Of the four games I have published under Cili Padi Games, Dancing Queen, Snow White, Ali Baba and Pinocchio, the first three now have a second printing. Pinocchio was released just this year, but at this rate, I probably need to plan for a reprint next year. This photo was taken when I received the second editions of Snow White and Ali Baba. Thankfully my games are all small box card games. I still have enough space to store them at home.
When I planned my Hong Kong trip in November, I was going to meet Charles of Hong Kong publisher Time2Play, so I asked my fellow Malaysian game designers and publishers whether they wanted to gift some of their games to Charles, to introduce Malaysian titles. I ended up bringing 12 different games for Charles.
This trip I did a rather IG (Instagram) generation thing. I took lots of photos of my games and posted them on IG. My hotel was at Tsing Yi. When booking the hotel, the room was said to have a harbour view. It was technically correct, just that a more precise description would be a port view.
I strolled down Nathan Road and kept an eye out for suitable backdrops for my games. I thought jewellery store signs would be appropriate for Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
The iconic red taxis of Hong Kong
Temple Street entrance
I found this Pinocchio magnet at a bookstore on Nathan Road. The series is about fairy tale characters set in the modern day city life. Adult Pinocchio looks rather sad. My younger daughter Chen Rui commented that the colour scheme was exactly the same as my version of Pinocchio. I didn't realised that until she told me. It is not surprising though, because both the drawings are based on the Disney Pinocchio.
Underground icon
Train to Disneyland
Underground station
We do have Watsons in Malaysia, but not with the Chinese name
Hong Kong mini bus
We visited Macau too. When we walked past this restaurant, I said I must stop to take a photo. It's a Pinocchio restaurant! This is a Portuguese restaurant.
My old friend Horace was our guide
Jetta from Hong Kong is also a professional trainer like me. I got to know him through a trainer community, and this was the first time we met in person. He got into boardgames only a few years ago, but he has played many games, quickly becoming an expert. He has won several game competitions in Hong Kong.
We have played games online before. This was the first time we played face-to-face.
I have played Boop before on BGA.
It looks cute, but this is a 2-player perfect information abstract game
Cats and kittens
For many years I call the Chinese version of Ticket To Ride "che piao zhi lu"《车票之旅》 which roughly means journey of a ticket. The more commonly used name now seems to be "tie dao ren wu" 《铁道任务》 which means railroad mission.
Jetta and I played at a boardgame cafe in Fo Tan called Board Game Station. It is spacious and they have a great library.
My friend Seet Han is active in a Buddhist association, and they run training camps twice a year. They use games as part of their learning activities. They have just developed a new game, and they invited fellow Buddhists to do playtesting. Seet Han invited me to join too. This is a three-hour activity. It is mostly a cooperative game. As a team of 11 people we needed to work together to complete a mission.
Every round we had to discuss and decide what to do. Then we had to roll a die to determine whether we were successful. Different decisions have different success rates and possible consequences. Our die rolls, all done by our team leader, were unbelievably lucky. As I played the game, I observed the players and thought about the mechanisms mostly from a game designer perspective. I did calculations based on the laws of probability, and several times I found that our group decision was not sound. However our team leader was so lucky that our die rolls threw all these odds calculations out the window. They didn't matter. We were just amazingly lucky.
One of the game props
After the three hour game, we had dinner. We did discussions and feedback after dinner. It took us almost 2.5 hours. Everyone was keen to share. Several suggestions were offered. A few days after that Seet Han met up with me again to ask for input. Hopefully my feedback and suggestions are helpful to them.
The Asian Board Games Festival was held in Singapore 28 - 30 November. It was held at the Singapore National Library. I did not participate as an exhibitor, but my games were there via Choon Ean of LUMA. She sold many Malaysian games at her booth. She sent me this photo above of Smoox from Taiwan Boardgame Design helping his friends buy my games to bring back to Taiwan. Thank you so much to Taiwanese gamers!
In my full time job as a leadership trainer, I sometimes let my students play Pandemic as part of the training course. Pandemic is a popular game worldwide, but in Malaysia not many people know about it. Having done this so many times, there has been only one instance when one of my students had played the game before. It is not easy for new players to beat Pandemic. This particular group I taught recently managed to do so.
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