Behind the scenes: Pinocchio

Pinocchio has gone to print. It is estimated to land in Malaysia in July. Here's a sneak peek at what happens behind the scenes. The manufacturer Magicraft sent me this video for production check, to make sure the components are complete and correct. Of course the music was added by me. That's not part of the game manufacturing process. Pinocchio will contain rules in three languages - English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. 

Space Base

The Game

This is a game which reminds me of and makes me feel nostalgic about two other games - Machi Koro and Catan.  Every turn two dice are rolled, and based on the numbers rolled, you make money or score points, or get to do something else more fancy. Every player manages his own space base, which has 12 space ports. You start the game with the same fleet of spaceships, each parked at one port. Spaceships help you make money and score points when you roll their numbers. Throughout the game you will keep buying more spaceships and improving the abilities of your fleet. The first to score 40 points wins the game. 

Every turn you roll two dice. You can decide whether to use them separately or together. For example if you roll a 1 and a 5, you can choose to activate ships 1 & 5, or you can activate ship 6. In the early game most ships generate a measly income. You need money to buy better ships. Every ship you can buy is associated with a port number. When you buy the ship, it must be parked at that specific port. The previous ship sitting here must now be deployed. Being deployed changes the ability of the ship. It is now triggered on your opponent's turn instead of yours. So yes, you get stuff on other people's turns. What you earn from a ship may change after you deploy it, but usually it is something similar to before.  

At the end of your turn, if you can't finish spending your money, it goes to waste. You don't keep money over multiple turns in hope to buy that super expensive spaceship. One power in the game increases your permanent income. You always earn this base income at the start of your turn. 

This above is the market. There are three tiers of space ships. The more expensive a ship is, the more powerful it is, generally speaking. Whenever a ship is purchased, a new one is immediately drawn to replace it. 

Some ships have special abilities. This ship when activated lets you place a marker on it. In future, you can spend that marker to increase your die roll total by 1. 

There is a special type of ship called a colony ship. Normally when you buy a ship which generates points, you only get the points if the ship is activated. Colony ships are activated immediately, but only once. They are an immediate way to score points. However they are also expensive, and once purchased, they lock up the port they are in. You cannot buy another ship for that port any more. The colony ship has no ability after you buy it. Normally you'd buy them only near game end when you are rushing for points. 

The Play

This is a game that makes me happy. You roll dice to collect stuff. You collect stuff when your opponents roll dice too. And you get to go shopping! This is a development game. You are shopping to improve your base. You want to make more money to buy even better ships. Eventually you want to buy ships that will get your lots of points. Some ships combo well and support one another. You may have a ship which scores many points but is placed at a high numbered port. This means it is hard to activate. When you roll two dice, the most frequent result is 7. It is hard to roll high numbers like 11 or 12. If you have a ship which lets you add 1 to your total, it improves your chances. 

What I enjoy about the game is that every die roll is a lucky draw. You'll get something, whether it's on your turn or on your opponent's turn. Lucky draws are exciting. The fun part of the game is how you develop your base. It is satisfying to develop a coherent strategy for your base and watch your vision take shape. 

As part of setup your high numbered ships all have the green Jupiter icon which means increasing permanent income. 

By late game you will have many deployed ships. They are tucked above your ships still at port, showing only the red parts. As you plan the growth of your fleet, you hope to be able to gain something useful no matter what numbers are rolled. 

The Thoughts

This is a pleasant and brisk game. The core mechanism is simple. The game is a breeze to play. However planning your space base will takes some thought. You should not be buying ships randomly. You want to put together ships that help one another. The game has a good balance between luck and strategy. There is certainly some luck. It is nice that you get to choose between using your dice separately or together. This gives you a bit more control. You do make meaningful decisions in developing your base. If you plan well, chances are you will get good results. There is no directly attacking your opponents, but you do have to watch their progress. You need to gauge the tempo of the game to decide when to switch gears and go for points. 

