Pilgrim Poker - master and disciples

Here's another teaser for my upcoming game Pilgrim Poker. These are the four main characters in the story of Journey to the West. 

Modern day Master Tang Sanzang sits on a gaming chair and plays a handheld gaming device. I like his intensity. I find it funny. 

Modern day eldest disciple Sun Wukong is a delivery boy. His Somersault Cloud is transformed into a motorbike. I think it's an electric bike. 

Zhu Bajie (Piggy) was the first character Edwin drew. 

Sha Wujing is not a numbered card. I put him on one of the action cards. Among my number cards (from 1 to 13), only three numbers have special powers, 4, 8 and 10. So unfortunately I did not have another number card I could put him on. 

This was the first version of Sha Wujing. I felt this wasn't quite right and asked for a change. He is indeed a chill guy, but not in the sense that he is relaxed and carefree. He is chill in the sense that he is usually calm and he plays the moderator role in conflicts. He is the pacifist. Also he is always the hardworking and reliable guy. 

The master and the disciples are on the back of the box. I had originally written two paragraphs for the back of the box. Edwin decided to convert the first paragraph into a comic drawing. I think that's a great idea. 

This is the master and the disciples in my prototype. I found these drawings as a set on the internet. 

Who is your favourite among these four? 

Sabah National Tabletop Con 2026 - my first time exhibiting at my hometown

I was back in my hometown of Kota Kinabalu (we call it KK) for the Sabah National Tabletop Con over the weekend of 20-21 Jun 2026. This was my first time exhibiting in my hometown, so it was a meaningful event. This same event was held last year, but unfortunately I couldn't attend. This year it was held at the Sabah Art Gallery. We had many exhibitors from Malaysia and Singapore, and also one from Brunei. 

At the front entrance of the art gallery with Buddhima of Specky Studio. 

I feel so classy now that my games have been exhibited next to proper art work at a proper art gallery. Hey, I'm making art too! 

There was some drama leading up to this event. My latest game Malaysian Holidays was due to be released at the event. This game is published through Specky Studio. We arranged for an early shipment to be sent by air straight to Sabah. The idea was my father would receive the shipment for me a few days before the convention, before Buddhima (Specky Studio) and I arrived. We had planned for buffer time, and the games were shipped out early. However during the transit period we were told there were issues. We regularly checked the tracking website. I was shocked to see that the expected delivery date was Monday, the day after the convention ended. My game would completely miss the convention. The status showed that the shipment had already arrived in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday morning. I thought why is it taking 5 days to reach Kota Kinabalu? I kept contacting customer support to see if the shipment could be delivered earlier. If the shipment could reach their KK warehouse by Friday or even Saturday, I could go pick it up myself without needing them to deliver to me. There were complications because Fedex works with a local delivery agent for this shipment. I had to contact Fedex several times, and finally on Friday one of the customer service reps was able to find out for me that the shipment was due to reach Kuching that day, and would arrive in KK Saturday afternoon. However their local agent doesn't work weekends so they could only deliver on Monday. I said I could go pick the shipment up myself. The rep said he would put in a remark to ask the local agent to call me and arrange for me. He couldn't guarantee that they would do it, because this was not their normal process. I thanked him for trying his best. There wasn't much else I could do. I had to wait and see whether I got a call the next day, Saturday. 

Saturday morning shortly after I reached the art gallery and completed setup, I received a call from an unknown number. Normally I decline such calls because 99% of the time they are scams or salespersons. This time I eagerly picked up the call. It was the Fedex local agent! The shipment had just arrived at their warehouse. They asked whether their driver could deliver it that afternoon. At the time the driver hadn't reported for duty yet. I said no need, I'll come and get it myself before lunch time. What a relief. Malaysian Holidays arrived in time for the con! 

I'm very happy with how the game turned out. Specky Studio picked a great artist for this project and I really like her work. 

The box opens this way. My Cili Padi Games logo is on the box too. Yay!

Game in play

Holiday cards

Overseas destination cards are worth 2 points

Local destination cards are worth 1 point

My favourite memo card

I was thrilled and relieved that the game arrived just in time.

