Forever Home

The Game

Forever Home is a game about dog shelters. You work at a dog shelter. You train dogs and find new homes for them. This is a game dog lovers will enjoy. It is a light to mid weight family strategy game. 

This is the main game board. The four cards on top are four different locations you can send the dogs to - the city, the suburbs, the countryside and foster homes. Depending on the types of dogs you send to these locations, you will score points in different ways. The scoring methods vary from game to game depending on your setup. In this particular game, when sending dogs to the city, the more types of dogs you send, the more points you score. When sending dogs to the suburbs, you gain points for specific combinations of dog breeds. When sending dogs to the countryside, every set of three dogs of the same breed gives you 6 points. When sending dogs to foster homes, each dog gets 1 point, which is not much. 

On the game board you can see seven dog breeds. There is a scoring system based on dog breeds, where you will be compared against the other players. The players with the most red and purple dogs remaining on their player boards at the end of the game score 3 points and 1 point respectively. The players who have sent the most orange, blue and pink dogs to homes score 3 / 2 / 1 points. The players who have sent yellow and green dogs to the most different locations score 3 / 1 points. 

At the centre of the table there will always be four dogs and four cards you can pick from. Of the three things you may do on your turn, two of them are taking a dog and taking a card. Very straight-forward. When you take a dog, you place it on your player board. Dogs on your player board are used for completing missions shown on your cards. The third thing you may do on your turn is to train the dogs on your player board. This means moving a dog one step. This can be either orthogonally or diagonally. The missions specified on the cards require a specific number of dog breeds and a specific configuration. Whenever you complete a mission, you play the card and you'll get to send some dogs to new homes. The missions have point values. The game ends when a player completes the 7th mission. You total your points to see who wins. 

The player board is a 5x5 grid on which you place dogs. 

After they are placed, dogs may move around the grid, one dog and one step at a time. 

When you complete a mission and get to send dogs to new homes, you move the dogs to one of the four sections along the top of your player board. They represent city, suburb, countryside and foster home. At this point I had three dogs sent to the suburbs, and one dog each sent to the city, the countryside and the foster home. I sent yellow dogs to many different places because that was how they scored. 

The purple and blue dogs on my player board are completing this mission on the right. This particular mission doesn't score points (the 0 in the heart icon at the bottom right), but it allows me to send three dogs to new homes (the 3 inside the house icon at the top left). These three dogs must be from among those which completed the mission. 

The Play

Forever Home has a clear and attractive theme, but it is actually a pretty abstract game. There are three ways to score points. You collect dogs and missions, and you position the dogs to fulfil the missions. Of the three ways to score points, one is based on dogs, another is based on the new homes, and the last is based on the missions. You can't do everything and you will have to choose, and the best thing to choose is whatever lets you accomplish multiple things at once. Let's say yellow dogs score points for being sent out to many different locations. You use them to fulfil missions. You also use them to fulfil some location specific scoring criteria. That's an effective use of one action of claiming and placing a yellow dog. You want to kill three birds with one stone whenever you can. Naturally that's easier said than done. Most of the time you have to make difficult decisions. You need to decide what to pursue and what to let go of. 

You can think of this as a game of efficiency. In addition to wanting to accomplish many things with the same action, you also want to fulfil missions with the fewest steps. Ideally you don't spend turns to move dogs about. You want to place them at the right spots to fulfil the missions. Once they get adopted at new homes, they make space for new dogs, and those new dogs are also placed to precisely fulfil the next mission. In an ideal world, you will be playing like this. The challenge lies in what kind of dogs and missions turn up. You can only work within these, and try to be as efficient as possible. 

You need to watch your opponents. If they are leading by a large margin in certain areas, you probably don't want to waste any more energy competing in those areas. Instead you want to fight where you can still earn points. 