Dine & Dine event

The Dice & Dine event was held over the weekend of 14-15 Jun 2025 at Lalaport shopping centre in Kuala Lumpur. Compared to last year, I am participating in fewer events in 2025. Some because of schedule clashes, but some also because I decide not to. From my experience last year, events which are not directly related to boardgames are less effective. So I would rather save my time, money and energy. 

This time many of my local designer and publisher friends also participated, so I didn't need to bring their games to help them sell. Choon Ean (from publisher LUMA which is based in Penang) did not participate this round, so I brought her games Petal Plotters and Trishaw Frenzy. 

Some of my friends came to support me and to try my games. 

I introduced Dancing Queen quite a few times. Some visitors came alone or in pairs, so a 2-player game worked for these situations. I would play if the visitor was alone. Too bad I was out of stock. My second edition is being produced now and hopefully it will reach Malaysia by early July. 

My booth was busy for almost the full two days. I had little time to rest or eat. Every day by the time I packed up, my voice was hoarse. 

It makes me happy to see others enjoy my games and have good interaction and happy moments. 

A group of ladies came to play Ali Baba, and later they came again bringing two more friends because they wanted to play Snow White. Snow White needs at least 7 players. 

Pinocchio is not yet released, but I took the opportunity to showcase it. 

The next event I'm exhibiting at is the Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) in Penang, 11-13 Jul 2025. Come play with me if you are in Penang or in the north!

A Gest of Robin Hood

The Game

The first thing I learned from this game is a new word. Gest. It means story or adventures. This is a COIN game - counterinsurgency. Normally these are set in modern day or close to modern day situations. Seeing this applied to a medieval era scenario is certainly refreshing. This is a two-player game, one playing Robin Hood and the other the Sheriff of Nottingham. Robin fights for justice, while the sheriff wants control and order. This is a tug of war. In the game there is a track for justice vs order. The players try to pull the marker towards their end of the track. When the game ends, the position of the marker determines who wins. 

The map shows the town of Nottingham, Sherwood Forest, and the surrounding regions. Each of the seven regions can be obedient (blue) or rebellious (red). Robin tries to instigate rebellion while the sheriff wants to keep things calm. However the sheriff will force people to pay tax, and that makes people rebellious. One thing which the sheriff does is to fill a carriage with taxes and then escort it back to Nottingham. If the carriage reaches Nottingham, the sheriff gains order and money. If Robin manages to rob the carriage, Robin gains justice and money. Yes, everyone wants money. The tricky part is a carriage might be a trap set for Robin and his gang. It might be better armed than expected and Robin's team might all get captured if they can't defeat the guards. 

Robin is the red piece. In the computer implementation he is presented this way to the Robin player. In the actual game, Robin is a green piece just like any of the merry men. You can tell him apart only by the icon on it. The merry men pieces can be face-up or face-down. When face-down, it means they are hidden, and it also means the sheriff doesn't know which one is Robin. To be able to capture the merry men, the sheriff needs to first expose them. The grey triangular pieces are the sheriff's henchmen. 

The game uses a simple initiative system. The first player picks one of the three action spots, and then the second player can only pick from the remaining two. The actions are then performed from left to right, and the initiative for the next round is also determined by whoever has his token on the left. The first action spot only allows one action. The second spot allows executing an event. A different event is drawn every round so this action changes every round. The third spot allows two actions. This basically means if you want to do more and do the more powerful actions, you will likely go later in the next round. 

The Robin player has a selection of actions to choose from, some called Plots and some called Deeds. The sheriff has a different selection. Many actions require spending money. Robin needs to rob either the carriages or some other poor travellers to maintain a decent cash flow. The sheriff too needs to collect taxes. If you run out of money, you will become very restricted in what you can do. 

The success of robbery attempts depends on several factors. The number of merry men vs the number of henchmen is one. Whether the region is rebellious or not is another. You need to roll a die to determine the outcome, so there is some luck. When robbing a traveller, you can decide whether to take a higher risk for a higher reward. 

The number of merry men and henchmen is limited. You can't recruit if there no more in the supply, so you need to manage your people well. 

