your strength when you perform the four possible actions in the game. During the game, you can upgrade your cards, making your actions more powerful. Let's talk about these four actions. The first action type is to earn money. When you have enough money, this action also allows you to buy a Fate token. Only a limited number of Fate tokens are available to be purchased like this. Whenever anyone buys one, the price increases significantly. When you upgrade this particular action, you can earn more money when you perform this action. 

Another action you can perform is to claim cards from a central pool. Cards come in four colours representing the four action types, and they are numbered from 2 to 6. When you upgrade this action, you get to claim more cards from the pool. The third action is to use these cards to upgrade your actions. You play cards onto your four stacks of action cards. Normally cards must be stacked in strict ascending order. However you can pay to skip a level. It's not cheap, but sometimes you need to do this. Upgrading this action means you can play more cards per action. 

The last action is to capture Tarot cards. These are powerful cards also found in the central pool. Each has a unique power. You start the game with one such Tarot card in hand too. To capture a Tarot card, you can pay a combination of money and other normal cards. The values of the normal cards is your currency too. A Tarot card is linked to one or more action types, and when you capture one, you must put it next to one of your four action stacks. 

Two other ways you gain Fate tokens are when you have the highest normal card or the highest Tarot card associated with an action type, compared to other players. Now these Fate tokens are temporary, because once anyone else overtakes you and has a even higher card, he takes that Fate token away from you. To secure these tokens, you will need to be first to reach the highest available number of that action type. 

Actions are not taken in simple turn order. Soothsayers uses a lead-and-follow mechanism, like Puerto Rico and Glory to Rome. The active player picks an action type to perform, and everyone else has the option of following (i.e. taking a usually weaker version of the action, depending on how strong your own action is) or passing to earn money. 

In this example above, after I upgrade my Ascend action (for upgrading cards) to Level 2, when I perform the Ascend action I can upgrade three times. However if I follow others' Ascend actions, I can only upgrade once. 

This is an example of a Tarot card. This one is associated with the yellow icon, i.e. the money action.

Those purple triangles with an eye are the Fate tokens. When you have the currently highest normal card or Tarot card, you place a Fate token on it. 

On BoardGameArena.com it is easy to see who has the highest normal card and Tarot card in each of the four action types. The Fate tokens are represented by the purple aura. 

I enjoy the gameplay because I feel that everything I can do is important, and I want to do them all. Money is good, because when you buy a Fate token, it is secured and it can't be taken away from you. Gaining Fate tokens in other ways are not entirely secure until you reach the top level and no one else can overtake you. Even then, there are card powers which let others steal your token when they are tied with you. Being able to draft cards from the centre of the table is important too. Without cards, you cannot upgrade your actions. You also need cards to pay for Capturing Tarot cards. And then there's the Ascend action - upgrading your actions. Of course it's a good idea to upgrade them. Your future actions become more powerful. You will be much more efficient. Doing upgrades also may give you a Fate token, if you are strongest in any action type. And then finally the Capturing, i.e. claiming Tarot cards. These cards may give you Fate tokens, and often their powers will help you a lot too. These are your unfair advantages in the game. 

In my first game, I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do, and I chose to buy Fate tokens with money early. That helped a lot, because these tokens were secured, and I didn't need to worry about them getting stolen afterwards. In my second game, because I was first player, I knew that if I pursued this again, no one could stop me. This was first player advantage. However, now that we were all no longer new to the game, going early into buying Fate tokens was not necessarily the best strategy. It meant I delayed claiming cards and upgrading my actions. There is a compounding effect to this. When others started upgrading earlier than me, they actions became stronger earlier, and thus they continued to upgrade their actions more efficiently than me. I had two early and secured Fate tokens, but I fell behind in everything else. Well, I'm glad I experimented with this "unstoppable" strategy and I'm happy to report it doesn't work when your opponents know what they are doing. 

In some ways this is a race game. You are racing to upgrade your actions to the max, because that's the only way to secure your Fate tokens. You are also racing to claim the Tarot cards. Most have nifty powers and will help you greatly. Tarot cards can have one to four suits. Only when you buy them you need to decide which suit to use. That means they give flexibility in competing for Fate tokens. There is an ebb and flow when players fight for Fate tokens. You are kept on your toes. I like that feeling of becoming more and more powerful. As you upgrade your actions, you can do more and more. There is an acceleration in the game which is exhilarating. When you make good use of your Tarot cards, you feel like a god. 