The game ends once anyone fulfils their seventh mission. There is time pressure. You want to score as many points as possible within this limited time. I think one good principle to follow is to maintain a certain points average per mission. Don't measure this directly based on the mission value, but divide your game into seven time periods based on when you complete a mission. You should aim for a certain point value per segment. Assuming everyone will more or less complete seven missions, if your average score per mission segment is high, you will win. Well, I've only played the game once, so this is just my theory and it needs to be tested more. I think it is also possible to play the speed-over-quality game. Catch your opponents unprepared. However I think this is harder to do. 

The Thoughts

Forever Home is a straight-forward family strategy game. Every turn you are either taking a dog, taking a mission, or moving a dog. Just like Ticket to Ride, only 3 options. There is little direct aggression, but there is still meaningful competition. You are grabbing dogs and missions from the same pool. You will compete over each dog breed. I find the link to the theme tenuous. The three different categories of scoring will give you a decent brain workout. 

Sky Team

The Game

Sky Team is the 2024 Spiel des Jahres winner. It was already getting many positive reviews before it was nominated. What surprised many people was it went on to win. This is a strictly two-player game, and the SdJ has never been awarded to such games. Sky Team is a cooperative dice game about landing a plane. You are pilot and copilot of a plane, and you must collaborate to do your job while under communication restrictions. There is a time limit. Within this time you must complete all landing preparations and in the final round you must land the plane right on the dot to win the game. 

There is a fixed number of rounds. By the final round you must advance the plane to precisely arrive at the runway and land it. No earlier, no later. The basic structure of a round is each player rolling four dice, and then taking turns to place them on the board. The dice are rolled behind player screens, so you don't know what numbers your partner has, and you can't discuss the numbers or where to place them. You can discuss strategy before the dice are rolled, but once rolled, zip. 

The board looks a little intimidating the first time you learn the game, as if you need to learn how to fly a real plane. However once the rules are explained to you, you will realise how well the board is designed. The icons and colours all make perfect sense and there are plenty of visual cues to remind you of how things work. You don't need to memorise the rules. The board is as good as a reference sheet.  The square indentations are where you can place dice. The pilot uses the blue spots, and the copilot the orange spots. Spots with both blue and orange can be used by either player. There are four spots which must be filled every round, two for each player. These are the spots near the centre of the board, controlling the wings and the engine. 

Let's talk about the wings first. The dice you place determine how the wings tilt. The difference between the two dice tilts the plane. You need to be careful not to tilt it too far in either direction, because you'll lose control and crash (and lose). Since you don't know what numbers your partner has, controlling the tilt can be tricky. 

Next, the engines. The semi circle above the two engine spots has two marks. If the dice total exceeds the first mark, the plane advances one step. If it exceeds the second mark, the plane advances two steps. The plane may advance one or two steps, or none at all, depending on the dice total. You need to remember that by the final round, the plane needs to reach the runway. If you fall short, or overshoot, you lose. 

There are columns of dice spots along the left and right edges. These spots only allow dice of specific values. These are tasks that must be completed before the plane lands. There is no hurry, but you do have to remember to do them. Every round, two of your dice must go to those mandatory spots, so you only have two dice that can go to other spots. It's not a lot. 

The dice spots at the bottom are for making coffee. Coffee gives you energy. In game terms, each cup of coffee you have can be used to adjust a die value by one. This can sometimes be a life saver. It's something worth spending a die on, as a form of insurance. You can use two or more coffee at the same time, for example drinking two cups of coffee allows you to change a 1 to a 3. 

That long board on the left represents your distance to the airport runway. Every time the plane advances, this distance is shortened. Notice those plane icons on this board. These are other planes which are in your flight path. If you advance into them, you crash and lose the game. You need to use the radio to tell them to get out of your way. Both pilot and copilot can radio these other planes. The pilot can do it once per round, the copilot twice. When you place a die on a radio spot, the die value determines which plane you can send away. The die value is your distance to that plane.  

The long board on the right is your altitude. It is effectively your countdown mechanism. By the time the altitude reduces to 0, you'd better be fully ready to land. This is a natural and thematic build-up to a climax. You need to time everything perfectly for that final round in order to win. 