The Play

This is very much a cat and mouse game. I played Robin Hood. I had to recruit merry men and cause trouble. The challenge was whenever I robbed, my merry men would be exposed, and we would be at risk of getting caught. I needed to quickly move and hide ourselves to stay safe. I needed to go about inciting revolt, because having the people supporting my cause was helpful. Carriages was something I could not ignore, even if I suspected they were traps. I was caught in such a trap unfortunately. I did not have a big enough group and we were captured. Things went downhill very quickly for me. I didn't have enough men, and I was arrested several times myself. Robin could always sneak out of prison, but doing all this took time and actions. Playing Robin Hood was not at all fun and adventure. It was very much about spending money wisely, gathering support from the population as much as possible, and keeping the pressure on the sheriff and his henchmen. You need to be a military strategist specialising in guerrilla warfare, not an action hero. Our game was rather short, Han as the sheriff achieved an instant victory because he reached more than 5 on the Order track when there was a royal inspection. Robin Hood's little gest was cut short significantly. 

Lots of event cards add colour, story and flavour to the game. 

At one point most of the merry men and Robin Hood himself was thrown in prison. What a disgrace!

The Thoughts

A Gest of Robin Hood is a serious wargame. Not a complex one among wargames, but it is a serious take on the folklore, very much unlike what I remember of the Disney animation movie. This is not a simple game and it takes some effort to learn. It is interesting to see the COIN mechanism applied to this setting. Too bad I was a lousy outlaw and I didn't really experience the full game. 

Harmonies

The Game

Harmonies is one of the hot games on BoardGameArena.com now. It is about creating your own forest by placing different types of discs. Specific combinations of discs form habitats for different animals, and you score points by attracting animals to your forest. The game is played until one player almost fills their player board. 

On your turn you must claim a group of three discs from five groups available on the table. You must place the discs onto your player board, i.e. your forest. Discs come in 6 different colours, and there are rules for each colour. Blue is water, and yellow is fields. They can only ever be directly placed onto the board, and they cannot be stacked onto other discs. Other discs cannot be stacked onto them either. For other colours, things get a little more complicated. Green is greenery (of course) and brown is wood. Green when placed directly on the board is grass. When green is placed on one brown, that's a small tree. When placed on two browns, you get a tall tree. Grey is mountains. They can be stacked up to three. Red is houses. They can be stacked up to two, and they can be stacked on red, brown or grey. 

It is mandatory to take discs on your turn, but claiming an animal card is optional. An animal card specifies the disc combination you need to attract that animal type. There are two or more animal cubes on an animal card, and whenever you fulfil the condition, you get to move a cube from the animal card to your forest. This is when you score points. The more cubes you move from an animal card, the higher the points per cube. Ideally you want to use up all the cubes on your animal cards. 

The same discs or stacks of discs can be used to fulfil multiple conditions. If you look at this screenshot above, the first and second animal cards need green-green-blue and red-green-green respectively, but the first card requires the cube to be placed on the blue, while the second card requires the cube to be placed on the green. This means they don't conflict, and they greatly help each other. Symbiosis! You can see that for both animal cards the required combinations have been achieved twice, thus two cubes  have been placed for both of them. 

In addition to scoring using the animal cards, how you place discs also scores points. For example if your red is surrounded by at least three different colours, it scores five points. So this is something you want to consider too when you place your discs.

The Play

This is a game with a spatial element. You want to find animal cards which coexist well, so that you save on discs and also space. When you save space, it means you can claim more animals cards and try to fulfil them. You will have several goals being pursued at once, and you try to fulfil these different conditions all at the same time. This makes the game puzzle-like. You keep an eye out for animal cards which jive well with your existing forest. You want to watch what discs and even animals your opponents might want. In case you are wanting the same things, you'd have more urgency to take certain discs or animals cards. Every time a player takes a group of discs, it is immediately replaced with a random new group. So you always have five groups to choose from. 

The Thoughts

This is a peaceful game. You are mostly happily building your own forest. You try to find savings. You want to find symbiotic relationships, so that you save on discs and space. You want to do more with less. It's an abstract game, but I must say it does create that kind of symbiotic and harmonious feeling. 

