Tuesday, 30 September 2025

boardgaming in photos: OnStage, Biblios, Cafe, Sky Team


I played OnStage with my daughters Shee Yun and Chen Rui. This is a trick-taking card game from Vietnam, designed by Michael Orion. This was not my first time playing, so it didn't have that first play lustre any more. But it is still enjoyable. I like how the trump suit can change even in the middle of a trick. The 1, 4 and 7 cards which manipulate the actors can be very powerful when used at the right time. 

3 flowers mean big shot celebrity

Minor starlets standing in the shadow


I played the Unseen expansion of Innovation again with younger daughter Chen Rui. This Fortune Cookie card is so powerful! Granted, you need to have a strong empire to be able to use it. You need at least seven of one icon. 


I remember doing badly in Biblios when I last played it, so I was a little surprised that I won this recent game. Near the end, I calculated my strength in each of the colours I had, and I wasn't confident I would win many, because I only had absolute majority in one of the colours. When the game ended and everyone's cards were revealed, I was pleasantly surprised that in some colours where I wasn't strong in, Chee Kong and Jon did even worse. So I won some of the colours I didn't expect to. 


I played a physical copy of Cafe in 2022. I don't remember it being anything extraordinary. I thought it was okay and not very memorable. However when I played it online recently, I found it quite enjoyable. Normally I enjoy a game more when playing the physical version. Maybe it was because I didn't quite remember the game and had to relearn most of it, which meant rediscovering the tactics and overcoming the challenges again. These felt satisfying. I didn't do so well in the early game. I did have a big connected patch of farms, and also a big connected patch of drying areas, but I didn't have any big group of roasters. Roasters became my bottleneck. It was challenging to get out of that. 


I played several online games of Sky Team with Han. We tried different airports, i.e. different scenarios, including Kuala Lumpur. Some scenarios come with additional rules and challenges. Sometimes we were unclear about these rules and that led to disaster, getting people killed when we crashed our plane. Sky Team is a fun game and brings something new to the table. 

Friday, 26 September 2025

Oriflamme


Oriflamme is a short card game of secrets and bluffing. Everyone has the same set of 10 cards and each card is a unique character with its own power. At the start of the game, everyone randomly removes 3 cards from his set. This means there will be variation in everyone’s hands. You don’t know exactly which cards are in play and out of play. 


During the game, players add cards to a common row. You always add cards to one of the two ends of the row. You add your card face down, so that others do not know what it is. After everyone has added cards, you do a round of execution. From left to right, the owner of every card decides whether to reveal the card and use its power. A revealed card can be activated to trigger its power, while a card that is still hidden will have a 1-point token added to it. 


Some cards can be used to attack and remove other cards at specific positions. However, some cards are traps so if you try to attack them, the owner gets a benefit instead. Some cards simply help you gain points more efficiently. Some cards manipulate the positions of cards which can affect the abilities of other cards. You play until everyone has played 6 cards, and the game ends. 

There is a fair bit of guessing the intentions of your opponents in this game. On average, a face-down card earns one point per round. You need to do better than that to defeat your opponents. It is through making the right guesses and the right attacks that will get you ahead. 

Oriflamme is a light and quick game. It is a melee and it is everyone for himself. 

Tuesday, 23 September 2025

Looot

Looot is a game about Vikings looting goods and bringing them back to build their own villages. Players are all in the same raiding party, but you are from different villages so whatever you manage to grab first is for your own village only. You have your own player board on which you place the items you bring back. While you raid, you can claim objective tiles to place on your board. If you manage to surround them with the right items, you will get to score them. However if you fail you will lose points.


On the main board where you raid by placing pawns, you start on the coast and expand inland. A new pawn can only be placed in an empty space next to a landing site or another pawn, either your own or an opponent’s. You are working together on this raid after all. It’s just that you don’t share the loot. For some of the items, you claim one when you place a pawn on it. For some, you claim when when you place a pawn next to it. For watchtowers, you need your pawns to connect two of them in order to claim a pair of items. 


On your personal board there are some preset structures you can build. You need to place specific items next to them to complete construction and score points. These structures are basically objectives you are trying to fulfil. Throughout the game there will be a selection of objectives you can claim to place on your board. They work in a similar way, except if you fail at these voluntarily claimed objectives you will be penalised. 

The palace requires many items to build


An item placed on your board can count for multiple adjacent objectives. Make use of this well and you will be much more efficient in scoring points. 