The Play

I played Sky Team on BoardGameArena.com with my Hong Kong friend Jetta. We are separated by a 4-hour flight. We, okay I should say I, crashed rather spectacularly in our first game. I advanced our plane too fast and crashed into a Japan Airlines plane. I had misunderstood the rule about the engines. I didn't realise that the moment I placed the second die, the plane would start moving. I had thought the moving was done at the end of the round, and I still had time to radio the JAL plane to ask them to duck. 

We quickly made a fresh attempt. This time I was much more careful. If you play this game properly, you are not supposed to be communicating at specific times. You will have to learn to communicate through your plays. Figuring out how to communicate this way is interesting. You need to think why your partner is making this move. You have to think about how you should place your die in order to give specific hints to your partner. This little dance of trying to think what your opponent is thinking and how they will interpret your actions is fun. When my partner places a 5 on his wing, I will be able to calculate the range of numbers I can safely place on my wing so that the plane doesn't tip over. By placing a die, my opponent is helping me plan my play. Your play provides information to your partner. 

The game requires some long-term planning and prioritisation. With only two dice that you can choose to place in spots other than wing and engine, many of the tasks you need to complete can only be done across multiple rounds. There is quite a lot on your plate. You need to use you dice wisely. 

I was the copilot (orange). I placed two 2's on the radios, getting two planes a short distance in front of us out of the way. Now I had a 6 and a 1, and these must be placed on wing and engine. This was a tough situation, because 6's and 1's are extreme numbers. Putting either one on the wing was risky. If Jetta didn't have a number near mine, the plane might tilt out of control. It would be safer to place a 6, because the plane was currently tilting towards his side. If his highest die was a 3 and he placed it, the plane would tilt right by 3 steps and would still remain in control. If he only had 1's and 2's we would be doomed. Unless we still had coffee. 

The game comes with different variants, presented as different airports around the world you can land in. That's nice. Different airports come with different challenges. The basic rules remain. 

This was the final round. We were at ground level, and we were precisely approaching the runway. Now we must have the wings perfectly balanced. The landing gear also needed to be fully extended. We had done our preparation well and we had coffee on the ready. Our final round was a breeze. Everybody went home safe and sound. We had the kind of perfect landing where passengers applauded. 

The Thoughts

I fully appreciate why Sky Team won the SdJ. It is an excellent light strategy game. It is not too heavy so it works for families and couples. The setting is novel. I absolutely love the component design. It creates an immersive experience. At the same time, it is highly practical. The game board is also your reference sheet. 

That process of working out how to communicate with your partner through actions is fun. When you manage to achieve understanding and complete your mission together successfully, it is highly satisfying. This aspect makes the game a nice couple game. You feel the connection. 

C2AGE event photos

The C2AGE event (Cosplay, Comics, Anime and Games Exhibition) was held on 7 - 8 Sep 2024 at Jaya Shopping Centre. This was an event I signed up for quite early. It was also the first time I participated as an exhibitor at a cosplay / anime type event. 

In addition to having my own booth for selling games, the organisers also gave me a free table for demoing games. I asked my long-time gaming buddy Allen to help me man the demo table. I took care of the booth and selling games, and he took care of the free play table. He asked his colleague Meng Mei to join. It was their first time being crew at a cosplay event. 

Dancing Queen and Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs being showcased.

On Saturday my friend and ex-colleague Clifford came to visit. I taught him Dancing Queen. We used to work together at a mobile game company. So you can say we met each other through games. 

This customer played Dancing Queen for the first time in July at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. However he actually lives in KL, not Penang. He came to support me and bought a copy of the game. Thank you! 

