boardgaming in photos - Risk and Race for the Galaxy

In my work as a leadership trainer, I regularly collaborate with others in the industry - fellow trainers, coaches and training providers. Being in a business community called BNI, I regularly meet fellow members of the community and we help one another in our businesses. One of my friends Captain Fuaad has developed a training game based on Risk, and he asked several of us to help him playtest it. We did this at Bored boardgame cafe. It was a weekday afternoon so there was not much crowd. They let up take up a fair bit of space. The giant game board needed much space. I have my own giant boardgames which I use for training too. I am lucky to be able to integrate my passion of boardgames with my passion of helping others become effective leaders. 

I can't recall the last time I actually played Risk. It was probably Risk Legacy that I played, and that might be more than 10 years ago. 

It is an amazing feeling to see my games being promoted in a language I cannot read at all. Box & Brew Cafe of Thailand stocked some of my games. They bought from me in bulk when we met at the Asian Board Games Festival in the Philippines. 

If you are in Thailand, you can find my games at Box & Brew Cafe! 

We visited Xiaozhu's home and I took the opportunity to ask my friends to help playtest my Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦) game. One thing about this prototype that I did not deliberately plan for is the combination of 6 and 7. It's a thing that teenagers say now, which old timers find annoying. And also in Chinese (well, Cantonese) it can be misread as something... ahem... inappropriate. I have been thinking about changing the numbering system. Instead of 0 being the main character Jia Baoyu, maybe I should make him the 9. The reasoning is when I play sets containing him, I fan the cards in such a way that he will always be hidden from view, while the largest number of the set will be visible. Him being 0 means he is always the first card on the left, so he will always be hidden from view. How can the main character be always hidden from view? He should be the most visible. By making him the 9, whenever there is a set containing him, his whole card will always be visible. That is my rationale. Now that there is this coincidence of the 67 set, maybe I don't have to change it. Also if on the table I only see tons of Jia Baoyu, the game looks a little boring too. 

I also played this prototype with Pey Ling, a teacher who specialises in studying and analysing Dream of the Red Chamber - the true expert. One thing she shared with me was that Xue Baochai, one of the two main female characters, was probably a little plump. In one particular scene after some light exertion she was already panting hard. Hey you learn something new every day. 

Pey Ling's specialty is not just Dream of the Red Chamber. She studies and teaches all four of the major Chinese literary works. So we also played my Pilgrim Poker prototype, which has a Journey to the West theme. I showed her my Rebels of the Three Kingdoms prototype too. 

Sun 17 May 2026 I was at Kinokuniya bookstore at Pavilion Damansara Heights demoing my games. Currently they stock Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs. They invited me to do a demo session because they were running a promotion. Pavilion Damansara Heights is not a very busy mall, even on Sundays. Maybe it is because the place is spacious, the mall felt rather sparse to me. Kinokuniya itself did have some foot traffic. There were always people around. Most people didn't stop to examine the games, whether mine or others at the same table. They just took curious glances. Some did stop to ask, and I gave them brief overviews of the games. Very few wanted to sit down to play. I mostly just showed the game components and explained briefly how the games worked. Some were happy to buy after listening to the overview. Ironically none of those who sat down to play bought the games. 

Boardgames is still very much a niche hobby in Malaysia. This afternoon at Kinokuniya reminds me of that. At boardgame events, yes, we attract people who are already interested, and we get the impression that hey there are so many fellow boardgamers in Malaysia. Half a day at a regular bookstore reminds me that we as the boardgame industry still have a lot of work ahead of us to promote the hobby and to create awareness. Although it was a little depressing to be idle for much time, especially compared to when I booth at boardgame events, I am still happy that I'm doing a little bit in introducing tabletop games to the public. Keep hustling! 

I did a five player game of Heat on BGA. This is such an enjoyable game, and I'm happy that it is doing well. It has many expansions. I don't own a copy, but if I were new to the hobby, I would have purchased one. 

I'm super happy to be assigned green, my favourite player colour.

I'm don't have a paid account on BGA so my colour assignment is random.

This part of the board is challenging - several consecutive corners with low speed limits. We played with some expansions - just a few extra rules here and there. In some ways Heat is a push-your-luck game. How far are you willing to push your car to get that extra bit of distance by paying the price of clogging your hand with heat cards? Movement is often deterministic, only occasionally you roll a die, and usually you are the one deciding when to take the risk. The decision of whether to discard cards and hope to draw better ones is not always easy to make. This game should be in some hall of fame. 

