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!