Malaysia Boardgame Show on national TV

The Malaysia Boardgame Show was covered on national television. See the clip here (the video is in Malay): https://www.facebook.com/reel/4243861829210835 

The organiser Jon. My friend is on TV! 

Effendy's game Melaka won 3rd place in the Zenobia Awards

Many Malaysian themed games were showcased at the event

Malaysia Boardgame Show 2026: 2 busy days!

18-19 Apr 2026 was the Malaysia Boardgame Show. It was held at Jaya One shopping mall in PJ. In the past few years there has been several different boardgame-specific events in Malaysia, like Asian Board Game Festival (in Penang), Boxcon, All Aboard, Dice & Dine, Anigames. Not all are recurring. MBS is organised by Jon, who is currently the most active game designer in Malaysia. He has managed to gather a large group of volunteers and helpers for the event. I am hopeful MBS will become a recurring event in Malaysia. 

I participated as a local designer and publisher, and I had a small booth on the Ground Floor. The event took up two floors. The Ground Floor was open to the public, and booths selling games were all on G/F. First Floor was the activity area, i.e. the ticketed area. You had to buy a pass to access the activities here. There were volunteers bringing their games to teach others to play. You could sell your pre-loved games. Buying games did not require a ticket. There were large group games hosted (2 Rooms and a Boom, Blood on the Clocktower etc). There were also four competitions being run over the weekend, including for Dune Imperium. 

Local publisher Meja Belakang (makers of Drama Pukul 7) was right next to me and Jia Xian photobombed me. 

I still had a lingering cough after the Raya event (Dice and Dine at Lalaport) one month ago. The two days at MBS were almost non-stop teaching games. There was a good crowd. Saturday I could only take a break around 7pm. Sunday I had some breaks here and there. When friends passed by, many couldn't chat with me because I was in the middle of teaching games. 

Event keychains

This was one of the game shelves on the First Floor. Many volunteers brought their own games to place at these shelves. They taught visitors to play, and sometimes played with them. A big part of this event was the community. I think it is amazing that we have so many generous volunteers, willing to bring their precious collections to the event to teach strangers to play. If you are a visitor, you can browse the games and if there is a specific game you want to try, you look for the owner (whose name would be on the box) and he or she will teach you to play. 

I only had time to take some photos of the First Floor in the early morning before visitors started coming. Once the event started, I was at my booth most of the time. 

There were game auctions. 

Another area for games brought by volunteers. 

The red and white flags are for when you need help or need more players.

There was a Carcassonne competition and a Hikadyat competition. 

Custom-made gaming tables. 

Another game library

This is a huge box

Very impressive game components

These are wonders of the world

I sneaked up to take another photo when there were a bit more people.

I'm thinking I'm probably positioning my table (red tablecloth) wrong. It looks less welcoming. I probably should have turned it 90 degrees to be the same as my neighbours. 

On my other side was Roll Rebellion, makers of the highly successful HR Game. 

My vendor tag

There were vendors from Singapore (Ben from LaiPlayLeow) and from Thailand (Milk from BGN). Milk runs the Thailand Board Game Show which I have been to twice, and she was a wonderful host. This time it is us Malaysians' turn to host her. 

There was a section for educational games. There was even a seminar on game design. MBS was very much about the Malaysian boardgame community, about people coming together to play games and have fun. And that's how it should be. 

boardgaming in photos: 4 donkeys

Playing Bottle Imp with Alex and Ivan at ZUS Coffee. They were both highly intrigued and took learning the strategy seriously. This is a game with much depth. There are serious skills involved. This is an unusual and clever trick-taking game. 

I showed Pinocchio to Yip, Captain Fuaad and Kelvin. Right from the start Captain teased Yip that he was going to get four donkeys (and lose the game). This prediction turned out to be accurate. I rarely see someone lose a game of Pinocchio so happily. Yip wanted to buy a copy of the game immediately afterwards. 

This was a game of Monopoly Deal played at FnD Mindspot with Eric Lang and several other Malaysian game designers and gamers. Eric greatly admires the game and uses it as an example of good game design. I must say it is not quite my thing, but indeed this is an accessible game that works well for a wide audience. 

Sean Brown brought a free copy of Faiyum plus expansion all the way back from the US for me. He remembered that Julian and I are interested in the game, and when he had access to some free copies, he offered to get them for us. Thank you so much! I have played Faiyum before and I liked it. It has been on my potential buy list for some time and I was almost going to pull the trigger, just about the time Sean said he had some free copies. 

This is Carson City played on BoardGameArena.com. I have played this many years ago, and I remember it fondly. I just don't quite remember the rules anymore. This is one of the earlier worker placement games, and one unique element is you can fight others for a placement spot. 

You will build a city, buying plots of land and constructing buildings. Buildings help you make money and they have other effects too. 

This is Takenoko. You expand the imperial garden, irrigate it, grow bamboo, and feed bamboo to the panda. All these modify the play area. You score points by completing objective cards, and objective cards require specific situations in the play area. 

This was our play area by game end.

The game ends when a player completes seven objectives. He scores an additional 2 points. In our game two of us managed seven objectives. 

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.