I did a two-player game of Molly House with Han. This time I was pretty determined to help the mollies (i.e. LGBTQ community) survive and gain acceptance. They have never survived in all the games I played. This time I approached the game like a cooperative game. I tried to keep track of the cards in the gossip pile. I worked hard to help the community score points. As the game progressed, Han outscored me by a lot. I was arrested for indecent behaviour and I had a major indictment which might lead to a death sentence. My resolve shattered, and I decided to betray my comrades. I became an informer. Eventually the community was infiltrated and shut down by the authorities. Han was hanged for sodomy. I won the game, but I felt so dirty. Aaarrgghh! 

Having played several games of Molly House, I now conclude that it doesn't quite work for me. It is a design I admire for how bold it is, and I like the premise. I don't like the memory element. Because the game mechanisms are unusual, I find the game hard to learn and to play. It feels like a lot of work. After having played several games, I still don't feel I know how to play it. 

I have been enjoy my ongoing plays of Race for the Galaxy with Jon and Yasmin. When I open up my browser tab of BGA games, this is usually the game I most look forward to to take the next turn. 

I completed a game of Signorie on BGA. I have played this before but I have forgotten most of the rules. I had to relearn. I continue to suffer the consequences of my own laziness when playing games on BGA. I do play the tutorials, and I download the rulebooks in case I need to refer to them. However since BGA handles most of the game mechanisms, I usually end up being too lazy to learn the game rules properly. I just click without fully understanding the consequences of my actions. It's not the fault of BGA. It's entirely mine. 

I read up my previous blog post about Signorie, and one thing I did differently this time was I tried to set up many bonus actions in the early game. Investing in this gave me extra actions throughout the game. I didn't do as badly as the first time I played the game. I didn't do particularly well either, since I didn't really understand some parts of the game. 

Signorie is a decent game and I should learn it properly. 

I might be losing the appetite for more complex games. Many of them feel convoluted and tiresome. 10 years ago I would not have imagined myself saying this. Heavy Eurogames is supposed to be the pinnacle of boardgaming for me. 

Splotter Games announced Bailiff of Boscoop. For many years I had this rule: when Splotter releases a game, buy it. Don't wait and see. Just buy it. I like almost all their games. But now I am discarding this rule. I am certainly interested to try the game, but I might not buy it. I bought Horseless Carriage. It is a good game, but I have only played it once. Till now I have not made time to play it again. 

Bahamut Dispute

Bahamut Dispute is a microgame from Japan. It is a 2 player game about two kings trying to defeat the other by setting a dragon on their opponent. The structure is simple. On your turn you draw one card, and you may play up to two cards. You need to discard only if you exceed the hand limit. You start with 4 health, and your goal is to reduce your opponent’s health to zero. So far, nothing unusual. What makes this game interesting is the card powers and the deny mechanism. 

In the deck of 16 cards, there are only three creatures, i.e. cards you summon and keep in front of you. The dragon (Baleful Bahamut) does 4 damage, which means if you can summon it and it stays in play until the start of your next turn, you will one-shot-kill your opponent. The tricky thing is you can’t just play the dragon card. It can only be summoned by certain spells. Spells are another type of card. There is a baby dragon which deals 1 damage per turn. Not so glamorous but it is slow and steady. And then you have the goblin which protects you from attacks, except for attacks from the dragon. The rest of the cards have various abilities, for example dealing damage, letting you draw more cards, forcing your opponent to discard a specific card, and so on. 

You start the game with two deny tokens. Whenever your opponent plays a card, you can spend a token to cancel the power of the card. This can be a life saver. However when you do so, your opponent may spend two tokens to cancel your cancel, and you can't cancel this cancel of your cancel. It’s not always easy to decide whether to use a deny token. If it is life-and-death, then of course you'd spend it, but often the decision is not so straight-forward. Is the current situation dire enough to warrant spending a token? Should you save your token for a double-token spend on a later turn to force an attack through? You might be thinking of spending a token to lure your opponent into spending both of theirs, but what if that backfires and they decide not to cancel your cancel? You'd have one fewer token. And if you have the opportunity to spend double-token, should you do it? How critical is this card play to winning the game? If your opponent is desperate enough to spend a token, maybe it's worth your while to spend both of yours. Or might that be a trap to trick you into spending both your tokens? This is such a simple mechanism, but it creates much angst. This is the kind of game which appears simple, but there are moments when you realise there is something more and you go "waaaiiiit a minute..."