Buddhima (Specky Studio) is my publisher, and he presented the first ever copy of Malaysian Holidays to my mum. This is a meaningful moment for me. My game first landed in my hometown and my mum is the first to own a copy. 

Game in play

This is a promo card which is unique to the first edition of Malaysian Holidays. Yes, Specky Studio is already thinking about a second edition. This is a destination card which you can claim to score points. Normally short holidays (Mon to Wed, or Wed to Fri) are worth 1 point, but this one is worth 2 points. This card conveys that the most valuable holiday is the one we spend with our families. 

Malaysian Holidays in play

Kuehku is a game from Brunei. It is doing well and this is already a second edition of the game. 

I almost managed to try it. I sat down for the rules explanation, but halfway through there were some other visitors who were interested, so I asked them to take my seat. This is a simple and accessible set collection game. You collect various types of local delicacies and they score points in various ways. This reminds me of Sushi Go and Kuih Muih. 

The game also has some action cards. The core rules are simple, and I think you need to play the game proper to fully feel the game. Hopefully I will have the chance to try this at the next event. There were some other games I was interested to try, e.g. from Ameba Games Singapore, but I was busy most of the two days and I didn't manage to play the games of other designers. I wanted to try Demon Contract too, just two booths away, but I didn't even manage to steal a slot for that. 

Dancing Queen in Sabah

Pinocchio in play. This was the game I demoed the most, because it is easy to learn and quick to start having fun with. There were some Australian tourist families at the art gallery, and they enjoyed Pinocchio a lot. All of them bought the game after trying it. It is satisfying to see people have fun with my game. It also makes me happy when I hear them say that one of their friends or family members will like this game, and they want to show the game to these friends / family. 

The art gallery has three floors. The ground floor is a small reception and a souvenir shop. The building is in the shape of an upside down cone. So the first floor is wider than the ground floor, and the second floor is the widest. Malaysian exhibitors are on the first floor, and international exhibitors are on the second floor. 

Super happy because this customer bought all four games at my booth. On Saturday he came and played with his wife and a friend. I think he played two of my games on Saturday. He was planning to come back again on Sunday to get me to teach him the others. However he didn't have time to play and only came to buy the games. His wife came too, and brought family, and taught them to play Pinocchio. I was serving another customer at the time. It is amazing to see your own customer teach your game and recommend it to others. 

When I was teaching a group to play, some visitors stopped by to take a look. Jia Xian of Meja Belakang jumped in to help me explain my games to them. Thank you so much! 

Erwin is from Pontianak, Indonesia, which is near Kuching. He runs two boardgame lounges in Pontianak - Meeple Board Game Lounge, which is what we call boardgame cafes in Malaysia. The night before the con there was a meet and play event and many exhibitors attended. Erwin did a presentation to share his experiences and the boardgame scene in Pontianak. 

Pontianak has a young population, and many people like hanging out at cafes. They have many cafes and they do good business. People chat chit at cafes, exchanging gossip. Some young men play mobile games together at these cafes. Erwin introduced boardgame lounges because he wanted to convert people to boardgames. He has a definition of 5 levels of gamers. Level 1 is people who only know the common classic and mass market games. Level 2 is people who play gateway hobby games. Level 3 are the hobby gamers who play some heavy games. Levels 4 and 5 go into more complex and hardcore stuff, and they may run boardgame businesses, do game design, organise community events and so on. He sets a clear goal for himself. He focuses on converting Level 1 to Level 2. From Level 2 to 3, 4 or 5, these people will convert themselves and he doesn't need to help them. Converting Level 1 to 2 is how he grows the community and promotes boardgames. He picks the appropriate games for this purpose and offers them at his lounges. After many years doing this, he has further refined and defined his problem statement. He learned that there is a category he had previously missed - the Level 0 gamers, who don't even know much about common boardgames. Also, thinking of only Levels 1 and 2 is an oversimplification. He needed to further consider the levels 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and so on. Some people need several smaller steps before reaching Level 2. He learned that he had to cater for that too. 

