Kuih Muih

The Game

Kuih Muih is a Malaysian design by Mike Ooi, with a theme of traditional Malaysian snack food. The game shares similarities with Sushi Go Party, but there are some differences in the core mechanism. It is a light game, featuring card drafting and set collection. 

A game is played over 3 rounds. Every round you collect cards and score them at the end of the round. Some cards are kept and scored only at game end. There are 14 card types that come in the box, and only 8 are used in any one game. So you have some variability. When a round starts, you shuffle the deck and deal out a number of card stacks. The number of stacks is player count plus 2. In a four player game, you'll deal out 6 decks of 7 cards each. Leftover cards are temporarily set aside. You'll use them again next round when all cards are reshuffled. 

The card drafting is simple. Players take turns choosing one stack. Once everyone has a stack, he selects a card from it and places it face-down before him. Cards not selected are returned to their original positions at the centre of the table. All selected cards are revealed at the same time. If there is any card with a special power, it is resolved immediately. This card drafting repeats, with players taking turns being the start player. Players collect cards and try to maximise the point values of their card sets.  

This is a game in progress. Players lay out their cards based on types. 

Once any stack at the middle of the table runs out, the round ends, and you do scoring. Throughout a round, the cards dwindle and you have fewer and fewer options. You need to remember cards you have seen, so that if there are cards you want, you know where to look for them. Hopefully they have not yet been taken by your opponents. Memory is a big element in this game. 

On average a card is worth 2.5 to 3 victory points. To decide whether a card is worth it, 3VP is a good rule of thumb. In this photo above, the pulut seri muka on the left is 3VP each, which is a good deal. However it is a risky card. If there is another player picking this card on the same turn, you all discard your cards, i.e. you have just wasted one turn. 

Let's look at some of the cards more closely. Card types are represented by the small icons at the bottom right. The circle cards and the star cards are permanent cards. You use them every game. The circle cards (top left) have point values directly written on them. They are the most straight-forward. The star cards (bottom left) score points based on who has more ondeh ondeh (the green balls). Whoever has most scores 6VP. Second most scores 4VP. Everyone else loses 2VP. In the case of ties, all tied players score points. This creates interesting situations. Let's say there are four players. Two of them have three ondeh ondeh, and two of them have none. The two leading players would score 6VP, and the trailing two would score 4VP, despite having spent no effort at all on ondeh ondeh. Technically these trailing players are in second place. Now, if one of the leading players decides to get one more ondeh ondeh, he will become the lone leading player, and still score 6VP. The player with three ondeh ondeh will become second placed, scoring 4VP (2VP fewer). The trailing players will fall to third place and lose 2VP (a 6VP difference!). Let's look at another possibility. If one of the two trailing players decides to get one ondeh ondeh, he will become the lone second placed player. He still scores 4VP, but he will force the other trailing player with no onder ondeh into third place, going from 4VP to -2VP. Are these two trailing players going to sabotage each other? Or will one of the leading players sabotage them? This is the kind of scenario people discuss in game theory. 

There are two types of triangle cards, and only one type will be used in a game. Triangle cards are scored only at game end. If you claim any triangle card in Round 1 or 2, keep them and set them aside to wait for game end scoring. 

There are six types of square cards, and you only use three in any game. The prettiest is the kuih lapis. There are four varieties. The more you claim, the more you score. There are only two cards per variety, so it is not easy to collect all four. The pulut tai tai (bottom left) is a weird one. If you collect more than two, they are worth nothing. Who would be stupid enough to collect a third card? One possibility I can think of is when a stack has only one card left, a pulut tai tai card, and the player picking the stack doesn't know or has forgotten it is a pulut tai tai. Another possibility is the card was designed this way to create a specific type of competition for it. Players who decide to go for it will only want two of them and no more, so these cards will be easier to collect. 6VP for two cards is not a bad deal. If anyone already having two cards still claims more to deny you your second card, you must have wronged him severely in the past. Please sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk. 

In every game you use two heart cards. These are all special power cards. The most feared is the third one - the karipap (curry puff), which you can use to swap with another player's card. This is the only attack card in the game. It can break an opponent's collection, at the cost of giving him 2VP. The fourth card, kuih bahulu, is a lucrative 4VP, but it only scores if you have the most colours in your play area. 

The rule book recommends some combinations of card types to use. Once you are familiar with the cards, you can customise the game to your liking. 