Still, this is a short game. You will probably run through the deck and need to reshuffle. The game becomes more strategic when you get to know the cards better. You know what to look out for and you anticipate your opponent's moves. 

Bahamut Dispute is quick and clever. It is one of the top-selling titles from Jelly Jelly Games. It is portable. We played it on a small Starbucks table at the Manila airport. 

Pilgrim Poker - a tease

 

I am planning to launch my next game from Cili Padi Games in August at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang (Malaysia). The art for Pilgrim Poker is all done. We are in the process of finalising all the graphic files and submitting them to the manufacturer. I love the art my artist Edwin Chong has created for this game. One of my favourite characters is this Bull Demon King (牛魔王), who has become a tired salaryman on a train. I am doing something I have done before with Snow White. I'm putting fairy tale characters in a modern day setting. The Bull Demon King is going to be on most of the cards in the game. Cards are numbered 1 to 13. Cards 4, 8 and 10 are special characters. The rest are all common cards. When I made my prototype, the placeholder art I used was the one below. I just needed some minor demons for the common cards. The Bull Demon King is certainly no minor demon. But I think that tired salaryman role is fitting. 

My Grand View Garden - a game about Dream of the Red Chamber

This game My Grand View Garden (我的大观园) is made by the Dream of the Red Chamber Society of University Malaya. I recently met a teacher Pey Ling who specialises in the four major Chinese literary works and runs courses analysing them. She is planning to great boardgames for them, to make her lessons more interesting to her students. She contacted me after reading about my blog post on my prototype for Dream of the Red Chamber. She was interested to meet up and exchange ideas. She had a copy of My Grand View Garden, which she hadn't had the chance to play till then, and we gave it a go when we met up. 

This game has already been produced properly. I am not sure how many copies. It has a proper box and production components. The game is in Chinese and Malay. No English. This is a Malaysianised version of Dream of the Red Chamber. The characters are in Baba and Nyonya costume instead of traditional Chinese costume. The Baba and Nyonya are Chinese who came to Malaysia centuries ago and have since developed a unique culture. Most of them are in Melaka. 

The game is a simplified version of Monopoly. Up to four players can play. You start with some money. You roll dice to move your pawn. You will have opportunities to buy land, build houses and collect rent. The game ends when one player goes bankrupt. Whoever is richest by then wins. Alternatively you can agree to play for a fixed amount of time. 

The board is double-sided. One side is Chinese and the other Malay. It's not actually a board. It's poster paper. Most spaces feature specific buildings from the book, which is nice. Some spaces trigger mini games. You can test one another's knowledge about the novel. One mini game even requires singing. 

The two types of cards are fate cards (pink) and chance cards (blue). If you land on a fate or chance space, you draw a card and do what it says. The fate cards feature many characters in the book. This is one way you learn about and discuss the book. 

The chance cards feature other elements in the book, for example objects and poetry. 

Each space is numbered (in Chinese), in the top left corner. This is helpful when you play the game. The land titles, houses and rent work differently from Monopoly. When you land on an opponent's property, the rent you have to pay is the same as the price of the property. So your return on investment is fantastic. The rulebook is not precise about how all this is handled, but we interpreted it this way. 

We had a group of players with very different experiences. Other than me, we had one highly experienced gamer, one moderately experienced gamer, and one non-gamer. For those of us experienced with modern boardgames, My Grand View Garden is clearly designed by inexperienced game designers. And that is no surprise. The society is of people who study literature, not people who study game design. We shared with Pey Ling our suggestions for the game, so that she could give this feedback to the society. One problem we found was people went bankrupt too easily. We didn't start with much money, and just a few bad events can make you lose all your money. 

These are the land title cards. Gameplay aside, the game does contain many elements from the novel, and thus can be a useful tool to learn about the story and trigger discussion about the characters. 

These dice are not for movement. These represent the houses you build on your land. When you build your first house, you place one die showing the house. When you build more, you turn the die to the appropriate number. 