Erwin bought some of my games to be played and sold at his lounges in Indonesia. Cili Padi Games is going to Indonesia! Woohoo! I taught Erwin Dancing Queen, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly he picked up the strategies. It was satisfying for me to see how he appreciated the design behind the game. 

Malaysian Holidays was demoed at the Specky Studio booth, which was right next to mine. 

I played an updated version of Jon's prototype On Three. This was an updated version after getting feedback from Daryl Chow. He was in town recently and we did some playtesting together. I already liked the previous version, but I must say this was even better. The river, or the shared cards, are not revealed automatically after every round. You must use club cards to peek at them. Instead of three lanes, you now have four lanes. Instead of creating a personal card market you can swap cards with as you take damage, the damage tracking using cards is removed, and players get a shared card market now, right from the start of the game. This is a short but thinky game. It is probably not something Jon or I will publish for the Malaysian market. It is not suitable for a casual crowd. I do hope this gets picked up by an international publisher. This is something gamers will like. 

This was how I displayed my games.

My secondary school friends Hsiung and Sheng came to visit. 

My mum and dad came to visit, but I wasn't able to accompany them much because I was busy teaching games. They came both days. All of us wore red - brand colour of Cili Padi Games! 

I gave a short presentation sharing my journey as a game designer and indie publisher. My Sabahan friends told me I should come back and be a politician because I spoke well. What? I talk like a politician? 

I just noticed most of the photos I took with customers showed Dancing Queen. It wasn't the game I sold the most of. The game which sold the most was Pinocchio. 

I didn't realise that my parents wanted to take a group photo with me. I was too absorbed with teaching Dancing Queen. Buddhima took this photo for us. 

Buddhima, Jon and I. By now we have been to many boardgame exhibitions together. This photo was taken at the Kota Kinabalu airport before we flew back to Kuala Lumpur. 

This trip back home was a short and tight trip. I arrived Friday afternoon, and departed Monday morning. The con was 10am to 8pm Saturday and Sunday. I barely had time with my parents. They visited me at the con both days. I felt bad because when they arrived on Saturday, I was out to pick up the game shipment. I couldn't spend a lot of time with them because most of the time my booth was busy and I had to teach or demo games. In a sense it is good. There was good interest in my games and I managed to teach many people my games. Definitely better than me being idle most of the time. 

The crowd at the con was much smaller than last year, according to my friends who were here last year. The con was at Imago shopping mall last year, and that is the busiest mall in KK. Although my booth was mostly occupied, sales was so so. There wasn't much foot traffic. There was a concurrent event happening outdoors on the art gallery grounds, a food and handicraft fair. I was hoping this would attract some crowd, but the crowd wasn't very big. Parking was a challenge. The art gallery car park was small. 

I didn't have much time to visit other booths at the con. I walked one round on Saturday, and I had hoped to drop by again to play some of the games that afternoon or Sunday. However I was so busy I didn't manage that at all. 

I'm hoping to go again next year, and hopefully I can stay longer and spend more time with my parents and my friends. 

dnup

The game name dnup needs to be written exactly this way, so that when you turn it upside down, it looks exactly the same. This is a game from Kei Kajino, designer of SCOUT (written in all caps). It also has the element of turning cards upside down to change their values. Every card has two different values at the two opposite ends. The end you are holding upwards is the current value of the card. dnup is also a shedding game. You want to get rid of your cards. I would say it is easier to learn than SCOUT because the rules are more conventional and familiar. 

There are several things you can do on your turn. The most basic one is to play cards. You can play a single card, or you can play a meld. A meld is two or more cards of the same number. These cards that you play are not immediately discarded. They stay in front of you until the start of your next turn. Only then they are discarded. While these cards stay before you, they are vulnerable. If someone else plays a meld with the same number of cards, and the value is higher than yours, you will be forced to take your cards back into your hand. That is not all. You must turn all these cards before taking them back. This can be disastrous. Your set of cards of the same value will become different values. It will take you more turns to play them. However it is also possible to make use of this mechanism. You can let an opponent turn a low card to a high one, which you can later play together with other cards you have. When you have a meld in play, you prevent others from playing a meld of the same size, if their meld is of a smaller card value. If you have a pair of 10's in play, you are stopping everyone else from playing pairs. 