Tapestry

The Game

Tapestry is a civilisation game in which players develop their civilisations from prehistoric tribes to modern day nations. Player actions are designed as making progress on four tracks - science, technology, exploration and military. Every turn you simply decide which track to advance on. You pay the required resources and perform the actions specified on the space you advance your token into. Actions at every step differ. They get more powerful as you advance further. The four tracks have different characteristics and let you do different kinds of things. Let’s look at the various aspects of the game.

You have a hex map. One action lets you collect hex tiles. One action lets you discover new lands, and this is when you pick a tile you have to place on the board. One action lets you place your marker on a tile. This translates to expanding your controlled territory. When your border gets in contact with others, you can attack and capture their lands. However warfare is limited and on each tile there will only ever be one battle. 

You will spend quite some effort on your capital city. It is a 9x9 grid which you try to fill up as much as possible. Some spaces are already filled at the start. You gain resources by filling 3x3 sections. You gain points for filling complete rows or columns. Think sudoku grid, but without the numbers. Some actions let you remove small buildings from your player board to place in your capital. When removing these from your player board, you reveal icons which let you produce resources. If you beat your opponents to certain spaces on the tracks, you get to claim large buildings which help you fill your capital quickly.

Some actions let you claim and upgrade tech cards. They give various benefits. Sometimes you get tapestry cards, and every new era you get to play one to augment your abilities. The game is called Tapestry, but the tapestry cards in the game are just one of several mechanisms, not the main one. I guess calling a game Four Tracks is not exactly sexy. 

Ultimately you win by scoring the most points. Some actions give you points directly. Some give you points based on how well you have done in a certain aspect, e.g. territory you control or tiles you hold. Every era you start with some resources. Actions require resources. When you eventually run out, you must end your current era and enter the next one. You want to be able to collect resources efficiently because more resources mean more actions. Players may have different numbers of turns in this game. 

The Play

I found it challenging to understand how Tapestry works. The rules are not complicated. However I had little idea what the right things to do were. The decision you need to make every turn is simple - which of the four tracks do you want to advance on? What I struggled with was how to evaluate the four options. I did horribly in my first game, missing out on almost all the large buildings. I learned the hard way that balanced development wasn’t a good idea. In my second game I decided to almost exclusively advance on the technology track. It worked better. However I wasn’t very comfortable that an arbitrary rule of sticking to one track worked relatively well. It felt like the game was playing me and not me playing the game. I only made an arbitrary policy, stuck to it blindly, and it worked, without me really understanding why. I only did some minor maximisation, e.g. if a space offered an additional benefit for a fee, I made sure I could afford the fee before I advanced to that space. 

It might be because I played on BoardGameArena.com that the game was less fun for me. I hadn’t taken time to understand all the rules well. So I felt I was making arbitrary decisions. I find the way civilisation development is translated into game mechanisms is rather abstract. I can’t quite associate the game mechanisms with the theme. The four resources in the game could have been called anything, even by their colours. They don’t make much difference other than being needed by one of the four specific tracks. 

The Thoughts

Tapestry didn't work for me. I feel most of the game mechanisms are disjointed from the theme. I do like the civilisation theme. I would say Tapestry offers something a little different from other civilisation games. Maybe it'll work for you. 

Castle Combo

The Game

Castle Combo is a simple tableau game. You take turns buying cards from a market to place in your own 3x3 grid. The cards score points in different ways and also have various powers. You try to create a combination that works well together. You start with some money, and you will spend money buying cards. Some cards help you earn money. At game end, leftover money may help you score points if you have the right cards. The game ends once everyone has his 3x3 grid filled. 

The market at the centre of the table consists of two rows. Cards from each row come from their own deck. One row is characters living inside the castle, like the nobles and the soldiers, and the other is those living outside, like the farmers and the labourers. There is a messenger next to one of the rows. You can only buy cards from the row he is located. If you want to buy a card from the other row, you need to pay a key to move the messenger. Some cards when purchased move the messenger. 

