Klang, MYBOGADECO and other notes

I participated in a mid autumn festival event on Sat 19 Sep 2026. This was not a boardgame specific event, but several Malaysian game designers and retailers were invited to showcase and sell their games. The event was in Pandamaran, Klang, which is an hour drive west of Kuala Lumpur. The event was 5pm to 10pm, and we were asked to come set up booth by 3pm. I had something else on that day which only ended at 3pm, so I said I couldn't make it at the required time. I arrived shortly before 4pm. Several other vendors had already set up their booths, but among the boardgame vendors, I was the first to arrive. I was overly anxious. For us the setup is quick and much less complicated than other vendors. 

I think this was the 5th year they organised this event. There were many activities, like making fans, lantern riddles and photo booths. There was a small stage and many performances, mostly singing or music performances. The organisers placed us boardgame vendors far from the stage, so noise was not a problem for us. 

Most of the event was outdoors, but covered. I was a little worried about rain, but thankfully it didn't rain. It was a little windy in the late afternoon, but thankfully not so after the event started. 

Not all of my local game designer friends could make it to the event, so I brought their games there to sell. Those who could make it brought their own games. Chee Kong was there, Ray, Buddhima, Hwa Siang too. Kiwi demoed Tanglung and Roti Canai for LUMA and Faculty of Fun respectively. Yeow Meng was there, representing Swan Panasia.  

I mostly demonstrated Pilgrim Poker. I also did some Pinocchio. I did not manage to sell much, and my wife would question why I keep going to such events. I did not expect to sell much, but I think it is important I go for these non boardgame specific events because as an industry we need to create more awareness in Malaysia. Boardgame penetration in Malaysia is still very low. My measure of success at these events is not how many copies I sell, but whether I manage to get many people to try boardgames. 

Mid autumn festival events are the kind which parents bring their primary school age children to. My games are not really targeted at children, so I usually tell parents my games are for 10 and above. Some children younger than 10 might be able to play, but I think only slightly older children will be able to appreciate the kind of humour in my games. 

One particular group included a father, a son of about 11, and a daughter of about 8. I taught them Pilgrim Poker. The father understood the game and took it quite seriously, as in he did his best to play well and to win. The daughter was a little lost and probably didn't fully understand some of the nuances. This is a game in which you can bluff, and you can deduct information based on others' actions. I'm not sure she fully grasped these intricacies. The father played treating the children as equals, and naturally did much better than his kids. I found that funny and a little awkward. He certainly enjoyed the game, but he wasn't trying to help his children learn and enjoy the game. I think older brother enjoyed too. Younger sister looked a little puzzled sometimes. 

With another group, a mother and a daughter of about 7, I taught Pinocchio. I joined them to play. This mother was proactive in making sure her daughter understood what was going on. She explained how the game worked when she felt her daughter didn't fully follow. At one point, the daughter said she had a 20, and the mother started laughing. The mother knew the daughter was lying, because she had the 20 herself. Gosh, I have been successful in teaching children to lie. She was caught lying, but she tried. 

I enjoy these moments, watching parents sit down together with their children to play games. I am happy to have created these moments for them. I certainly remember my own moments playing games with my daughters. 

There were other types of groups. I had a group of young adults who were teachers. I had teenager groups too. 

Buddhima was right next to me and he demoed Malaysian Holidays (designed by me) and Counting Cats (designed by Haireey). He has been actively collaborating with other local designers. 

This year Hwa Siang organised MYBOGADECO - Malaysia Board Game Design Competition. I have participated in this as a contestant in the past. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was a contest entry. This year Hwa Siang invited me to be one of the judges. Jon was also invited to be a judge. The three of us did judging on Sun 20 Sep 2026, at Jon's home. The competition parameter is everything must fit in a mint tin box. There were some interesting ideas. Hwa Siang will be compiling the final scores and the results should be out soon. 

MYBOGADECO is a little different from the Design & Play game design competition. The judging criteria is broader and it challenges several capabilities a professional game designer would need to have to be successful in the market. For example how well you can pitch you game to a publisher. 

The Design & Play game design competition results were announced on 16 Sep 2026 at GMBB Mall. We had a simple event and ceremony for it. 

GMBB Mall let us use a reading corner for the afternoon for playing the finalist games. 

Our lead organiser Jon feeling nervous in the limelight

We had a pretty good crowd that afternoon. All the tables were occupied most of the time. 

It is encouraging to see so many people interested in designing games and in trying one another's games. 

