Asian Board Games Festival - The Philippines 2026

The Asian Board Games Festival in the Philippines was held 2 - 3 May 2026 in Manila. This was the first time I exhibited in the Philippines. I have been to Manila before at my previous job, and that was 18 years ago. 

There were four Malaysian publishers at ABGF PH - Jon (nPips Games), Choon Ean (LUMA), Chee Kong (Haribol Way) and I (Cili Padi Games). We were grouped in the same area. This was still early on Saturday before the doors opened. 

I took a different approach this event. I brought out all my games and stacked them all at this table. This was where Chee Kong, Jon and I placed our games. The three of us were grouped under Malaysia Boardgame Design, and we had four tables side by side. Each took one table to demo games, and we had one more table for our stock. I stacked all games here for the visual impact. 

Me, Chee Kong and Jon arriving at the hotel on Friday 1 May, Labour Day. Many other exhibitors stayed at the same hotel, because it was cheap and it was near the exhibition hall. 

We had an amazing crowd. Some people came very early to wait for the doors to open. We had a long queue. The hall was crowded most of the time. Bayanihan Centre is slightly out of the way for most people. It isn't exactly near any train station or bus route. It isn't near any major shopping mall. So people who came are those who were truly interested in the event and deliberately made the trip, not weekend shoppers who happened to pass by. This was a sort of filtering. Although the event was free to enter, the exhibition being a deliberate destination was an effective filtering tool that brought in specifically people who wanted to play and who wanted to buy. 

All of the international exhibitors that I know of did well. Many sold out their games. Both Jon and Chee Kong sold out their games. I sold out Dancing Queen. I was a little surprised many were interested in Dancing Queen. I didn't bring many copies. After it sold out, I tried to hide my demo copies so that I could focus on promoting my other games. However people came to my booth specifically asking to play Dancing Queen. 

I wonder whether the experience of exhibitors at Essen is like what I have experienced in ABGF PH. The crowd is mad, and I feel that many people will decide to buy after you describe to them what your game is like. They don't really need to sit down to play. In fact they might not really want to because they don't have the time to do so. If I need to let a player play a complete game before they can decide whether to buy, it's not time efficient. Even for short games like mine which take around 20 to 30 minutes, how many can you sell per day if every buyer needs to play a full game before deciding? Also they might decide not to buy after playing. So it is great to have visitors who only want an elevator pitch, and maybe they want to see the components and skim the rulebook, and then they can already decide whether to buy. It's much more time efficient. 

Chee Kong hard at work teaching Zodiac Go

Pinocchio generated much laughter and sometimes screams.

The exhibition was so crowded that we had little difficulty getting Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs played. This is a minimum 7 player game. It was easy to grab people passing by to play together. 

Dancing Queen being played. 

Such a crowded hall!

Snow White again. 

Dancing Queen sold out on Day 2. 

The organisers found me an assistant Marlee, who is a 2nd year university student studying game development. She has been tremendously helpful and she's smart, hardworking, and quick to pick up the games. 

This group truly enjoyed Pinocchio. They came on Day 1, and then again on Day 2 to buy another copy. They told me that they played it a lot on Saturday night. 

One funny thing that happened was how the key word "Challenge" became a joke / meme. In Pinocchio, when you think the sum of everyone's cards is more than 21, instead of drawing a card, you say "Challenge!" to challenge the previous player. On your turn it always either challenge or draw. One group which had played Pinocchio and enjoyed it carried this term over to the next game. When they played Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, they would randomly say "Challenge!", even though there is no challenge concept at all. Every turn you are just revealing one card. They said challenge sometimes because they knew they were making a risky choice of card. The rest of the table erupted into laughter. It is moments like this that make me very happy and fulfilled as a game creator. 

A character from the Filipino game Lagim.

This is a game based on a Filipino TV series. The TV series is not a cartoon. It is acted by real people. However sometimes the actresses are changed for a new season. That is why for the boardgame they decided to use cartoon characters instead of the real actresses. Who knows when one of the actresses will be changed again. 