The Play

So far I have played three games, all with four players (my family), and I have tried all card types. This is a game which plays quickly once you get familiar with the game. That takes just half a game. Since there is a memory element, you will find that you need to be quite focused. Everyone is absorbed. One confusion we often had was whose turn it was to be start player. Eventually we used a large yellow coin as a start player marker. The marker was passed clockwise at the start of a turn, to help us remember who the start player should be. 

The children loved going for the triangle cards, those which scored at game end. After a while I decided not to fight for these. It is risky to fight for something many others are going for. You may end up scoring little, or scoring nothing at all. 

We all dreaded the karipap (curry puff), because it was destructive. It is the only attack card in the game, but if the copy card is in play too, the karipap can be copied by the copy card, resulting in more attacks. The tricky thing about the karipap is if you take it too early, there may not any opponent card worth attacking. You'd be doing it only to protect yourself from a possible future attack. You score 2VP for it, which is below par. However if you hold off taking a karipap card, later someone else may take it before you do, and use it on you. Aaah... decisions.

The children negotiated a non-aggression pact, and agreed to only attack Michelle and I. Sometimes they even helped each other by hinting at which stack contained cards the other needed. It was all in good fun so we didn't stop them. As a father I'm happy to see my daughters being close. 

Paying attention to who is start player is important. Let's say you know you'll be start player next turn. If the stack you have picked this turn contains two cards which would go well together, like tepung pelita (1 card = -3VP, 2 cards = 7VP), you can safely take one of the cards. Next turn you'll be first to choose a stack, so you'll be able to take that second card you need.

The memory element may sound a little tiresome. If you really hate it then it will be a turn off. I don't try to memorise the cards I see. I am happy with just having a rough idea which stacks are good and which are less useful. Sometimes I try to remember specific cards, e.g. where the karipaps are. That's sufficient for me to enjoy the game. 

It is a must to watch what your opponents are collecting. You need to know who are competing with you. Player interaction is high. 

We didn't use pen and paper to keep score. We used our own poker chips. 

The artwork is of the cute style. 

The Thoughts

Kuih Muih is easy to learn and fast to play. It is a casual game, the type very suitable for boardgame cafes and gatherings. There is plenty of player interaction and it keeps players engaged. 

When Mike passed a copy of the game to me for review, he asked me an interesting question. Mike is publishing his own game. Kuih Muih is his second game. The first one was Math Genius (2018). He finds that starting a boardgame business as a one man show is not easy. Designing a game takes a long time. It requires much playtesting and fine-tuning. He asked me what I thought about using a published game as a blueprint to design a game, giving it a different theme and new artwork. My understanding is game mechanisms can't be copyrighted. So anyone can do this without worrying about legal issues. However, setting legality aside, what people think about ethics may not be so straight-forward. In the past there was a debate on Bang and Legends of the Three Kingdoms (三国杀). The latter was clearly based on the former. There was a court case, but eventually it was dismissed in 2016. Many boardgame hobbyists felt it was wrong for Legends of the Three Kingdoms to have copied Bang. What if the designer had acknowledged that he was inspired by Bang. Would that have been sufficient for us? Or would the designer need to share profits with the original designer and publisher? There were people who felt Legends of the Three Kingdoms was much more than the original Bang, and since no laws were broken, the whole incident was unnecessary.  

I mentioned above that Kuih Muih is similar to Sushi Go Party. Indeed some cards worked in the exact same way. However the core card drafting mechanism is different. Sushi Go Party uses the same mechanism as 7 Wonders. Kuih Muih's mechanism is slightly more complex, has a bigger memory element, and gives players more control. The themes are different. One is based on Japanese food, and the other Malaysian delicacies. 

My opinion is if a game is mostly inspired by or based on another, then it should be acknowledged. Not for legal reasons. Just as a sign of respect and gratitude to the earlier game. As a boardgame hobbyist, if I know that two games are very similar, once I have tried one, I likely won't bother with the other. There are too many good games out there. I'd rather spend my time trying something different. Now that I've played Kuih Muih, I likely won't try Sushi Go Party. Not because I prefer the local flavour (I do like Japanese food), but because time is precious. 

Kuih Muih is a good souvenir for friends from overseas, because it features Malaysian food. Unfortunately, with the COVID-19 pandemic still around, there is little chance of overseas friends visiting. For those interested to support this local game, you can buy it straight from Mike at Shopee.