I taught my family Rikka. It is still decent at second play. Sometimes I wonder whether Japanese games have a halo effect on me. I think I am already predisposed to like them because I think highly of them. Well, that may not be a problem. If it makes me happy, what's the problem?

With my second play of Rikka, I feel there is a significant element of luck. Sometimes you just get lucky starting hands. I think that's okay. It's a light and short game. You have some interesting decision making. You make small gambles, e.g. deciding to focus on a certain number and hoping you will get more of that later. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. 

I played Shady Lady again too. I told my family this could be played in the dark, and Chen Rui insisted we try it. I found out it didn't actually work. We spread out the cards to let them absorb light for a while, and then played with the lights off. We could more or less read the cards, but it was not easy. So don't play this in the dark. It doesn't work. 

Younger daughter Chen Rui is overseas now, continuing her studies. Before the end of her summer break, we played Innovation. We played this a lot last year before she went overseas. We both like the game. This copy we played was Innovation Ultimate. 

Dog represents domestication! 

Using the power of El Dorado is equivalent to buying a lottery ticket. You are probably wasting your time and money, but if you get very lucky, you will earn a lot of money. I was way behind Chen Rui and I knew it was hard to catch up, so I placed my bet on El Dorado. I ended up wasting many turns because it never worked for me. 

I recently played Innovation with Jon. He had both the iello version and the 4th edition, and he wanted to see what the differences were. The iello version has pretty art, but I'm too used to the minimalistic art and I find it a little distracting. Also I'm too used to the original terminology and I can't get used to the terms in this edition. Some of the card powers have changed between the iello edition and the 4th edition. The 4th edition seems to be the same or very close to Innovation Ultimate. I've played a fair bit of Innovation, but I never bothered to make detailed comparisons. I just enjoy the ride. 

I also played DVONN and Lost Cities with Chen Rui. It's nice to revisit some older games. After so many years, Lost Cities still amazes me. Such a simple game, and yet so much decision angst. I remember it was much hotter back in the day - in the 2000's. I think many gamers who entered the hobby in the past ten years may not know about it. It's a classic that deserves to be an evergreen two-player game. 

Teh Tarik Game

Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan was the winner of the 2025 Malaysia Design & Play game design competition, of which I was one of the judges. The winner's prize was either a publishing deal, or a cash prize. Ray decided to take the cash prize and publish the game himself. He did all the planning and the art. The game was released this year. I got myself a copy. I was part of this game's journey, and I definitely want to own a copy. 

The game comes in a small tuck box. 

It's pretty compact

This is the card back

The rulebook is in English and Malay. The cards are in four languages - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. 

The cards are numbered 1 to 40. The version at the competition last year was a strictly four player game, played in teams of two. The published version now supports 2 to 4 players. I think the game is best played with four, and I will prefer to play it only with four. 

I will only describe the four player game. There are two cups at the centre of the table, one belonging to each team. On your turn, you must play a card to either cup. Cards must be played in ascending order, so you can only play a card which is higher than the most recently played card. If you are unable to play a card, you will spill your team's cup. That means discarding all the cards so that you can start a new cup. Spilled cards cost you 1 point each. Each player has one Siap (Done!) card. Siap cards are used to score points. That means your team only has two opportunities in the whole game to score points. The Siap card can always be played. If you think your cup is valuable enough, you can play your Siap card, and you will score all those cards in your cup. But remember, once you have used your Siap card, you won't be able to score for your team any more. You can only rely on your partner (assuming he hasn't used his Siap card). 

If both of you have used your Siap cards, I hope the game will end very soon, because any cards played to your cup from now on will only be spilled, i.e. they will cost you points. Holding on to and knowing when to play your Siap card is crucial in this game. The game is played until the deck is exhausted and every player has played all hand cards. 

There are four reverse cards in the game. If you add such a card to your cup, the number order reverses, e.g. you now play in descending order instead of ascending. If your cup value has gone up to the high 30's, a reverse card will let you add more cards. Reverse cards can be very useful. 

The fact that you can play to your opponents' cup is a key element of the game. This can be a very mean game. When your opponent is still playing single digit numbers, you can play a 39 to force them to spill their cup. Of course they can do the same to you. You know that when playing to your opponents' cup you might be giving them 1 point. Sometimes you play to your opponents' cup because you can't play to your own, and you don't want to spill your own cup. This is an interactive game with a mean streak. When I played this with my family, my wife Michelle didn't like this nastiness. We ended up playing harmoniously, which I think was dull. If you are going to play this, please play it with jerks. 