With Milk (Thailand), Blue (Thailand), Michael (Taiwan), Chee Kong (Malaysia) and Jon (Malaysia). This was dinner at a night market after we were done with Day 1. 

This was before the doors opened on Sunday (Day 2). Chee Kong and Jon played a copy of Hikadyat, Haireey's recent game. 

Inconversible is a game from Underdog Games, Korea. It has fantastic artwork and an interesting and pretty sad backstory. It is about a tragic breakup, and deleting photos from your Instagram account. 

This grid of photos (well, drawings) is your Instagram account. You want to delete all your memories with your ex. However there is one specific memory that is truly precious which you do not actually want to delete. In the game, one particular drawing is designated the precious memory. It is known only to the clue giver. The clue giver draws hashtag keywords from a bag and places them along the edges of the grid to tell the other players which photos  should be deleted. They need to delete photos based on these clues. They need to delete all except for the most precious photo. This is a cooperative game. 

Game in progress

I am quite impressed with Korean games. We had one exhibitor from Korea, Kimkun (nickname) from Underdog Games. The artwork of the games is fantastic. The game concepts are interesting. As products they are of high standards. They sold out all of their games except for Too Many Crowns, which I will write about later. It is a very small box game and they brought a lot. The pile shrank a lot over the 2 days and I rooted for them to sell out. They still had maybe a dozen near the end of the fair, which is impressive. 

Inter Breach is a Filipino design. The designer was 10 years old when he designed this game. His parents are supportive and helped him turn this into a published game. This is a head-to-head combat card game. Each time you are defeated, you revive and level up. Only when you are at Level 5 (max level) will you lose if you are defeated again. 

My impression of Filipino game design is it is similar to Malaysia, being still in early stages of developing talent and products. Some games seem to be made by designers who have not played or designed many games yet, so the game mechanisms don't seem very interesting. However there are also some games which look highly professional, like Lagim which has been funded on Kickstarter. Larong Atin (the event organisers) are collaborating with well-known IP's (intellectual property). They are making a Combatron game. Combatron is a Filipino superhero from the 1990's. That's a great way to develop the market for boardgames. That's something Malaysian publishing houses should explore too. 

Eish!! is a game from Singapore. This is coming to Kickstarter soon. I only managed to listen to the rules. I did not manage to play because I had to return to my booth to teach my own game. 

In Eish!! you are tour guides bringing tourists to see exotic animals. The general idea is every round there is one lead player and the rest are followers. The followers need to guess what card the lead player will play, and they must avoid playing the same card. 

Everyone has the same deck of cards, and this is the card distribution. 

This was not my table. Notice the tablecloth is black. Mine is red. Chee Kong had sold out of his game Zodiac Go, and he asked his helper to teach my game instead, to help me boost my sales. Thanks bro! 

These postcards showcase art from my upcoming game Malaysian Holidays. Buddhima of Specky Studio gave me some to give away as gifts at ABGF PH. This is a way to promote our upcoming game. 

Dancing Queen

This group had a lot of fun playing Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

At this point, Zodiac Go, Furmation of Rome, King & Peasant, and Dancing Queen had sold out. We only had four games available now, and this little shelf was starting to look rather empty. I took out some cards from Snow White to showcase to passer-by's. 

Lagim is the most visually impressive game at the fair. They have spent much effort on art and components. It has funded successfully on Kickstarter. Set in a war torn fantasy world, players must prepare to defend their realms every round, because there are monsters coming your way. You can redirect monsters to your opponents' realms. If you manage three successful attacks, you win immediately. The other way to win is to be the last survivor when everyone else falls to the monsters. 

The cards are thick.

Very pretty metal coins. 

I didn't ask whether this card holder is standard with the game.