Participating in a cosplay / anime type event is my experiment, part of trying out what are the more effective ways of marketing my games. Cosplay and anime are not directly related to boardgames, so the audience is not the same. I have heard that boardgames and card games can do well at cosplay type events because people who go to these events have a buyer mentality. They are prepared to spend, and they are willing to buy products from creators they follow, like or want to support. That was why I wanted to try this event type, and I had high hopes. Unfortunately the event didn't go so well for me. There were not many who were interested in my games. Perhaps it was because this particular event wasn't a very big one. There wasn't enough traffic to reach a significant subset of visitors who would buy boardgames. So this didn't work so well for a small indie publisher like me. 

A number of local boardgame designers have registered for Comic Fiesta in December, the largest cosplay / anime fair in Malaysia. Perhaps only events of this scale will work for indie boardgame publishers. Two more factors to consider are the style of our games and pricing. Being boardgamers ourselves, the games we make tend to be more suited for boardgamers too. However when trying to sell to the general public, simpler games will work better. Something that can be explained and understood by the average person in 20 seconds. The price point may need to be low enough too, so that people who are not boardgamers feel comfortable spending that amount on trying something they normally don't play. I should rethink my marketing and pricing strategy. 

Elemana Chronicles

The Game

Elemana Chronicles is a fantasy themed tactical battle game from local game designer Darius Tan. This is a squad level battle arena game that draws inspiration from online battle arena games like Mobile Legends. It is a 2-player-only game. Each player controls a team of three fighters - one hero and two monsters. There is a mana pool on the board which players try to dominate to score points. You also score points by killing an enemy character. Killed characters respawn and come back to life next round. The game is played over 6 rounds. You win if you have more points by the end of the 6th round. 

There are several factions in the game, each with its own characteristics. Your team must be made up of characters from the same faction. Your hero is usually smaller in size compared to your monsters. 

The miniatures are quite detailed. This is one of the selling points of the game. The miniatures look fantastic. They are all 3D printed. 

This fighter is good at fire related magic and attacks. 

This miniature has been painted

During a round, players take turns activating one of their fighters. Every fighter has some action points, which are spent to perform various actions. Fighters have various characteristics, e.g. movement range, attack strength, armour strength. The common actions a fighter can perform include moving, attacking and casting spells. Attacks can be melee or ranged. You need to use tape measure when moving and attacking. You have to adhere to attack and movement ranges.  

You have to buy your own tape measures

Battles feel, for the lack of a better word, "physical". In that what's physically on the table matters a lot. You use a tape measure to check distance, for both movement range and attack range. You need to physically check line of sight to see whether someone you are trying to shoot is blocked from view. When you need to move, if there's someone physically blocking your way, you have to detour. The white circle on the board is the mana pool. At the end of a round, if you have a fighter next to it and your opponent doesn't, you will control the mana pool and score points. If both players have fighter next to it, then no one controls the mana pool and no one scores points. The mana pool basically forces you to get near each other and to fight. It is not easy to score points so you don't want to allow your opponent any easy points. 

You roll dice for both attack and defense. A successful roll is normally whether you roll a particular number or lower. If the attacker makes more successful rolls than the defender, he inflicts damage on the defender. Every fighter has a health bar. If it gets reduced to zero, the fighter dies (and will respawn next round). 

The health bars of your three fighters.

Every fighter has a character chart which lists its stats, abilities and possible actions. They can cast spells. Some powerful spells are limited to a single use per game. 

There are two types of mana in the game, and they can be used in different ways, e.g. making rerolls for your dice. One type of mana gets recharged every round, so you will usually try to use it all before the end of a round. It will get refilled anyway. It is a matter of how you want to use it. The other type needs to be used more carefully, because you may want to leave some for future rounds. Mana is stored at player level and not fighter level. Your three fighters share the same mana. 

You can upgrade your fighters, increasing their stats and abilities. You also collect gold to buy equipment. These are done between rounds. 

This is an NPC (non-player character). I think of them as monsters, as opposed to my hero's sidekicks being called monsters (what kind of boss calls his assistants monsters?). These NPC's get activated after all the players' fighters have been activated. They will move towards and attack the nearest fighter. So generally you want to stay away from them, or kill them swiftly before they start attacking you. But then there are other complications - e.g. your opponent. 