One thing I like to do is to claim the highest card early, the number 6. If I grab it early, it helps me in eventually reaching the top. However at the same time I also know this is not a guarantee, because there are two 6's in each suit. Another element that makes the Ascending competition less predictable is that players can spend $5 to skip a level if they don't have the right card. $5 is expensive in the early game, but later on it's not too high a price to pay. Denying opponents cards can help, but it is not a guarantee. 

Now I find the theme endearing. It's quirky. The topic isn't something I'm particularly interested in or attracted to. However I like that a game I enjoy has an unusual theme and not yet another overused theme. 

Watergate

Watergate is a two player game about the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. One player is the newspaper editor trying to gather evidence, link them to Nixon and expose the scandal. The other player is the Nixon administration, trying to prevent this and attempting to win by lasting till the end of the presidential term. 

The game board is a network of links with Nixon himself at the centre, and seven potential key witnesses around the edges. To win the game, the editor needs to place enough pieces of evidence to connect two witnesses to Nixon. The witnesses are initially inactive and they have to be activated. Nixon can prevent witnesses from being activated. The pieces of evidence come in three colours. They are what the two players will fight over every round. 

The track on the right is how the players will compete every round. This is done in a tug-of-war manner. There are five items on the track which all begin at the midpoint at the start of a round. Players play cards which pull the items in their direction. At the end of a round, if an item is closer to one player, this player claims it. There are three item types - evidence, momentum and initiative. There are three pieces of evidence, and they start face-down. Nixon knows what colours they are but not the editor. Whoever wins an evidence gets to place it on the board. The editor places it face-up, creating links, while Nixon places it face-down, creating walls. The red token is the momentum token. When you win it, you place it on your character card. For the editor, when you get your third to fifth tokens, you get to perform a strong action. For Nixon, when you get your fifth token, it means you have now completed your presidential term and you win. 

The editor's character card

Nixon's character card

The white token is the initiative token. Every round the player controlling initiative draws 5 cards and the other draws 4. The player with initiative plays first, and will also play last. By default, initiative switches every round. However if you win the initiative token, you will control initiative next round. So it is the player who will lose initiative next round who has incentive to fight for it.  

You usually play cards to pull items to your side of the track, but the cards have various other effects too, including activating witnesses and disabling witnesses. Some cards let you react to and cancel your opponent's cards. 

The game is a constant tug of war. You want to maximise the abilities of your cards, playing them at the best moment. Cards can be used in different ways. The same card can be used to pull evidence of a specific colour, the initiative token, or the momentum token, or it can be used for the special power written on it. It is not always straight-forward which is the best use of a card. If any item reaches your end of the track, you claim it immediately without waiting for the end of round. This is something you need to watch out for. Your opponent may surprise you by playing a value 3 card to claim a token which has only moved 2 steps in his direction. 

The game is an immersive experience. Many historical details are represented in the game. In my first game where I played the editor, my opponent Han was aggressive in disabling witnesses. I guess he had a lot of money to pay them to shut up, or many thugs to threaten them into staying quiet. He silenced 5 out of 7 witnesses. Thankfully I secured the remaining two, and they were nearby on the board, which meant less effort for me to create links. Unfortunately for me, I misread the board. At one point I thought I had linked up both the witnesses to Nixon and won. Then I realised I was still one link short, between one witness and an adjacent piece of evidence (the green one at the bottom). That was a stupid mistake. Nixon eventually completed his term and won. 

We played another game, and this time I was Nixon. This game turned out very differently. I fought hard for evidence tokens and didn't spend much effort on witnesses. I claimed many evidence tokens and placed them face-down to protect myself. I surrounded myself with a wall. However I only managed to disable one potential witness. Han convinced five witnesses to come forward. There was only one witness that both of us ignored. Despite having built a complete wall, I was not absolutely safe. In the game it is possible for face-down evidence to be flipped face-up. I still had to hurry to claim momentum tokens in order to complete my term. 

Malaysia Boardgame Show is happening 18 - 19 Apr 2026!

The Malaysia Boardgame Show is happening 18-19 April 2026 in Kuala Lumpur! Cili Padi Games and I will be there. There will be pre-loved games for sale, several game competitions, and there are also game hosts bringing games for visitors to try. There is even a seminar on game design. There will be a lot of the Malaysia boardgame community and events all at one place. Don't miss it!  

