Roti Canai

Roti Canai is from Faculty of Fun, the makers of Nasi Lemak. Nasi Lemak has been highly successful in Malaysia. It is simple and accessible. It has reached many people. I often hear people tell me they've played this fun game, and they sound like they want to say Uno or Monopoly, but the game they want to tell me about is Nasi Lemak. 

Roti Canai, like Nasi Lemak, is a light card game designed for casual players. It is the kind of game you can teach in less that two minutes. Everyone starts with a hand of cards, and your goal is to get rid of all your cards. 

Every round, the lead player rolls two dice. The dice indicate which type of roti your customer is ordering. In the photo above, that would be roti sardine and roti bomb. Everyone must play two or three cards face down to fulfil the customer's order. 

If you don't have the right cards, you can choose to draw cards before you play them. You can draw as many as you want. You don't necessarily stop when you have enough of the required cards. Since the cards are played face down, you can lie about your cards, putting down roti which don't match the customer's order. This helps you get rid of your cards, but there is risk of getting caught. 

Once everyone has played cards, beginning from the lead player, everyone has the option of challenging one card belonging to another player. If anyone is caught lying, all his cards go back to his hand, and he must draw two more cards. However if the challenging player is wrong, he must draw two cards as a penalty. This is a game of bluffing. Sometimes you play a mix of right and wrong cards hoping to get away with it, and using up your cards as quickly as you can. Sometimes you play the right cards and try to trick your opponent into challenging you. 

Most cards in the game are different types of roti, but there are also rat cards and broom cards. Rat cards are traps. If anyone challenges your card and it is a rat card, he will be the one being penalised and he draws as many cards as there are rats on the card. However if he happens to have a broom ready, he can give the rat card to someone else, who will take the penalty instead. 

This is a very simple game. In both cases of Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai, I know I am not the intended audience. I will pick these games if I am playing with a group of non gamers or casual gamers. However in Roti Canai there is one element which gamers will find interesting. It is the bluffing and psychological play. This part is about gaming your opponents and not the game system. How well do you read your opponents? How well can you bluff and get away with playing the wrong cards?