One other thing you can do in the game is to add one card to someone else’s meld. This sounds simple, but there are a few implications. Let’s say you add a 5 to two 5’s, creating a meld of three 5’s. If at the point someone else has a meld of three 3’s, this newly created meld will beat the meld of 3’s, forcing the owner to take their cards back. That is not all. Let’s say later someone else plays a meld of three 8’s. This beats that meld of three 5’s. Although you have contributed one of the cards, that’s no longer your card. So all these cards go to the hand of the player who has the three 5’s before them. 

Yet another thing you can do is to take someone else’s meld. That sounds like an easy way to collect powerful cards. The twist is when you take a meld, you must turn all those cards. 

The last thing you can do is to turn all your cards in hand. It is all or nothing. 

The game feels like gin rummy, in that gameplay is smooth. You play melds and you do layoffs. However the ability to attack another player’s meld makes this a very different game. You always need to worry about whether your meld will be attacked. When you have the opportunity to attack, it may not always be the best move. When you have two 9’s, it may not be the best move to play them as a pair. Maybe it is worthwhile to play them as single cards so that you can mess with others more. 

dnup is easy to learn. However there is much depth to the game. If you are competitive, this is a game you can learn to play at a high skill level. You can pay attention to cards people have taken back. You can card count. You can even play this game with negotiation and collaboration. If someone has played four 1’s and you have three 2’s, you can ask for a collaborator with one more 2, so that you can work together to beat that meld of four 1’s. 

I hope dnup does well. It’s a great design. Clean and clever. It doesn't have and it doesn't need fancy powers on the cards. I think this is a deep game. 

Yuhang boardgame retreat June 2026

The retreat didn't actually have a name. I call it the Yuhang retreat simply because it was organised by Yuhang. This was a private event of a group of boardgamers in Kuala Lumpur coming together for 3 days of gaming, staying at an Airbnb at Taman OUG. I didn't know Yuhang well before this. It was Jon who asked me whether I wanted to join. It was only after I had signed up that I found out I know several of the others who were going, like Julian and Tim. 

We started Friday afternoon. Some already checked in by 3pm. I went in the evening. The original idea was all of us would stay at the Airbnb, so it would be three days of just boardgames, eat and sleep (and shower). However some of us (including me) decided to go home for the shower and the sleep. My home was only 20 minutes away. We went out for some meals, and ordered delivery for others. The latest I stayed up was about 2.30am. Some of them played till 5am. I don't have that kind of stamina anymore. In the mornings we started around 10am, and some started around noon. 

I realised I hadn't played High Society after so many years in the hobby. This is a well regarded game from Reiner Knizia. 

We brought out Splotter's Horseless Carriage. I own a copy but I have only played it once before. It was a three player game. I think this game is best with five. At the retreat we did a four player game, using Julian's copy. I had forgotten many of the rules, so he did the teaching. Look at all these folks looking so serious staring at their car factories. You know this is a tough game. 

My factory

Julian had some 3D printed accessories which were very helpful. The slots for the white bars help secure them, in case the players accidentally knock these boards. 

Game in progress

In this particular game we had much demand for sedans, and some for pickups. We had very little demand for sports cars. 

I made a mistake when expanding my factory. I had one mainline producing sedans. I wanted to set up another so that I could produce and sell more cars. I think this is the minimum if you want to be in contention to win. It is something you need to plan for far ahead. If you look at the expansion board at the lower left, you will notice that the entrance is facing right. I had wanted to place another mainline in the lower right area, so that it could be connected to both the group of darkest grey tiles and also the group of light grey tiles. This way, the new mainline would meet many of the requirements expected by consumers. However my poor expansion tile placement from earlier on stopped me from adding the next expansion tile here. The doorway facing right prevented me from attaching an expansion tile here. I gave up, and I placed a ton of planning tiles on the right, on the other expansion tile I didn't have any use for now. This gave me an advantage in choosing turn order. I couldn't do much else with that expansion on the right anyway, so I might as well utilise it. 

