Teh Tarik Game

Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan was the winner of the 2025 Malaysia Design & Play game design competition, of which I was one of the judges. The winner's prize was either a publishing deal, or a cash prize. Ray decided to take the cash prize and publish the game himself. He did all the planning and the art. The game was released this year. I got myself a copy. I was part of this game's journey, and I definitely want to own a copy. 

The game comes in a small tuck box. 

It's pretty compact

This is the card back

The rulebook is in English and Malay. The cards are in four languages - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. 

The cards are numbered 1 to 40. The version at the competition last year was a strictly four player game, played in teams of two. The published version now supports 2 to 4 players. I think the game is best played with four, and I will prefer to play it only with four. 

I will only describe the four player game. There are two cups at the centre of the table, one belonging to each team. On your turn, you must play a card to either cup. Cards must be played in ascending order, so you can only play a card which is higher than the most recently played card. If you are unable to play a card, you will spill your team's cup. That means discarding all the cards so that you can start a new cup. Spilled cards cost you 1 point each. Each player has one Siap (Done!) card. Siap cards are used to score points. That means your team only has two opportunities in the whole game to score points. The Siap card can always be played. If you think your cup is valuable enough, you can play your Siap card, and you will score all those cards in your cup. But remember, once you have used your Siap card, you won't be able to score for your team any more. You can only rely on your partner (assuming he hasn't used his Siap card). 

If both of you have used your Siap cards, I hope the game will end very soon, because any cards played to your cup from now on will only be spilled, i.e. they will cost you points. Holding on to and knowing when to play your Siap card is crucial in this game. The game is played until the deck is exhausted and every player has played all hand cards. 

There are four reverse cards in the game. If you add such a card to your cup, the number order reverses, e.g. you now play in descending order instead of ascending. If your cup value has gone up to the high 30's, a reverse card will let you add more cards. Reverse cards can be very useful. 

The fact that you can play to your opponents' cup is a key element of the game. This can be a very mean game. When your opponent is still playing single digit numbers, you can play a 39 to force them to spill their cup. Of course they can do the same to you. You know that when playing to your opponents' cup you might be giving them 1 point. Sometimes you play to your opponents' cup because you can't play to your own, and you don't want to spill your own cup. This is an interactive game with a mean streak. When I played this with my family, my wife Michelle didn't like this nastiness. We ended up playing harmoniously, which I think was dull. If you are going to play this, please play it with jerks.