More information on Instagram and Linktree. There is a free open-to-public area and a ticketed area for activities. Tickets for the latter here. I will be in the public area. Come visit me! 

Regicide Legacy: spoiler-free first glance

When I say spoiler-free, I mean up to the point when you start your first game. That means by then you will have opened the first mission box and you will see what's inside. If that's fine by you, come join me to take a look at what's in Regicide Legacy, the legacy game version of the amazing cooperative card game Regicide from Badgers from Mars, New Zealand. 

I'm a big fan of Regicide and I think it's fantastic game design. When Regicide Legacy was announced, I signed up immediately. Now I have received my copy, and completed the first two missions playing solo. I will hold off from playing the game for the moment. I will wait for younger daughter Chen Rui to be back in Malaysia before we play the full campaign together, starting from the beginning. I am excited about the game and want to show you what's in the box. I won't describe the gameplay much. The core mechanism is the same as the base game, and Mission 1 is 99% the base game. Mission 2 is a variant. 

The box is wide and thick

This is not a two-piece box. It opens with a flap, and it's magnetic. 

You get four player mats. Not absolutely necessary for gameplay, but it's nice to play cards on them. They make picking cards up easier. 

They are made of mouse pad material. The main game board too. 

You can see the main game board rolled up. There are 12 missions, each with its own box. There are five boxes labelled F, C, M, P and E. One of them is for the first time you lose a mission. I forgot to open it when I first lost a mission. So I don't know yet what's in it. 

To play a mission, you will need the components in the corresponding box. Most of them are cards. 

The player aids are double-sided. I haven't figured out what the two sides are for. Both of them describe what you do on a turn, but in different ways. One side is more detailed in describing specific steps, but it is incomplete in terms of listing when specific icons take effect. I'm not sure which side I'm supposed to use. Both sides seem to be important. 

The game comes with two types of card sleeves, normal sleeves and corrupted sleeves. You use the normal sleeves for your basic deck of cards, and the corrupted sleeves for the enemies. 

The aces, i.e. animal cards, and the two jokers, i.e. the goblins. The joker rule has changed for the solo game compared to the original Regicide. Instead of discarding your hand and drawing 8 cards, when you use a joker, it has a strength of 8, and it can be any suit, and that suit still takes effect, disregarding enemy immunity. 

Your deck represents a mercenary band. 

Sleeved and unsleeved (card back)

Unsleeved and sleeved (card front)

The game comes with two pretty metal tracker tokens and a tiny bag. 

Icons on the two sides of the tokens are different. Here on the left is the enemy attack strength, and on the right is the enemy health points. 

The game board is long and thin. The tracks on left and right are for enemy attack strength and enemy health points respectively. 

Enemy health tracker

Enemy attack strength tracker

The 12 missions

This is what you get in the Mission 1 box. You have 12 enemies to defeat, just like base Regicide. The Jacks, Queens and Kings. There is some story you can read, rules specific for the mission you have to follow, and reference cards. 

These are the enemies sleeved with the corrupted sleeves. 

I get very excited about this bit. There is a sealed pouch in every mission box. You get to open it only when you complete the mission. 

The back of the story card shows part of a map. It is not the exact same map art used for the main board, but I think it does correspond to part of the map on the main board. 

This above is Mission 1 set up for solo play. It took me two attempts to beat Mission 1. The first attempt failed because I drew too few bard cards (diamonds equivalent) in the early game. I was forced to use both my jokers very early. Needless to say when I used the jokers I used them both as bards. 

Every mission comes with one enemy stats summary card. You use it to keep track of which enemies you have defeated, so that you know what else is coming. 

Mission 1 game in progress.

I like that every character (card) has a name. I don't bother to remember their names, but still, it's a nice touch. I only remember one of the jokers is Frankie. And the duck's name is Duck. 

When I beat Mission 1, I cut open the pouch using a pair of scissors. It contained new content, and I proceeded to Mission 2. There were new rules, and stickers I was supposed to apply to the rulebook and to other game components. I didn't use the stickers. I wanted to be able to reset the game back to the start condition. Upon the completion of Mission 2, there were changes I needed to make which would make it impossible to reset the game. I could try to remember the supposed changes to the game components without applying stickers, maybe writing them down on a piece of paper, but it would be too much trouble. So I stopped my exploratory campaign there, and reset everything. I didn't reseal the pouches. I just put all the stuff back in. 