When you buy your first card, you don't need to decide yet where exactly in your grid you want to place it. As you add more cards, you just need to ensure you don't go beyond the 3x3 grid. Cards have various powers. Some generate income, some give you discounts for future cards. Every card scores points based on a specific criteria. You may score points based on how many of a certain icon that you have, or if you don't have a specific icon, or where the card is positioned in the grid, or what kind of cards you have in the same row or column. Everyone's collection of cards is public information, so you can look at what your opponents have and tell what kind of cards will be useful to them and what will not be.

The game ends once everyone has nine cards.

The Play

This is a simple tableau-building game. You do your best to collect a set of cards which together score many points. You have to pay some attention to your components and try not to leave good cards for them. Most of the time you probably want to take care of your own scoring. You can work on denying your opponents, but if you are too busy trying to deny everyone you are probably not maximising your own score. Money can be tight. There was once I could not afford any card and I had to spend that turn taking a face-down card. A face-down card has no abilities. It just lets you take some money and keys. 

At game end some cards let you to store money to score points.

The Thoughts

This is an introductory tableau-building game. It won't be interesting for seasoned gamers, but it can work for non-gamers as a gentle introduction to modern hobby games. 

The Guild of Merchant Explorers

The Game

This is a game about exploration. You start at the capital at the centre of the map, and you place explorer cubes extending from there to various parts of the map. There are different things to discover and to score points for. The interesting part is how your progress will reset at the end of every round. All your explorer cubes will be removed. To protect yourself from losing all progress, you need to establish outposts, so that in future rounds you can start exploring from these outposts as opposed to starting at the capital again. 

This is mostly a multiplayer solitaire game. It also feels like a roll and write game, despite having no rolling or writing involved. Everyone plays the same map, but you have your own board and you place cubes on your own board. The game comes with different maps so there are different scenarios you get to play with. Every turn, a card is revealed from the deck, and it tells you how you can place your explorers. You know the basic exploration deck, but every game there will be some random advanced cards added which help you explore in powerful ways. There are cards for each terrain type. Usually a card will tell you how many explorer cubes you can place, and on which terrain type. Since you know most of the deck, just not what order you will draw the cards, you can somewhat plan your exploration. 

When you explore, you establish an outpost by completely filling a region, i.e. a connected group of similar hexes. You place your outpost on one of these hexes, and it will stay there permanently. Some hexes have coins, and coins are your victory points. You score points by placing a cube on these hexes. Some hexes contain treasure chests. You draw a treasure card when you access these hexes. They give various benefits. This is a blind box gacha thing. Some hexes are trading posts. You need to connect two of them to score points, and the point value you score is their individual values multiplied. 

These purple buildings were my outposts (technically called villages). This was the start of a new round, so all the explorer cubes had been removed. However with outposts having been set up, I had many options. 

The game is played over four rounds. In the first round only one random advanced exploration card will be introduced. In the second round, this same card stays in the deck, so you know what it is just not when it will show up. A new advanced card will also be introduced, and you won't know what it is yet. In the third round, the previous two remain, and yet another new one is introduced. In the fourth round… You think I’m going to repeat the same thing right? Then you’re wrong. A new card will NOT be introduced in the fourth round. However one repeat card is added which lets you use one of the three previous advanced cards one more time. After four rounds are completed, the highest scorer wins. 

The Play

I learned the hard way about the need to plan for the future. A round ended much quicker than I expected and I hadn’t set up any outpost. The map is large, and you can’t try to do everything. You will probably need to focus on some areas and sacrifice others. This will somewhat depend on the advanced exploration cards that turn up in your game. It also depends on where you have set up your new bases for exploration, and the order the cards are drawn. 

It is fun to plan your adventure. You can’t make exact plans since you have no control over the order of the card deck. The advanced exploration cards always bring some excitement. They are the big breaks. Sometimes you make bets, hoping the cards turn up in a certain order. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you need to adjust plans. 

The Thoughts

The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a pleasant family game. It’s multiplayer solitaire for sure. Think of it as a solo game that you play together with friends to compare how well you do given the same conditions. The exploration is an interesting puzzle to solve. You decide how much risk you want to take. You try to grab opportunities that come your way.