We had more demand than we could fulfil. I think that means we were not doing a good job. Most of the demand was either very cheap cars or very expensive cars. 

Julian has this nice 3D-printed tray which I find super convenient. 

Late in the game, I was on my way to come last when I realised I might be able to redeem myself a little bit. At the time Jon was still behind me, but he was catching up. I added a mainline to produce pickups at the top left. I fought for turn order so that at least for one round I had access to all the highest techs at the time, and I could make an up-to-par pickup. This didn't earn me much money (i.e. points) since it was quite late in the game, but at least it helped me hang on to third place. Barely. Sorry Jon. Lesson learnt - don't give up easily. 

If you look closely at the photo above, you will find another bad mistake. In Horseless Carriage, those tiny arrows are important and you want to leave space to place them next to car part producing tiles. One car part you produce can give you several features, if you have access to the tech. However for each feature you must be able to place the matching arrow. I had not planned for this well, and later in the game when I was able to access the higher techs, I could not place the arrows, so I missed the opportunity to improve my cars. 

Joon Lam (blue) and Julian (red) had a close fight, and so did Jon (green) and I (yellow). Jon and I were far behind the other two. 

Julian, Joon Lam, me, Jon

We had friends who came for only part of the retreat. In total we had maybe 18 attendees, and at any one time I think the highest player count we had was around 14, i.e. three tables. 

I did not play this. I just saw others playing it. I think Marc brought this. He and Joanne came all the way from Johor to join the retreat. 

So colourful. 

A jigsaw puzzle! 

Captain Sonar was a game I brought. I have wanted to play this again for some time but it has been hard to find the right occasion and to get enough players. I'm glad I got to experience the excitement again. 

Some of the whiteboard markers that came with the game had dried up. Thankfully I brought along some extras. I was the radio operator on my team, and I thought I did pretty well figuring out the position of the enemy submarine. However when they used silenced movement, it threw me off and I got confused. At one point I thought they were at the exact same position as us. I couldn't ask my captain to shoot, because the torpedo would damage us as well. The opponent sub managed to track us, and soon destroyed us. 

This is Jon's prototype - Foundations of Rome. I have seen this game go through several iterations. It is like watching your friend's child grow up. I keep telling him this game is better than Castle Combo. He started designing this game before Castle Combo was released. These two games look similar, because you are also playing cards into a 3x3 grid. I found Castle Combo so so. Nothing really grabs me. I like that in Foundation of Rome you need to plan carefully how to upgrade your buildings. If planned well, they give you great rewards. You will be placing people on the buildings. People are one of the ways you score points. 

Foundations of Rome (prototype)

I played a physical copy of Castle Combo for the first time. Prior to this I have played it several times on BoardGameArena.com. 

I went for the money bag strategy, collecting many such bags, and trying to amass a healthy amount of money. Castle Combo is hugely popular now. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's a simple and accessible tableau-building game. I am not keen about it because it doesn't offer me anything particularly new or interesting. Jon loves this game. I realise Jon and I disagree on so many games. Maybe we chat often so we discover many games we disagree on. We do agree on many games too. Or maybe I'm just a hard-to-please. 

Another one of Jon's prototypes I played was On Three. This is a two-player game which uses poker hands. I really like it. It's thinky and compact, and it uses just a normal deck of playing cards. I told Jon this is his Regicide. 

Samurai Spirit was another game I brought. I have fond memories of it. It is a challenging cooperative game. We did a six-player game. We made it to round 3, but unfortunately we lost because we were short of one doll icon. All the villager families were killed by the bandits. Tragic!

Joon Lam asked me whether I brought my prototype Pilgrim Poker. I did. I didn't intend to push for getting it played. I wanted it to be there on standby. If the opportunity arose and people wanted to take a break from heavy games to play a light one, I could bring it out. I hadn't expected that it would be specifically requested. 

