Klang, MYBOGADECO and other notes

I participated in a mid autumn festival event on Sat 19 Sep 2026. This was not a boardgame specific event, but several Malaysian game designers and retailers were invited to showcase and sell their games. The event was in Pandamaran, Klang, which is an hour drive west of Kuala Lumpur. The event was 5pm to 10pm, and we were asked to come set up booth by 3pm. I had something else on that day which only ended at 3pm, so I said I couldn't make it at the required time. I arrived shortly before 4pm. Several other vendors had already set up their booths, but among the boardgame vendors, I was the first to arrive. I was overly anxious. For us the setup is quick and much less complicated than other vendors. 

I think this was the 5th year they organised this event. There were many activities, like making fans, lantern riddles and photo booths. There was a small stage and many performances, mostly singing or music performances. The organisers placed us boardgame vendors far from the stage, so noise was not a problem for us. 

Most of the event was outdoors, but covered. I was a little worried about rain, but thankfully it didn't rain. It was a little windy in the late afternoon, but thankfully not so after the event started. 

Not all of my local game designer friends could make it to the event, so I brought their games there to sell. Those who could make it brought their own games. Chee Kong was there, Ray, Buddhima, Hwa Siang too. Kiwi demoed Tanglung and Roti Canai for LUMA and Faculty of Fun respectively. Yeow Meng was there, representing Swan Panasia.  

I mostly demonstrated Pilgrim Poker. I also did some Pinocchio. I did not manage to sell much, and my wife would question why I keep going to such events. I did not expect to sell much, but I think it is important I go for these non boardgame specific events because as an industry we need to create more awareness in Malaysia. Boardgame penetration in Malaysia is still very low. My measure of success at these events is not how many copies I sell, but whether I manage to get many people to try boardgames. 

Mid autumn festival events are the kind which parents bring their primary school age children to. My games are not really targeted at children, so I usually tell parents my games are for 10 and above. Some children younger than 10 might be able to play, but I think only slightly older children will be able to appreciate the kind of humour in my games. 

One particular group included a father, a son of about 11, and a daughter of about 8. I taught them Pilgrim Poker. The father understood the game and took it quite seriously, as in he did his best to play well and to win. The daughter was a little lost and probably didn't fully understand some of the nuances. This is a game in which you can bluff, and you can deduct information based on others' actions. I'm not sure she fully grasped these intricacies. The father played treating the children as equals, and naturally did much better than his kids. I found that funny and a little awkward. He certainly enjoyed the game, but he wasn't trying to help his children learn and enjoy the game. I think older brother enjoyed too. Younger sister looked a little puzzled sometimes. 

With another group, a mother and a daughter of about 7, I taught Pinocchio. I joined them to play. This mother was proactive in making sure her daughter understood what was going on. She explained how the game worked when she felt her daughter didn't fully follow. At one point, the daughter said she had a 20, and the mother started laughing. The mother knew the daughter was lying, because she had the 20 herself. Gosh, I have been successful in teaching children to lie. She was caught lying, but she tried. 

I enjoy these moments, watching parents sit down together with their children to play games. I am happy to have created these moments for them. I certainly remember my own moments playing games with my daughters. 

There were other types of groups. I had a group of young adults who were teachers. I had teenager groups too. 

Buddhima was right next to me and he demoed Malaysian Holidays (designed by me) and Counting Cats (designed by Haireey). He has been actively collaborating with other local designers. 

This year Hwa Siang organised MYBOGADECO - Malaysia Board Game Design Competition. I have participated in this as a contestant in the past. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves was a contest entry. This year Hwa Siang invited me to be one of the judges. Jon was also invited to be a judge. The three of us did judging on Sun 20 Sep 2026, at Jon's home. The competition parameter is everything must fit in a mint tin box. There were some interesting ideas. Hwa Siang will be compiling the final scores and the results should be out soon. 

MYBOGADECO is a little different from the Design & Play game design competition. The judging criteria is broader and it challenges several capabilities a professional game designer would need to have to be successful in the market. For example how well you can pitch you game to a publisher. 

The Design & Play game design competition results were announced on 16 Sep 2026 at GMBB Mall. We had a simple event and ceremony for it. 

GMBB Mall let us use a reading corner for the afternoon for playing the finalist games. 

Our lead organiser Jon feeling nervous in the limelight

We had a pretty good crowd that afternoon. All the tables were occupied most of the time. 

It is encouraging to see so many people interested in designing games and in trying one another's games. 

I taught my family Rikka. It is still decent at second play. Sometimes I wonder whether Japanese games have a halo effect on me. I think I am already predisposed to like them because I think highly of them. Well, that may not be a problem. If it makes me happy, what's the problem?

With my second play of Rikka, I feel there is a significant element of luck. Sometimes you just get lucky starting hands. I think that's okay. It's a light and short game. You have some interesting decision making. You make small gambles, e.g. deciding to focus on a certain number and hoping you will get more of that later. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't. 