One gameplay suggestion we gave was removing this fate card on the right. The card effect is to draw another fate card. From the gameplay perspective, there is no meaning or value. I am not familiar with this character on the card though. Maybe there is meaning behind this. 

It is encouraging to see people interested in creating boardgames. It means there is more and more awareness in Malaysia. 

On a separate occasion, I-Van (HR Game), Jon (King & Peasant) and I had a chat with a history lecturer who is thinking of asking her students to create a boardgame as their assignment. Now you can easily use AI to write long essays for you. Assignments in the form of essays may not be very effective. It is not easy to get students interested to properly do their research. So creating a boardgame might be a more engaging way to get students interested in the subject matter. 

Selamat Hari Raya Haji

 

Happy holidays everyone! I always get excited about public holidays, because it means I get to share another piece of art from my upcoming game Malaysian Holidays. I enjoy making these teaser posts. The game is expected to be released by early July. If all goes well, some early copies will be available at the Sabah National Tabletop Con mid June. 

Trishaw Frenzy

Trishaw Frenzy is a Malaysian design. The designer is Ewe Boon How, and the publisher is LUMA. This is a game about trishaws in Penang. It is a simple game, and I'd even consider it a children's game. 

One easy way to describe the game is modernised Snakes & Ladders. This is a roll-and-move game. The board is made up of nine tiles randomly placed and oriented. The squares on the tiles are not numbered so you don't use such numbers to determine your route. Instead, you use a randomly drawn route card (see below). You roll a die to move your pawn. The first to reach the end wins. 

There are a few location types on the board. Depending on where you land, you perform certain actions. One type of location lets you rotate a tile. You draw a card to see which tiles you are allowed to rotate. Rotating a tile can have huge implications. You might set your opponent back, or you might put yourself ahead. Some locations are portals, and they teleport you to another portal. This is the snakes and ladders part of the game. Sometimes you draw a new route card. This can dramatically change the situation. A leading player might find himself far from the new finish line. A trailing player might find himself only a few steps away from winning. 

It's a simple game, and it is roll-and-move. For seasoned gamers, "snakes-and-ladders" usually means "stay away". In Trishaw Frenzy when you get to rotate a tile, you get to make a meaningful decision. So this is not a passive and 100% luck-based game. There will be dramatic twists of fate. You never know what surprise awaits at the next corner. This is a casual and light game that's easy to learn and relaxing to play. And this is such a pretty game! 

Japanese media

Mice Times Japan just published an article about the Asian Board Games Festival in the Philippines, which happened earlier this month. I was a little shocked to find my face on the cover photo. I was just one of many exhibitors interviewed. I am guessing they picked this photo because of the chilli on my head. I'm happy the Malaysian title, Jon's King and Peasant, is featured in the photo too. 

Original article: https://micetimes.jp/asian-board-game-festival2026/

Google Translated: https://micetimes-jp.translate.goog/asian-board-game-festival2026/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp

TROK

Trok is set in the universe of another game - Nidavellir. I think that's a good product and marketing strategy. This is building an intellectual property and a brand. Attract your existing fans and supporters. Nidavellir is a game about dwarfs, and Trok is the popular card game played by dwarfs in taverns in the world of Nidavellir. 

The cards in the game are numbered 1 to 7, with 1's being the most common, and 7's being the rarest. There are also some jokers in the game. Every round everyone draws five cards, and then simultaneously picks three to offer to other players. These offered cards are revealed at the same time. Whoever has the highest total value of cards being offered goes first. This player picks one card from another player. Then it is that player's turn to pick a card from someone else. This continues until everyone has taken 3 cards from other players. Then you try to make sets with the cards you now have. If you make a set of at least three cards of the same value, you score points based on the card value. E.g. a set of three 1's gives you just 1 point. Each card from the 4th onwards scores you 3 points. This is lucrative if you manage large sets. 

There is a card market of three cards. When you take a card from an opponent, instead of keeping it for yourself, you can put it into the market, and take another card from the market. If you create a set of three similar cards in the market, you score points too. 

