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