2023 Any Games Convention

29 - 30 Jul 2023 was the Any Games Convention. This year it was held at Jaya Shopping Centre in PJ. I participated in the convention last year (Dec 2022). That was just after Dancing Queen was released. I signed up again this year, booking a small booth as a local game designer. In preparation for the convention, I asked Julian to design a stand-up bunting for me, using artwork from Dancing Queen. 

At the convention, space was limited, so I could only place the bunting behind my booth. Positioned this way, we can't see the bottom third of the bunting. Thankfully we had put the pretty girl in the top third. Sorry to the pretty boy. 

Quite a few friends came to support me over the two days, which was nice. Jeixel is my ex-colleague. He designs mobile games. So we can exchange game design ideas. 

David is also an ex-colleague from a different company. He brought both his kids. 

I knew Afif since the early days of my boardgaming, well before either of us had kids. He has not been playing much in recent years. Busy with business. Yet he still came all the way to support me. I taught him and his sons how to play Dancing Queen. 

Allen is my long-time kaki (gaming buddy). We don't play as frequently as we used to, but we are still each other's default gaming partner. He brought the whole family. I taught them Liar's Deck, a prototype still in development. 

I arrived early both days, and set up my stall well before the event was open to public. I only had one published game - Dancing Queen. That was the only game I could sell. The others I brought were prototypes at different stages of development. I brought four prototypes to playtest. My objective was not to sell many copies of Dancing Queen. It was to put my brand Cili Padi Games out there, and also to playtest my prototypes with the public. 

My games were all card games, so I could squeeze many onto just half a table. 

Compared to last year, the crowd this year was bigger. After lunch till around dinner time was super busy. Over the two days I was almost non-stop teaching games at my booth. It was tiring, and it was great being able to get so many people to try my games. This was why I participated in the event. I wanted to get new people, and different people, to play my games. I wanted to observe how they played. Watching people play gives me ideas and feedback so that I can further refine my games. During the convention I also managed to speak to people in the industry, like Edwin the game distributor and Geoffrey the game designer and publisher from Singapore. That gave me new insights and perspectives which are valuable. 

The next game I plan to publish (by end of 2023) is Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs. The minimum player count is 7, which makes it a challenge to playtest. Thankfully I managed to playtest it several times throughout the two days. This photo above is a 11-player game in progress. The players were not distracted and scrolling social media on their phones. They were using their phones to take notes while playing. I had told them it would help to take notes, and they all did so diligently. With 11 players, it is not easy for the dwarf players to find the missing dwarf. Even more so when the players are new to the game. However this particular group managed to guess the missing dwarf successfully. They did it even before I, the facilitator, managed to figure out the missing number. Bravo! 

A group of four girls stayed for a long time and played many of my games. They tried them one by one until they exhausted all that I had brought. I felt a little guilty for not having brought more for them to try. They started with Romeo and Juliet. After playing it they went off to explore other booths. They later came back to try my other games. It was exhilarating to see people enjoy my games. 

Having done more playtesting for my three yet-to-be-scheduled-for-publishing games over the two days, I am rather tempted to pick the next game after Snow White. I might be getting ahead of myself a little. Snow White is only expected to be released end of the year, and the next game is supposed to be end of next year. The game I am most confident about now is Catch 22. I started work on it in June 2022. So it has been in development for more than a year. When I made the prototype for it, I couldn't think of an appropriate theme. I slapped on a random theme - Studio Ghibli movie characters. It has nothing to do with the gameplay. I was just looking for an excuse to use nice drawings. I have been struggling to come up with a theme for a long time. One difficulty is the game has a gambling element, like Black Jack. However instead of not going over 21, you have to work hard to not go over 22. Thus the name Catch 22. However I didn't want to use a theme related to gambling. 

The various discussions I had during the convention gave me new, useful perspectives. When we seasoned gamers go into game design, we tend to focus on the game mechanisms. We prefer to make the kind of games we ourselves like. Because of these, we easily neglect many other important aspects of professional game design and game publishing. During the convention, the booth next to mine was Faculty of Fun and their game was Nasi Lemak: The Game. It is a simple game. The theme is something all Malaysians are familiar with and can relate to. The price is a mass market game price, i.e. lower than the typical hobby game. They sold well. They did many things right. Being an old-timer gamer, Nasi Lemak: The Game is not the type I play. It does not have me as a target audience. It is targeting the average consumer, which is a much larger audience than game hobbyists. For a game to be commercially viable (and I'm not even talking about successful yet), we have to consider what the market wants. If we only design what we want, that's game design as a hobby, not game design as a profession. Not that there's anything wrong with doing game design as a hobby. We just have to be clear what we are aiming for, and make decisions accordingly. 

One particular statement heard at the convention resonated strongly with me. As long as the box is attractive enough, and it is placed at the right kind of shop, the game will sell. You don't even have to worry about gameplay or game design. This sounds insulting to game designers around the world, but there is some truth to it. If we want to be professional or semi-professional, the games we make need to be sellable. 

My prototype Romeo & Juliet, if given pretty art and packaging, and placed at high-end bookstores, will probably sell well. Now for Catch 22 I plan to switch the theme to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. In this game you win by accumulating wealth. In the Ali Baba story, he gets rich by stealing from the thieves. What do you think? Do you think this will sell? 

One visitor told me she had bought Dancing Queen but still had not played it. She asked me to teach her to play. I said yes of course. Hopefully she will now be able to teach her friends and family how to play, and they will enjoy the game. During the convention some visitors came to specifically ask to play Dancing Queen. That makes me happy. I'm not sure how they found out about my game, but this little bit of recognition is a big encouragement. 

The next major boardgame event in Malaysia will be BOXCON, on 26 - 27 Aug 2023. If you are in the Kuala Lumpur area, come visit me and try my games!