The Play

This is a miniature wargame, so the simulation level is high. The precise positions of the fighters are important. They affect line of sight, attack range, blocking and movement range. You have to juggle all these details as you play. Because of that, it feels real and immersive. You can imagine yourself on the battlefield. Whatever you can do in real life, you probably will be able to do in the game as well. Or at least something equivalent. For example, when I played, I had a general strategy of getting all three of my fighters to focus their attacks on one particular enemy fighter. The idea was this was the most efficient way to kill one enemy. Once that was done, my opponent will lose one third of his power. But soon I realised this was a rather simplistic strategy. My opponent could tell what I was trying to do, and he simply used a tough warrior type to block and engage some of my fighters. If I ignored that tough warrior completely, it would keep pounding my fighter. I might end up losing a fighter even faster! 

This rock golem was one tough nut to crack. 

Each fighter has its unique characteristics. Within each faction, there are synergies you can make use of. To play well you must discover and understand them. You need to understand your fighters well to make good use of their abilities. 

My tall guy fighter (left) wanted to rush Darius' petite hero (middle), but the rest of my team couldn't catch up. Darius had a monster-class fighter (right) nearby protecting his hero. 

Fighting is resolved using die rolls, so there will be some luck. However the game is still primary about tactics. You must use your fighters and their abilities well. Dice will be rolled many times, and each time multiple dice will be rolled. The luck evens out. Sometimes you'll be luckier, sometimes otherwise. Ultimately you still need to make the right moves to be victorious. Luck won't save you if you play poorly. 

Three-headed dog and rider. 

This guy looks hangry. 

The Thoughts

Elemana Chronicles is a miniature game. It is a tactical battle game like Warhammer. Many aspects of fighting are simulated in detail, so it feels realistic. At the same time this level of detailed simulation also means more work for the players. It can be a little tedious. This is unlike boardgame type tactical battle games, where many aspects are abstracted and simplified. In Elemana Chronicles, the battlefield is not abstracted to a chessboard grid or a hex map. Every millimeter on the map counts. 

The game concept is similar to online battle arena games (MOBA games) like Mobile Legends. You have two competing teams fighting. If you get killed, you respawn. The factions and the individual fighters have their own characteristics which you need to understand well to play well. Now I must admit that squad level battle games are not really my thing, regardless of the boardgame type or the miniature game type. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience for me to try a genre I don't usually play. 

Darius and I have chatted several times about tabletop games and the tabletop game industry in Malaysia. Making and selling a miniature wargame in Malaysia is difficult. In fact, making and selling casual boardgames and card games in Malaysia is already difficult. Most Malaysian do not know boardgames other than a handful of mass market games. So miniature wargames are a niche within a niche. Elemana Chronicles is aiming to go overseas eventually. If you are interested to give it a go, contact Magick & Drumstick Games. 

TTGDMY playtesting

TTGDMY (Tabletop Game Designers Malaysia) has been busy attending events in June and July, and we only resumed regular playtesting in August. Vivae boardgame cafe (Ampang branch) invited us to have our session there on Merdeka Day, so we had the opportunity to playtest with the public. It's always useful to do playtesting with the end user. Usually at TTGDMY playtest sessions it's just us game designers helping one another with playtesting. 

I played several of my prototypes with this group above. I managed to play my upcoming game Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves with them too.

That day the prototype I most wanted to playtest was Taking Sides. This was a newer game I brought. I had the idea for the game some time ago and I did some initial brainstorming then, but it was only recently I resumed work and managed to get a prototype out with complete first draft rules. A week earlier when we had our first playtesting session of the month at Central Market, I had brought it out for the first round of testing. I quickly found a number of issues with it, and received much feedback from fellow designers. Issues and criticisms are great! They are much better than people politely and generically telling me yes nice keep it up, which basically means the game is not interesting at all. I was quite excited with the problems and quickly worked on them to create version 2. 