One interesting aspect of the objectives is they increase the values of items you collect. All item types have a default value, and they are scored at game end. If you find that you are collecting many of a particular item, you probably want to get objectives which increase the value of that item. Gourmet class mutton anyone? 

You have several single use powers, e.g. allowing you to place a pawn in an occupied space, or claiming two items instead of one. These can be life savers in case you get stuck in a bad situation. 

Looot offers a pleasant play experience. It can totally be rethemed to kids raiding a candy house. You have goodies all over the place up for grabs. There is a fair bit of planning involved. You want to claim as many objectives as possible so that you’ll score more points. It is a fun spatial puzzle trying to maximise the items you loot to fulfil multiple objectives. Claiming objectives is also about risk management. In case you fail, you will lose points, and that can be painful. You have to watch out for yours and your opponents’ pawns running out. That is when the game ends and you don’t want to be caught unprepared. I enjoy the market manipulation aspect of the game. Boosting the value of items you collect can be highly lucrative. 

Saturday, 20 September 2025

Malaysian Holidays postcards are released!

My fifth published game will be Malaysian Holidays, and this is a collaboration project between Cili Padi Games and Specky Studio. This time I am just the designer, and they are the publisher. 

The whole idea for this game came from two things. First, I had wanted to design a game which could be widely accepted in Malaysia, i.e. something which non-gamers would like. I wanted to find a topic which many people would find interesting. Gameplay needed to be simple and easy to grasp. If I wanted to make a game sell well in Malaysia, this was the kind of target audience I should aim for - the non-gamer. The second thing was what made me pick this topic for such a game. On social media I sometimes see people plan for holidays for the following year. They check which days of the week the public holidays fall on, and identify long weekends, and also potential long stretches of holidays that can be created by taking one or two days of leave. For example if a public holiday is on a Tuesday, you can take the Monday off to create a four-day stretch. Malaysians like to make use of these long stretches to go back to their hometowns, or to go somewhere else for holidays. We have many public holidays, because we are a multicultural country. We love our public holidays. Every time the national football (soccer) team wins some tournament, or a national badminton player wins some trophy, people will start asking whether the prime minister will announce a special holiday. I'm sure fellow Malaysians can relate to this. All this led me to decide to turn Malaysian public holidays into a game. 

The design and development journey has been promising and encouraging. Non gamers and casual gamers quickly get hooked. Once when I visited an educational books publisher to pitch one of my other games, I brought several of my other prototypes for showcasing my portfolio. When they saw my crude prototype box, which was a brown cardboard box for food sachets and only had "Malaysian Holidays" hand-written on a plain white sticker, they picked it up and asked what's this? And we ended up playing it immediately. Malaysians love public holidays! It's in our DNA! That lousy box had no art at all.

After Buddhima from Specky Studio and I agreed on our mode of cooperation, he engaged Lim Chi Qing from Sunny Day to create the art for the game. This is a project which needs a lot of art. We feel that every public holiday in the game should have its own art. So this was a lot of work, truly a labour of love. I really like the art style Chi Qing used. The game itself is not yet published, but the art is now made into postcards, and they are now available. If you want to order some, please reach out to Specky Studio: link.


Friday, 19 September 2025

Coffee Rush


Coffee Rush is a family game from Korea about running a busy coffee bar. Customers order drinks, you collect the right ingredients to make those drinks, and hopefully you can serve them their drinks before they lose patience waiting and storm off. You will get more and more customers and inevitably someone will eventually have too many upset customers. That’s when the game ends and you compare points to see who wins. This is a game about people who have not had their morning coffee attacking you like zombies until eventually one of you gets overrun by the horde. The game can also end when the card deck runs out, but that would not be as cinematic. 

Everyone has a player board where your orders are tracked. New orders are added to the top row. When you complete an order, it is removed from the waiting zone and put face-down in a score pile. Every round outstanding orders are shifted one row down. If an order is shifted beyond the bottom row, it means the customer loses patience and walks away, while giving you a one star review on Google Maps. You lose 1 point. 

You get new orders when either of the players before you in turn order completes their orders. You get a new order for every order they complete. This is why the orders keep piling up. The tension keeps rising as you play. 

On your turn you move one of your pawns up to three steps on the ingredients board. You can pass through other pawns but may not stop in the same space as another pawn. You collect ingredients for every space you enter, and you can place them in any of your three cups. This is how you complete orders. 