Bloody Breakers

Bloody Breakers is a 2-player microgame from Japan, designed by Ryusei Nakata. It is a game with just 16 cards. This seems to be a common format in Japan. 

Box back

You have four types of cards in the game. There are four copies of each card type. Each card has a scoring criteria on the left and also an ability at the top right. 

During the game both players will play cards into a common play area, which will eventually grow to become a 3x3 grid. When you play a card into the grid, you apply the ability of the card. For example you may swap the newly played card with an adjacent card, or you may take a card from your opponent's hand then give him a card from your hand. The four card types score differently, and the points they earn depend on their positions in the grid and the position of other cards relative to them. For example a wizard scores more points if he has many different card types surrounding him. 

Eventually there will be 9 cards in the grid, and 3 cards in each player's hand. The 3 cards you have will score points for you. Throughout the game you will be manipulating the grid and how much the four card types score. As you do that you have to decide which cards to keep in hand by game end. You need to think about what kind of cards your opponent might be holding. You want to reduce the points of those cards. 

Bloody Breakers is smart and quick. It is short, but not simplistic at all. I was a little sceptical at first, because I have seen several games with 3x3 grids, and I have also seen many games that have cards which score points in a similar way. Now that I have played it, I find it enjoyable. I like that during play you have to decide which factions to invest in, and you have to guess which factions your opponent might be invested in. It is possible to switch factions you support. The grid manipulation is a short and tight fight. You only have a handful of moves, and every card play is important. This is a compact game which is short but packs plenty of meaningful decision making. 

Malaysia Design & Play Game Design Competition 2026 Results

The results of the Design & Play Game Design Competition 2026 have been announced on Malaysia Day, 16 Sep 2026. Congratulations to Muhammad Aiman Haqiemi Mohd Shaipul (Jalan Jem), Anas Maghfur (Unlawful) and Andrew Tan Kui An (Malaysia's Last Tigers). I am one of the six judges for the competition. We had our judging day on 12 Sep 2026 at Lalaport. It was one full day of everyone playing every finalist game. I will briefly introduce our finalists before sharing my thoughts. 

1st Place: Jalan Jem by Muhammad Aiman Haqiemi Mohd Shaipul

Everybody hates traffic jams. Everybody blames the stupid motorists switching lanes all the time worsening the traffic. But we are traffic! We are all part of the problem. Jalan Jem puts all of you on the same highway. The slow, middle and fast lanes have different capacities. If there is too much traffic in a particular lane, your travel time will increase. If traffic is smooth, it increases less, or you might even save some time. Your goal is to reach your destination in the shortest time possible, by avoiding traffic jams. 

Everyone has a die representing their vehicle. You roll your die every round, and the value represents traffic. Everyone decides simultaneously whether to stay in the same lane or switch to an adjacent lane. Note that you can't switch two lanes at one go, e.g. from slow lane straight to fast lane. That's reckless driving. The lanes from slow to fast have different risks and rewards. The slow lane has a bigger capacity and thus less risk of getting jammed. However staying in the slow lane always adds some time to your road trip. In case it gets jammed, it only adds 10 more minutes to your trip. Not too bad. 

The middle lane has a smaller capacity. If there is no jam (i.e. all the dice added up is less than or equal to the capacity), you add no time to your trip. But if it gets jammed, you are going to add 40 minutes to your trip, which is horrible. But not as horrible as when the fast lane gets jammed, like this photo below. 

The fast lane is easiest to get jammed. If it doesn't get jammed, you shorten your trip by 20 minutes. But if it does and you get stuck in that jam, you are adding 60 minutes to your trip. The fast lane is high risk, high reward. 

This game is about guessing the intentions of the other motorists on the road. It is most fun with the highest player count. 

2nd Place: Unlawful by Anas Maghfur

Play the role of a lawful trader or a pirate during the era of the Melaka Sultanate. Being a trader, you need to collect cargo of either the same type or of different types to score points. You can also support the sultanate in fighting pirates. If you decide to turn pirate, the actions that become available to you will be completely different. It takes time for you to build up your capabilities, but once you do so, you can earn many points. 

The game is complex and competitive, and players often find they need to work together to prevent others from running away with the game. There are such uneasy alliances in several aspects of the game. If you are the raid leader, sometimes you are forced to agree to let someone join you to score points together, because otherwise he will disrupt your plans. Sometimes the traders must all agree to claim dice of a particular colour to prevent the pirate from capturing a die colour he wants. 

You use the two cards on the right to track your points. 

The back of your character card is your pirate identity, if you choose to turn pirate. You will capture dice to be placed here. Dice placed here determine the actions available to you. You can have at most one die per column. As you move the die up, you will have more options - all visible squares below the die. 