Taking Sides is, at least for now, a game for 3 to 8 players. The core idea is everyone must pick sides. You are with me, or you are against me. Every round, the players will split into two teams. Every player gets a character card, which has a strength value and a power. The teams add up their strengths, and the team with the higher strength total wins. The winning team gets to split the loot available that round. The twist comes from the powers of the characters, which can modify the strengths of the characters. This is not a team game. Every round you can pick a different team to be on. You choose who to partner with. Teams are temporary alliances. This is still an everyone for themselves game. 

When we playtested, my designer friends said this was a very Chok Sien game (Chok Sien is my given name). I wonder whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. It can be good in that I've developed a signature, a unique style that people can recognise. It can also be a bad sign if it means I've become restrained to only making a certain type of game. There is still a lot I need to learn and explore and I don't want to limit myself. 

That day I got to try a game from Faris about making batik. In Malaysia, batik is painted cloth which uses wax in the painting process. The batik game is a heavy Eurogame. Not many Malaysian designers make such games. 

The game is played over four rounds, and each round you get to perform four actions. The game felt complicated when I listened to the rules, but now that I have played it, I have a much better idea of the overall process. This is a game with polyominoes and a big part is about fitting them into grids. The polyominoes are batik cloths in different styles. In general, you collect batik, and then you place them in three different areas. As you fill the grids in these different areas, you will score points, increase your storage capacity, unlock workers (a resource type), gain new abilities, and also gain new ways of scoring points. 

This is the central game board. The seven rows are seven different action types you can perform. Within a round, you will choose four to perform. 

This is the player board. Part of it is your storage area. You also keep track of your special powers and extra scoring criteria here. You place polyominoes in the two grids to increase storage and to unlock workers. The polyominoes in the game reminds me of Uwe Rosenberg games. The overall game reminds me of Vital Lacerda designs. There are many interwoven parts and you need to know how to balance your progress in each area. I am keen to see how this game develops and to see the eventual final product. 

Another game I managed to try was the lion dance game from Darryl Tan. This was the champion in the ButtonShy global game design competition last year. It is great fun. It is a 2-player drafting game in which you draft cards from a central pool to build your own lion dance performance platform. The cards are pillars and you collect and order them to build your platform. The pillars have various powers and properties. There are a few different ways to score points. As you build your platform, your lion can start dancing on top of the pillars. The further it moves across the platform, the more points it will score. This is just one of the ways you score points. 

This is an 18 card game and it's pretty fast. The game ends when the pool runs out of cards. You want to score as many points as you can in all the categories, but it's not possible to work on everything. This is the delicious part of the game. You want to do just a bit more, but you only have that many turns. You have to make those difficult choices. What to work on, what to let go of. I find the game mechanisms quite fitting. This is not a mechanism-first game looking for a theme to paint on. 

ButtonShy will be publishing this game. Now Darryl is still doing development and tuning. He's also working on an expansion for it. The expansion will probably be released at the same time as the base game. This is also a game I am looking forward to. 

Kaki Lima: Downtown KL

The Game

Kaki Lima, released in 2019, is a game about the five-foot ways in Penang - those pedestrian walkways in front of colonial era shophouses. Kaki Lima: Downtown KL is a new standalone game in the series with different game mechanisms. It brings us to the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Gameplay in Kaki Lima is based on card plays. In Kaki Lima: Downtown KL, you take actions based on die rolls. 

During setup, you form a 5x3 grid using street cards. This is downtown KL and your game board. Everyone plays a different character and gets busy going about town. You create and participate in business or leisure activities. You take your time admiring the floor tiles. You score points for all these actions. 

One of the characters you can play. 

One special aspect of the game is these transparent cards. These are activity cards, and they show the various business or leisure activities that people do at the five-foot ways. During play, you place these cards on top of the street cards. The numbers in the stopwatches represent how much time is spent on the various activities. This is related to scoring points. 

