21 Oct 2023. I made it to the TTGDMY (Tabletop Game Designers Malaysia) playtesting session. This time it was in Kajang. Poon Jon is currently the active organiser. Mostly the sessions are in Kajang or Subang Jaya.
This is Haireey's game Al-Kisah, about mythologies around the world. So far he has Malaysian mythologies, Greek mythologies and Chinese mythologies. Each of these are a complete set, and different stories within each set can be mixed and matched to create different play experiences. For example you can swap out the Puteri Gunung Ledang cards from the Malaysian mythologies set and swap in cards from a Chinese mythology. This system works well for creating expansions.
Al-Kisah is a 2-player game. The game has 18 cards, 3 each in 6 different colours. You have a hand size of two. During the game you will draw cards, play cards into a common grid, and change the positions of cards. Every card has a different way of scoring points. Most of the scoring methods are along the lines of being next to a card of a particular colour, or being next to a specific card. Basically the board positions. The game ends when the deck runs out. You will still have two cards in hand. Their colours are your scoring factions. The cards with these colours in the grid score points for you. At most you will score points from four cards.
During play, you will be choosing between what cards and colours to play, and what to keep, knowing that the colour you keep decides your scoring faction. If you have a powerful card, playing it won't help unless you have another card of the same colour. Throughout the game you need to guess what colour your opponent is going for too.
Each player has 4 action cards, which you can use to move cards in the grid. Moving cards affect how they score. Some will score more, some less. If you refrain from using these cards, you score points. If using an action card helps your other cards score many points, it's worthwhile making use of it.
Art in the playtest version is AI-generated and looks good. We all should learn to use AI to help us be more productive.
This is Formation of Rome from Poon Jon. It has a bit of a Reiner Knizia feel. There are six classes of citizens in Rome, and you are competing for their support so that you can be emperor. This is a majority competition game. Playing a card of a particular faction means gaining support in that faction. You compete on having the most cards played in each of the factions. One of the factions is the brigands. If you "win", you lose points instead. When you play a brigand card, you play it in front of an opponent, not in front of yourself.
This is the card distribution. Some cards have special powers. If you play it for the power, you won't be able to keep the card in front of you. This is sometimes a difficult decision.
The cards with three icons are monuments. If you claim such a card, you need to have citizens in the depicted factions to score it.
Card powers vary, and they can significantly affect the game landscape. It is often good to keep a powerful card for the most opportune moment.
This is Faris' pitching game. It has a roleplaying element. Humankind is colonising the stars, and we are interviewing specialists for the colony ship. We know what the target planet is like, and we need to make sure we pick the right team to set up the new colony. Every player gets dealt a hand of cards. Cards can be used as characters, strengths or weaknesses. If you use it as a character (photo above), there will be various traits like age, gender, cleverness, charisma, physical strength and hobbies.
Every round you must propose one character to be sent on the trip. Everyone takes turns to convince everyone else why his or her candidate is most suited for the mission. Then everyone votes. You rank everyone else's candidates based on who you think deserve a spot on the colony ship. You don't rank your own candidate. After all votes are cast, the top three candidates win spots. If your candidate is in, you score points. If the candidates you support win, you also score points.
The back of a card has two parts - strength (blue) and weakness (red). These can be stuck beneath a character card to give him or her a strength or a weakness. During play, anyone can add a strength or a weakness to any character at any time. A character is limited to at most one strength and one weakness. Adding these help you convince others why they should support a character, or not support the character. You certainly don't want a hot tempered explosives engineer on the crew.
These were the 8 characters in Round 1. Only some of them had strengths and weaknesses attached at this time.
This is Chee Kong's Zodiac Go. It will be released very soon. It is on a ship to Malaysia now. Zodiac Go is not only a game. It is a game set with which you can play multiple different games. I've played the standard game included in the box. This time Chee Kong taught us a different game, about making bets.
Player tokens
The three rows are where you get to place your bets. You place your token at a corner where four Chinese Zodiac animals meet, or between two animals, or on a colour. If your token is in a corner, it means you are betting that all four animals will appear. If your token is on a colour, it means you are betting this colour will appear most among the cards drawn for the round.
The two rows at the bottom are cards flipped from the deck and they represent the results of the round. A few cards are revealed before players make their first bets for the round. More are drawn before more bets are placed. The players will have some basis for making bets. After all bets have been placed, the rest of the cards are drawn. Then you check whether make money from your bets.
There is a first mover advantage, because this is like a worker placement game. Each betting position only allows one player to place a bet.
To preorder Zodiac Go, visit this link: https://zodiacgo.games/
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