3rd Place: Malaysia's Last Tigers by Andrew Tan Kui An

This is an asymmetrical 2-player game. One player is the poacher, and the other the ranger. The poacher tries to capture the tiger, while the ranger must protect the tiger or capture the poacher. 

Every round the ranger performs one action, and then the poacher, and then the tiger will move using a die roll. The actions of the ranger and the poacher are very different. The ranger has dice to manage, and the dice rolled determine the options available to him. The poacher has no dependency on dice. 

The tiger moves along a jungle path of four face-down cards. If the card it lands on is a trap, the tiger is injured, and the poacher has the option of attempting to capture it. The ranger will try to heal the tiger so that it gets moving again. If the tiger is trapped a third time, the poacher wins the game. There are five trap cards in the game, and one thing the poacher gets to do is to insert a trap into the deck. The ranger can try to look for traps in the deck. He can reveal cards, and he can remove cards. Removing cards without having seen what they are is risky, because some cards are helpful to the ranger. Many cards are action cards that can be used by both the players. If the ranger is able to remove three traps, the ranger wins. 

The ranger can attempt to directly capture the poacher. However the poacher has an escape card which protects him from capture. The ranger will first need to exhaust that card and then perform another capture to actually arrest the poacher. The poacher is able to refresh the escape card only by using specific game cards. 

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The following are the other finalists in no particular order. 

Rempit Gang! by Chua Cher Yen

This is a push-your-luck game about riding your motorbike up the hills. The further you can ride, the more points you will score. You must place dice in ascending order, and the dice placed must be less than or equal to the card values. The push-your-luck comes when you need to decide whether to attempt the next card. 

Road Trip Sabah! by Jeyna Lim

Players build their own 3x3 grid of cards, trying to create pairs of matching icons, and rows and columns of the same colours. The active player rolls dice to determine actions available for the round, then claims one die to perform an action. This die is no longer available to the others. The other players may use any of the remaining dice to perform an action. Actions include taking cards from a market of available cards to add to your own grid, drawing a card from the deck, removing a neighbour's card, and exchanging a card with a neighbour. 

haUNTUNG by Alwyn Wong

The surveyor knows how much it takes to complete a construction project, and tries to convince everyone to contribute as much as they can. If the project is completed successfully, the surveyor pockets any surplus. If the project fails, the player who contributed the least is penalised. 

Pawang Rangers by Khai Aswandi

This is a cooperative game and you play ghostbusters. You start with fighting minor ghouls to level up. As you level up, you will roll more dice when fighting. You also unlock special abilities. Eventually you have to fight the bosses. If you can defeat them all before the map runs out of cards, you win. 

Viral Food Dishes by Jeremy Ooi

This is a two player game about making food dishes that get the most likes on social media. Every round, each player gets to play two cards, and at then you must compare who has the most likes. If one has more than the other, he scores 1 point. Get to 3 points and you win the game. Every food card has some ability, and some of them are handicaps. Two food cards of different types combine to make a dish. Three make a completed dish, and completed dishes are safe from attack. This is a game of fully utilising the card powers to stay competitive. 

Niah Caves by Yong Qian Ee

This is a team game. The illegal explorers want to explore all corners of the Niah Caves, while the police needs to catch them. You unveil the map as you explore. If a police officer has line of sight of an explorer, they run faster by two steps. 

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This was the second time I did judging for the Design & Play competition. In the first round of judging when we had to score the entries based on short video and rulebook, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall better quality of the entries. There were several games I was keen to try, and not all of them made it to the final round. In the final judging round of the nine finalist games, unfortunately I was disappointed with several of them. There were games which sounded promising based on the premise and or the game concept, but in execution did not work or were unbalanced. I felt some of the games were not playtested enough. Making a good game is not easy. A good idea is not enough. In fact even a great idea is not enough. The execution and the development are crucial in making a robust and enjoyable game. 

Back: Chee Kong, Logan, Haireey, Jon. Front: Chok Sien, Buddhima.

Throughout this competition the six of us judges looked through 65 different games. Behind every game, a designer has spent time and effort bringing an idea to life. To me that is an amazing thing. This is what running a game competition is about. How we incubate innovation. How we encourage people to get their hands dirty in creating a game. How we ask people to go through that creative process - the ideation, the iterations, the playtesting, designing components to make the game as intuitive as possible, constructing a clearly written rulebook. We are game lovers who enjoy making games, we encourage others to join us. Let's make great Malaysian games!