When you place an activity card on top of a street card, it means you are now using that five-foot way for an activity. Space is limited in five-foot ways, so the total time must not exceed 3. If you exceed 3, that's considered obstruction and you'll get in trouble with DBKL. 

This is the player board. It lists the four actions you can perform on your turn. On your turn you roll three dice, and you get to pick two to perform actions. The third die is passed to the other players. They each use it to perform one action. Normally you'll pick the highest dice, and leave the lowest to your opponents, because the die value determines the points you score.  

All four actions score points. First, you can move your character around the board the same number of steps as the die value. You score points based on the number of characters at your destination. What this effectively means is people naturally tend to assemble, because you'd get more points. 

You can create or enjoy activities. These two actions are similar. You score points based on the activities happening where you are standing. The main difference is when creating, you may add an activity card before you score points. Whether you are creating or enjoying, you must place one of your floor tiles after you score points. This is a reminder that you can't score the same street card any more. You only have a limited number of floor tiles, so you must use them wisely. 

The last activity is to appreciate beautiful floor tiles. Okay this sounds a bit lame if you do it in real life, but in the game it is more interesting and also challenging. Appreciating floor tiles means completing secret missions. These secret missions are cards you hold in hand, and they specify various floor tile arrangements. If you fulfill the condition on a mission card, you may perform this action of appreciating beautiful floor tiles. You score points based on activities, and you also gain a single-use power which you can utilise any time from then onwards. 

These are the mission cards. The one on the left says you need the floor tiles of one particular player in this specific configuration which involves three street cards. 

The game ends after a fixed number of rounds, and the highest scorer wins. 

The Play

Kaki Lima: Downtown KL is about maximising points for every action you take. You are always looking out for opportunities. It is not easy to interfere with your opponents. You don't directly attack them. So you might as well focus on optimising your own moves. Thus this is mostly a peaceful game. I can only think of a few ways you can try to minimise helping your opponents. Don't create crowds, because it just tempts others to come score points. Add activity cards to street cards which your opponents have already scored, because you know they won't be able to score those street cards anymore. Activity cards available each turn are limited. You can choose to grab cards which you think your opponents will want. 

In the early game I thought the number of floor tiles was rather low. I felt forced to use them when I wasn't quite willing to. On my turn as the active player, I could do two actions. I chose walking as my first action. At the time I couldn't complete any of my mission cards yet, so for my other action I would have to either create or enjoy activities. Both would force me to use one of my floor tiles. I had hoped the streets would get filled with more activities before I took these actions. However later in the game I realised the number of floor tiles was pretty well balanced. You may not finish them all by game end. In the late game you'll be spending more and more time appreciating beautiful floor tiles (i.e. completing missions). Appreciating floor tiles is mostly multiplayer solitaire. Your opponents don't know your missions, so they can't really mess with your plans. You focus on completing your missions. It takes some planning skills and spatial reasoning. 

It was halfway through the game when I realised the dice were not standard 1 to 6 dice. They didn't have 1's or 6's. No wonder I never rolled any 6's. I thought I was having a bad day. The luck in dice rolling does affect your scores. If you roll low too often, you will be disadvantaged. 

This mission card on the left requires the floor tiles of three different players to be lined up side by side. The mission card on the right involves floor tiles of two players only. 

As more and more floor tiles get placed, missions become easier to complete.

The Thoughts

Kaki Lima: Downtown KL is beautifully produced. It showcases Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian culture. I feel a lot of heart has been put into making this product. If you have visitors from overseas, this is a nice souvenir for them to bring home. If they explore downtown KL, they might just pass by some of the locations featured on the street cards.  

This is a mid-weight game, so this is not one of those brainless take-that games which non-gamers tend to play. This is the kind of game that will introduce modern game mechanisms and new innovations to non-gamers, showing them that contemporary boardgames have something more to offer. Introducing the joy of boardgames to people is a wonderful thing!