Who ordered caramel caffe latte? 

Whenever you have three or more completed orders, you can trade them in (they are worth 1 point each) for an upgrade. An upgrade is worth 2 points, so doing this means you are sacrificing 1 point. Upgrades give you new powers, for example collecting more ingredients and being able to move diagonally. 

Coffee Rush is easy to get into and immediately relatable. There is some competition and blocking on the ingredients board, but it is not vicious. You are busy enough handling your own customers so you probably won’t bother with blocking others much. Anyhow you can only block the final landing space. Others can still pass through your space. The more effective way of attacking your opponents is probably completing multiple orders at the same time and giving them more orders than they can handle. Still, they just might manage, and score points for those orders. 

This is a nice game to play with casual gamers and it will also work as a gateway game. 

Thursday, 18 September 2025

2025 Malaysia DNP Game Design Competition results


The results of the competition were announced on Malaysia Day - 16 Sep 2025: 

Winner: Ray Tan - Teh Tarik Game (video) (rulebook)
1st runner-up: Jason Sondoh - Kandar Klash! (video) (rulebook)
2nd runner-up: Anas Maghfur - Batik (video) (rulebook)

Other finalists: 
The winner will choose a cash prize or a publishing contract with the competition sponsor Roll Rebellion. Of course the latter is subject to the discussion between contestant and publisher. I am looking forward very much to see Teh Tarik Game turn into a final product, a published game. Of the other finalists, several have been identified by the judges as potential publishing projects. This is outside of the scope of the competition, so these will be discussions the judges (in their respective roles as publishers) will have with the designers they are interested in. It is interesting to see that different publishers have different games they are keen to explore publishing. I am excited to see by this time next year how many of our finalist designs will make it to becoming a published game. These would be games I have played a small part in incubating. The designer and publisher would be the father and mother, and I would be, maybe not the midwife, but just the fun uncle. 

Our objective in running the DNP competition is to cultivate good game design in Malaysia. It is great to see that we are off to a good start! 

Winner: Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan


Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan is played with exactly two teams of two, and teammates sit across the table from each other. Each team has exactly two opportunities to complete a teh tarik (bubbly milk tea) in the whole game. Each card in your cup scores 1 point. However, during the game you may spill tea too, either because you are unable to play a card on your turn, or you decide not to use your teh tarik card yet. When you spill tea, each card is negative 1 point. 


Each team has one cup, and when you start making tea, cards must be played in ascending order. The nasty part of this game is you can play a card in your opponent's cup. Yes, you are potentially giving them a point, but most likely you will be messing with them and limiting their plays. Some cards allow you to change the number requirement to the opposite direction, e.g. play in descending order instead. This can help you get more cards played to your cup, and thus score more points.   

1st runner-up: Kandar Klash! by Jason Sondoh


Kandar Klash! by Jason Sondoh is a real-time game and requires some spatial skills. Every round an order is revealed, and everyone tries to complete that order as quickly as possible. 


Everyone has the same set of 6 cards. You must arrange them to create the pattern shown on the order card. Ideally you do so with as few of your 6 cards as possible. If you are quick enough, you score 1 point plus 1 point per leftover card in hand. If you are too slow, you get nothing. If you are quick, but you make a mistake, you are penalised instead.   

2nd runner-up: Batik by Anas Maghfur



Batik from Anas Maghfur is a game of pattern recognition. Cards are double sided, with one side being a batik pattern, and the other being an objective you can try to fulfil and score points for. On your turn, you normally draw a card (deciding up front whether to make it an objective or batik), or play a batik to the table. 


At any time, including on other players' turns, if one of your objectives is fulfilled, you may declare so and play that objective before you. One interesting mechanism in the game is each completed objective can be tapped once per game to give you an extra play action on your turn. This can be crucial in completing some of the high-valued objectives. 

Details on the other finalists are in my recent blog post

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Keretapi Sarong event 2025


The Keretapi Sarong event by Locco was held on Sat 13 Sep 2025. This was not a boardgame specific event, but for the past few times this festival was held, they've always invited local game designers and publishers to showcase their work. Supporting local! The concept of this festival is unusual. They don't announce the venue beforehand. They just tell you you should come wearing a sarong, and you are to take the train (or light rail etc). The venue is, of course, somewhere you can get to by train. It is announced only in the morning of the actual day. For us exhibitors they do tell us much earlier, because we need to be there early to set up and prepare. 