So far I am enjoying the game. I have only seen 2 out of 12 missions. It seems the rest of the campaign will be variations around the same core gameplay. I have a feeling the game will be a bit easier when playing solo. My Mission 2 was a little boring because it was too easy. However I can imagine it being much harder with two or more players. 

I will write more about Regicide Legacy, but not so soon. If you like Regicide, you'll enjoy this. Go get a copy! 

Bombastic

 

Bombastic was first explained to me as advanced tic-tac-toe. It is a two-player-only abstract game played using 9 tiles laid out face-down in a 3x3 grid. Four of the tiles show a circle, another four a cross, and the last one a bomb. Each player is assigned an icon, circle or cross. Your goal is to reveal exactly three of your icon in a row on your turn. Beware. If you ever reveal the bomb, you lose. 

On your turn you have two options. You either attempt to win, as described above, or you perform a card action. The game comes with a deck of cards, and you always have two face up. On your turn you can pick one card to use. The cards have all sorts of powers, allowing you to peek at tiles and to move them around. It is by using these cards you figure out which tiles are yours, and which are your opponent's and the bomb. You and your opponent will gain different information. You can mess with your opponent when you get to shuffle some of the tiles. It is a race to be first to reveal a set of three icons. Sometimes you have to gamble a little, if you sense that your opponent is close to knowing where three of his tiles are. 

Bombastic is a light filler. There is a memory aspect. The game is quite tactical. You try to utilise the card powers as much as possible. It is a scramble to find three of your tiles, and sometimes you have to risk the bomb. 

Skara Brae

Skara Brae brings us to the Orkney Islands in prehistoric Scotland. You manage a growing settlement. As more and more people flock to your settlement, you need to make sure you gather enough resources, build shelter, and cook enough food to feed everyone. At the same time you need to manage the waste generated by the settlement. There is a message about sustainability here. 

Players gain settlers through a drafting process. New settlers bring you resources and a single-use ability. They are also worth points at game end if they stay till then. Other than this drafting, players mostly do their own stuff at their own player boards. 

There are 10 action cards in each player area. 9 are standard, but you’ll have a unique 10th action. You get pawns to place on your action cards to perform actions. You start with just one pawn, but every new round you get a new one. As the game progresses, you get to perform more actions. The actions are mostly related to gathering resources and spending them to score points. There are three broad directions in which you score points. Settlers come in four colours. Each settler is worth points, and each set of four colours is worth points too. You can increase how much they are worth by advancing on a furnishing track. 

The next scoring approach is trading. This is another track you can advance on. The further you go, the bigger the rewards. However, you have to pay an increasing number of goods of the same type, which is not easy. Each time you advance on the trading track, you can trade a knife for a specific good type. You should make sure you have a knife on standby so that you don’t miss out on this perk. 

The third main scoring approach is upgrading your cards. You spend resources to do this. Upgraded cards become more powerful, so the earlier you do this, the more you will benefit from it throughout the game. 

One interesting challenge the game presents is the middens. Middens are mounds made of waste, like bones. In the game they are a bad thing. On your player board you have a storage area. It starts at a small size but whenever you run out of space and need to store more, it automatically enlarges. That’s not a good thing, because the larger your store room, the more middens it will generate at the end of a round, and these middens need to be stored too, potentially enlarging your store room even further. If your store room is beyond a certain size by game end, you will lose points. Managing your store room is a challenge. You don’t want to stockpile too many resources. You want to use them quickly. This game is a Just-In-Time (JIT) exercise! There is an action you can take to remove middens. Your store room automatically enlarges when space is needed, but it doesn’t automatically shrink when you have surplus space. You need to perform a specific action to reduce the size. 

Feeding your people is something you need to worry about every round. Getting roofs helps reduce the food requirement. Usually you need to cook. Animals and crops are not food. They need to be cooked first. We are not barbarians okay. Cooking is an action you can take. If you can’t feed all your people, or you choose not to, some will leave.  Losing people means losing end game points. 

Skara Brae is a resource management game. There are many resource types to handle. Storage management is challenging and interesting. Player interaction is not high. It happens in the card drafting part of the game. You spend more time doing your own thing on your own player board. That sounds boring but the fact is many fans of Eurogames like exactly this. I must admit I did enjoy figuring out the game.