YBAM organised a game design competition this year, and several local designer friends and I participated. The prize-giving ceremony was 24 Nov 2024. The results were only announced that day. There was a public play event in the morning, and the ceremony itself was in the afternoon.
The event was at Pearl Point shopping mall. There were tables where the public could play any of the 12 finalists. My submission Tradition and Innovation made it to the finals, so I was able to take part in the event. This photo was taken before the event started. The organising team got everything ready early.
The Secret of Shanhaijing won third place. The art is fantastic. Unfortunately the designer couldn't attend the event, and I didn't manage to try the game.
The cards and the game board
The game board art is beautiful
Every player has a little booklet, and you use it to collect cards (creatures)
The creatures in the game
JOM Kluang is one of the consolation prize winners.
Learnux Board Game is a game about the Linux programming language.
Cherry Cake is a consolation prize winner and the prettiest game at the show.
Delicious with the cherries added
Consolation prize winner Upland
My game Tradition and Innovation won a consolation prize.
I taught some of the volunteers to play my game.
Cedric (right) submitted two games, and they both won prizes. I meet him and chat regularly because we are both in TTGDMY (Table Top Game Designers of Malaysia). This game is Sea of Samsara, and it won a consolation prize.
Sea of Samsara is a dice game.
This is Cedric's champion game, Giant Prayer Wheel. It comes with a unique mechanism and game component, the rotating board.
Evan came all the way from Penang. His submission is Zero Impact: The Sustainability Challenge. It is a simple card game with a memory element.
Toast Jump Jump and Fight is a two-player dexterity game. You use your finger to flip your toast. If it lands on top of an opponent toast, that toast is eliminated. So this is a battle arena game, with toasts! If your toast trips and falls out of the arena, you lose it.
One side uses plain toasts and the other garlic toasts (with spots)
Poon Jon's Work Dice Balance won second place. Too bad he couldn't be present to receive the award himself. He sent a representative. This is a roll and write game, and a pretty clever one. Jon was at the Asian Board Game Festival in Singapore. He was an exhibitor.
Malaysia Rainforest Animal Rescue Program is a simple game which uses some mathematics. It matches the competition requirement well - games must be playable by primary school students.
The square blocks are player pawns. In this game, you use cards with numbers and also the plus and/or minus signs to create specific numbers. What you create will be the number of steps your pawn must move. You move about the board to rescue animals.
Open play area
The judges were Wu Ta-Te, Cheng Ning and Rachel Chen, all of whom are highly experienced in the boardgame industry. Cheng Ning and Rachel Chen flew to Malaysia all the way from Taiwan. Wu Ta-Te couldn't make the trip and did judging with them online. I had many good takeaways from the sharing from the judges. I learned more about the Taiwan and the China boardgame markets, about game design and also the game industry in general. I brought my published games Snow White and Ali Baba, and since the open play event was very free-form, some players asked and I showed them these games. I received good feedback and suggestions.
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