We had great fun with it. In one particular round, I saw that Julian had a 13 (the highest card), and Joon Lam a 12. This would be difficult for me to win. The other cards were middling. Julian issued a Side Bet against Joon Lam. That made me go hmmmm.... Julian didn't know he had the 13. The only reason I could think of for him to go against such a strong card was I must be holding the special card (4 - Zhu Bajie) which made the lowest card win instead of the highest. Only then would the 12 be a weak card. This round we did several times of Side Bets and Raises. Eventually both Julian and Joon Lam folded. I had raised the bet amount to $10 (the max). I also had a Side Bet against Chan, at $10 as well. Now Chan had a special card too (10 - Sun Wukong). He did not fold. Win or lose, his bet would be doubled. I felt confident I could beat him, because I was pretty sure I had the 4. When it was time to reveal our cards, I was stunned. I did not have the 4! I had a 12. I panicked for a split second because this was out of my expectation. Then I felt relief. I still won because 12 beat 10, and I won a lot of money from Chan because of his special character. He had to pay me extra. That was a painful loss for him. 

We discussed after that round ended. Julian explained that he was just bluffing when he initiated a Side Bet against Joon Lam. At the time, both of them were leading, and both had a lot of money. So for Julian to issue a $10 Side Bet against Joon Lam wasn't a big deal. Julian wanted to intimidate and confuse Joon Lam. I'm happy that hardcore gamers enjoy Pilgrim Poker. I try to make my games accessible to the casual crowd, and sometimes this means sacrificing gamers. So I am glad my game is interesting enough for them too. 

Lifeboats is one of the most colourful games I played at the retreat. 

This is a noisy game with much politicking. I will write more about it in a separate post. 

Julian is a big fan of Obsession. He has a very nice insert set for it too. I am amazed by how well designed these 3D-printed custom inserts are. 

Sticheln (1993) is a trick-taking game that's more than 30 years old. I've always enjoyed it. I think the latest version is called Stick 'Em. There is also a version called Picante. It introduces some interesting twists, and they make the gameplay highly strategic. At the start of every round, everyone chooses a pain colour. During the game, every card you win gets you only one point. Every card in your pain colour that you win costs you points, based on its card value. This can be very painful. With four players, the card value goes up to 12. Winning one 12 in your pain colour will cause you to lose 12 points. You will need to win three tricks to recover from that. So you play this game very carefully, doing your best not to win cards in your pain colour. This can be difficult, because of another unusual rule. For every trick, any colour which is not the lead colour is a trump colour. That means if someone leads a trick with your pain colour, you'd better have a small card in your pain colour so that you can avoid winning this trick. Or you hope someone else who has a different pain colour wants to win it for himself and will play a card of a different colour. The tactics in Sticheln take a little while to get used to, and you will experience pain in the process (my friends can attest to it). The game looks simple, but the implications of these little twists are many. 

When they played the game, the first comment was this was obviously a pretty old copy. Some of the card edges had yellowing. Not exactly in bad shape, but the signs of age showed. 

Xiu Yi, Yuhang and Chan. Some of them declared this the best trick-taking game they have ever played. I'm glad I introduced the game to them. We played this on the very last day of the retreat, when we had a smaller group. We were too tired to play any more heavy games. 

One other game that was a pleasant surprise for me was Rajas of the Ganges. This is a pretty well known game, and I certainly have heard of it before. I did not have much interest to try it, because it sounded like just another worker placement game. Now that I have played it, yes, indeed it is a worker placement game, and it doesn't have any mechanism which is particularly innovative. However I found myself enjoying it a lot. I will need to think about why before I write more about this game. 

I played 13 new-to-me games throughout the retreat. I will later write about them all. Gosh this one retreat is giving me a lot of homework. 

This is the kind of retreat that makes you feel you are 30 years younger and still doing crazy stuff with your immature schoolmates. We were still in Kuala Lumpur and not some remote mountain, but the three days away from all other activities and worries, being able to spend time with friends who are equally mad about boardgames, playing and discussing and laughing, have been wonderful.