I arrived around 8:30am that day. Rizal from 1+1 Studio and I were the earliest in our group to arrive. People from the other stalls nearby were all earlier than us. They had more setup work to do, so they had to be earlier. 


Four of us local publishers were there this time: Cili Padi Games, 1+1 Studio, Meja Belakang and nPips Games. I helped some of my friends who weren't there by bringing their games. All of these are Malaysian designed games. 

Jon's Furmation of Rome

Haireey brought a prototype for playtesting


Pinocchio worked very well for this crowd, which was a non gamer crowd. I can get people to start playing Pinocchio without sitting through the rule explanation. I get them to start playing, and I teach them the rules as and when they are needed. I find that this is the best way to teach games to non gamers. 


Rizal's Duo Quest was the best selling title that day. It was in play almost the whole day. One particular group even opted for a module which required them to move about and dance to complete missions. Our stall was very happening! 


Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. I now only have one last copy with me. The second edition is work-in-progress now. The art is done (only minor adjustments). The new rulebooks too. No change in gameplay or components. The print files have been submitted to the manufacturer Magicraft, and the e-proofing is now done too. So the next step is scheduling for printing. 


This group had much fun with Pinocchio. That day, in addition to sarong, some people wore other traditional costumes. I even saw some wearing the traditional Kadazan costume from Sabah. 


It was mostly a cloudy day, but in the afternoon we had a long stretch of light rain. We hurriedly moved our games deeper into our tent to protect them from getting wet. Thankfully there was no wind, and the rain wasn't heavy. Our tent wasn't very big, so when there was rain and we needed to avoid the rain, our usable space became quite small. 

Haireey from Meja Belakang 

Rizal from 1+1 Studios teaching Duo Quest

During the drizzle the crowd thinned, and we could take a break.

The venue was TRX - Tun Razak Exchange

The crowd at the festival was huge. Our tables were fully occupied most of the time. Sales was not very good unfortunately. This was not primarily a boardgame event, and the crowd was not one prepared to buy. They were there to play and have fun, and maybe spend some money on food. It was a festival more of big brand vendors giving away gifts and samples, than small businesses selling their wares. Still, to grow the boardgame industry in Malaysia, we do need to participate in events like this to introduce boardgames to people who don't know about them. There's still a lot of work to do! Let's go Malaysian boardgames! 

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

Hadara


Hadara is is civilisation building game. It is a tableau game in which you collect cards, which represent various types of citizens. There are cards in five different colours, and they have different characteristics. They form different aspects of your empire, like military, economy and agriculture. 


The game is played over three eras, and there are two distinct halves per era. In the first half, you will draw two cards and pick one. You do this for each of the five colours. When you pick a card, you may buy it to add it to your empire, or you discard it for money. The card not picked goes to the board, and it will be used in the second half of the era. The way you choose cards is different in the second half. Players take turns choosing a top card from one of the five face-up stacks. You may buy that card, or you discard it for money. Just like in the first half. 


When buying yellow, red, blue or green cards, generally they let you advance on the corresponding track on your player board. Yellow means economy. This helps you make money, which you will need for buying cards. Red is military. If you have enough military strength, you can conquer new lands to establish colonies. Blue is culture. If you have enough of that, you get to build nice statues. Green is agriculture. You need to produce enough food to feed your population. Otherwise you will be forced to discard cards. This is checked at harvest time. 

You can buy medals to score points. Gold medals give you points for every complete set of five different colours. Silver medals give you points based on your position on the track of a single colour. So one is breadth and the other is depth. You need weigh these options carefully and choose wisely. 


These are colonies. They are worth points and also give other benefits. You have opportunities to establish colonies only at specific times. If you want to grab more land, you need to increase your military might in time. There is some time pressure here. 


It is beneficial to have many cards of the same colour, because each card gives you a discount for future cards. Cards in the second and third eras become more expensive, so the discounts help. Purple cards do not have a corresponding purple track, but they give various benefits, including extra scoring opportunities. 

Hadara is a simple civilisation themed game. Having played the game, I don't find it particularly outstanding, because I don't find any new-to-me ideas. However if I think deeper about this, Hadara is actually somewhat similar to 7 Wonders, which I enjoy. They are both about collecting cards in different colours, and the different colours are different aspects of your empire.