ABGF PH is more an indie scene event. Most exhibitors are small Asian publishers. At this kind of event you see a lot of heart, and it feels less "corporate". It is also at this kind of event you will discover gems which you have not heard of because they do not have the marketing budget of the big boys. There is a small section near the front door for IP related booths. They feature well-known local Filipino characters. There is a big section of publishers from around Asia - Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand. There are several booths featuring local Filipino games. There is also a section of artist booths, showing off all sorts of art - stickers, handicraft, prints. 

My booth in the foreground, and Jon's and Chee Kong's further down. 

So many people wanted to play games that sometimes we used the tiny table to play two games at the same time. Here you can see both Dancing Queen and Snow White in play at the same time. The group doing Snow White needed to have some of them play while standing, because we didn't have enough chairs for seven. 

My exhibitor badge

Sunday evening about half an hour after Marlee left, I started packing up and realised I had forgotten to collect this chilli headband from her. That meant she had been wearing this on the bus or train after leaving Bayanihan Centre. I messaged her and asked her to keep it as a souvenir. I wonder whether she had many puzzled looks that evening. 

I almost ran out of business cards. I brought more than one full box. I almost used up one box. At other conventions I never used nearly as many business cards. 

Sunday evening when everyone was packing up to leave. 

I came across this photo of me on Facebook. 

I sold almost all of the games I brought. About half were sold over the two days to visitors, and about half were bought by Filipino and Thai retailers. The Wisebox team from Thailand bought the most from me. I left 10 copies of Pinocchio with Larong Atin (Philippines retailer) on consignment. Unfortunately I had some copies which were slightly dented. If you look close enough, you can see the dents. This was a bad call on my part to use a tuckbox while allowing for space for sleeves. Tuckboxes are fragile unless they are tightly packed and protected by the cards inside. The way I did Pinocchio makes it risky when they go through typical airport baggage handling. I am happy to report that I made a small profit from this trip. Typically when attending an overseas exhibition I am prepared for the exercise to be a marketing cost. I would have to sell quite many games to be able to cover flight and accommodation. So overseas exhibitions are about branding, creating awareness, connecting with other industry players, and exploring opportunities. They are not really about sales and profit. 

The market in the Philippines seems to be huge. We had a huge crowd, and this was a crowd that was keen to buy games. And this was such a happy crowd. Well, generally people at game conventions are in a playful mood. The Filipino crowd was particularly enthusiastic to play. 

I was interviewed by a few content creators. It feels a little weird doing these interviews. I hope more people in the Philippines will get to know my games. 

One thing I enjoy watching is that buying process. A visitor browses the games on the display rack at my booth, then picks up one of them to take a closer look, then turns it over to read the description on the back. Sometimes they put the game down and move on to another. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they linger a little longer on the box. Sometimes they ask me how the game works. I try not to disturb them or be too aggressive. I don't want to scare them off. If the box they are looking at is for a game currently being played, or if there is an available table where they can try the game, I point that out to them. Occasionally I offer to give them a quick overview. As I observe this buying process, I become acutely aware of how important an attractive box cover is, and how important the game description at the back of the box is. People do judge a game by its cover, and that's a normal thing to do. 

I met Jacek of Jelly Jelly Games from Japan. They own a chain of boardgame cafes. They are also game publishers. He shared some good insights with me about the Japanese market. Gamers there tend to like small box games and light games. They like a specific art style. I have sent Jacek review copies of my games. He was interested in them because I do small box card games, which is the type that might work well for the Japanese market. If they want to pick up one of my games for publication, they might need to do their own art. I'm not sure the art I have fits the Japanese market. Jacek found that the Filipino market likes small box games too. Of the games he brought, the small box games did much better than the large box games. 

I needed to take a photo with a Philippines Airline plane before I flew off.

It was a tiring trip. That is despite having had a good assistant helping me at my booth. My voice was hoarse from two days of teaching rules in a noisy and crowded hall. It was also a happy trip. Making people laugh, seeing people enjoy my games, learning about new games, learning about the game markets in other countries. All this is exciting and fulfilling. One tagline from ABGF is "Play your way through Asia". Indeed that's what I'm doing now!