The other type of set you can make is a set of different values. You need at least 3 different cards, and when you make such a set, you get to claim one tool from a tool market. The bigger your set, the more cards you get to choose from. The tools have various effects, for example letting you draw an extra card at the start of a round, letting you keep a card for the next round (normally you must discard all cards at the end of a round), and scoring points every round based on other tools you have. Tools are how you augment your abilities. You will want to get them early, because the earlier you get them, the more opportunities you will have to use them. 

And that's the game. I'd call this a card drafting game. Your points are secret, and you don't know exactly how well your opponents are doing. You do know each time they score, but it's not easy to keep track of everyone's cumulative score. This creates some uncertainty and excitement. The game ends when someone reaches 50 points. There is one alternative winning condition. If you can collect a set of all eight card types, i.e. 1 to 7 plus the joker, you win immediately regardless of your accumulated score. To be able to do this you will need to get several tools to augment your abilities, because by default you only draw 5 cards every round. 

In the late game when everyone has more tools, you will have more cards and you can make bigger sets, and possibly the instant win set. 

Trok is a pretty straight-forward game. It is about collecting cards and trying to make sets of the same number or sets of different numbers. Making use of tools is fun. They help you make better sets. You need to watch your opponents and try to guess what cards they might want. You want to avoid creating opportunities for them to make sets of three. The player interaction is subtle. If you want to play well, you need to pay attention. When you choose a card, you decide who goes next, and that can be an important consideration. The tools your opponents have give you clues as to what they might be trying to do. Creating good combos of tools is fun. That's the part I enjoy most. I also like that tension between choosing to grab a good tool and scoring a bunch of points. You focus more on tools in the early game, and eventually you will switch to rushing for points. That transition is not always straight-forward. Finding that balance is the interesting part of the game. 

Sabah National Tabletop Con

 

This will be held on 20-21 Jun 2026 at the Sabah Art Gallery. I missed this event last year because I had other work to do. I can make it this year and I'm looking forward to this very much. This will be my first time exhibiting at my hometown of Kota Kinabalu. If you are in KK, come play with me! 

Katana Spirits

Katana Spirits is a light strategy game from Singaporean designer Geoffrey Chia. This game uses several characters also found in other titles from Good Spirit Games. Many of Geoffrey's games have a Japanese theme. Katana Spirits is a game about training yourself as a fighter and then going out kick some gangster butt. This is a game which uses polyomino tiles. 

On your turn you must choose to train or to fight. Training means claiming a polyomino tile from the centre of the table. Fighting means spending these polyominoes to defeat gangsters and score points. Six cards are laid out at the centre of the table in a 2x3 grid. On each card there is one type of polyomino you can take. When you train, you move a shared pawn one step and claim a polyomino where it lands. How you move the pawn affects where the next player can move it to, and thus the kind of polyomino they can take. If you are able to perfectly fill your player board, you will score 1 point. You will want to try to do this, while at the same time you want to prevent your opponents from doing the same.

The gangsters are divided into three tiers - minions, lieutenants, and bosses. There are many different types of minions and only three of them are available at any one time. Whenever one gets defeated, a new one will be drawn from the deck. There are exactly three types of lieutenants and two types of bosses. These are fixed, which means you can plan precisely when and how to defeat them, and which one you want to aim for. You cannot do such planning for the minions. If there is a specific minion you want to defeat, you'd better do it before somebody else makes their move. For every lieutenant you want to fight, you must have defeated two minions. For every boss you want to fight, you must have defeated two lieutenants. The game ends when one boss is defeated or when the minion deck is exhausted.

Defeating a gangster is just spending polyominoes. The total value of the polyominoes must match or exceed the strength of the gangster you want to defeat. Ideally you want it to be a perfect match. If you overspend, it means you have overstretched yourself and you will take one injury. When the game ends, if you still have injury, you will lose points. During the game you may skip turns to heal yourself.

Health tracker

All the gangsters you defeat are worth points. They have certain properties, and some of them give you extra points based on these properties. So there is an element of set collection when you defeat gangsters. Some gangsters give you ongoing abilities, for example you can move the shared pawn an additional step, or when you heal you heal an extra step.

Katana Spirits is a light strategy game which will also work as a family game. This will work with a casual crowd as it is not complex. You don't directly fight your opponents, but there is plenty of player interaction. You affect which polyominoes your opponents can take, and you will also compete for certain minions. There are several small things you can do to annoy your opponents, especially the player after you.