I played Shady Lady again too. I told my family this could be played in the dark, and Chen Rui insisted we try it. I found out it didn't actually work. We spread out the cards to let them absorb light for a while, and then played with the lights off. We could more or less read the cards, but it was not easy. So don't play this in the dark. It doesn't work. 

Younger daughter Chen Rui is overseas now, continuing her studies. Before the end of her summer break, we played Innovation. We played this a lot last year before she went overseas. We both like the game. This copy we played was Innovation Ultimate. 

Dog represents domestication! 

Using the power of El Dorado is equivalent to buying a lottery ticket. You are probably wasting your time and money, but if you get very lucky, you will earn a lot of money. I was way behind Chen Rui and I knew it was hard to catch up, so I placed my bet on El Dorado. I ended up wasting many turns because it never worked for me. 

I recently played Innovation with Jon. He had both the iello version and the 4th edition, and he wanted to see what the differences were. The iello version has pretty art, but I'm too used to the minimalistic art and I find it a little distracting. Also I'm too used to the original terminology and I can't get used to the terms in this edition. Some of the card powers have changed between the iello edition and the 4th edition. The 4th edition seems to be the same or very close to Innovation Ultimate. I've played a fair bit of Innovation, but I never bothered to make detailed comparisons. I just enjoy the ride. 

I also played DVONN and Lost Cities with Chen Rui. It's nice to revisit some older games. After so many years, Lost Cities still amazes me. Such a simple game, and yet so much decision angst. I remember it was much hotter back in the day - in the 2000's. I think many gamers who entered the hobby in the past ten years may not know about it. It's a classic that deserves to be an evergreen two-player game. 

Innovation: Cities of Destiny

I continue my ongoing online games of Innovation with younger daughter Chen Rui, who is now away from home. We have moved on to playing with the expansion Cities of Destiny. I'm sure later we will cycle back to the others. Although the latest rules for Innovation have been implemented on both Yucata.de and BoardGameArena.com (available if you participate in early testing), we are still playing with the older rules on BGA. I think they work just fine. 

I had thought the Cities of Destiny expansion would be rather simple. I had played it a few times in the past, and it was mixed in with other expansions. I only skimmed the rules, and since it was mixed with other expansions, I didn't assess it closely by itself. That's a problem of being sloppy when I play games online. The cards from the Cities expansion do not have any dogma powers. They all have six icons instead of four. Cities can help you in gaining majority in icons. You get to draw a city card when you play a new colour, or when you splay a colour in a new direction. 

Cities introduces some new icons. The arrow icons let you splay your stack in a specific direction. The flag icon counts as an achievement if you have the most cards visible in that colour. This is a temporary achievement. It counts only when you fulfil the condition and the flag is still visible. 

Plus signs let you draw cards

The special achievements that come with Cities are along the lines of melding a city which lets you splay in a direction when the stack is already splayed in that direction, or tucking a city with a fountain or flag icon. You don't draw cities that often, so these are not easy to achieve. 

This was one unusual situation. Chen Rui had four Age 10 cards, but her top green card was still an Age 1 card, the city of Jerusalem. Also she had many cards in her blue and yellow stacks, but till now they were still not yet splayed. 

We now play with the variant of requiring one extra achievement to win the game. This makes our games go a little longer. We reach the later ages more often. It's always exciting to get there. Many of the powers in Age 10 are crazy. 

In this particular game, Chen Rui and I were tied at 6 achievements. We both needed two more to win. I had this Kuala Lumpur card in hand and it had a fountain icon. The fountain icon counts as an achievement as long as it is visible. It is better than a flag because it doesn't require you have the most cards in the colour. On my turn, I managed to claim the Age 9 achievement, and then play Kuala Lumpur, to gain two achievements on the same turn. That ended the game. Chen Rui told me she could have gained two achievements too on her turn. She had Taipei city, which also had a fountain. It also had two clock icons, which would help her achieve the special achievement requiring 3 icons in all 6 types. So she just needed one action - to play Taipei. This was one very close game! 

Cities of Destiny introduces the endorse mechanism. You can use the dogma power of a card twice if you have a city which has the icon associated with the dogma, and you are willing to spend a card. Endorsed dogmas pack double the punch. 

This expansion is not as simple as I expected. I had thought it would feel like a mini expansion. It feels close to a full expansion experience. I am quite happy playing with just this one expansion by itself. It doesn't need to be combined with other expansions to make a more satisfying game. And hey, Kuala Lumpur is in the game. That's certainly a plus! 

Innovation: Artifacts of History

Artifacts of History is an expansion of Innovation. Currently I am playing it online with younger daughter Chen Rui on BoardGameArena.com. The implementation on BGA is based on an older version of the game. Innovation is also available on Yucata.de for free, and there it is based on the latest edition released in 2025. However Chen Rui and I are used to playing on BGA. I have other games in progress with other friends on BGA too. So we just do BGA even though it is not the latest. 

Artifacts comes with a whole set of cards, and most (probably all) of them are very powerful. However you don't get to draw artifact cards easily, and usually you will only have one artifact card. Normally there are only two ways you can draw an artifact card. First, by covering an existing card with another of the same or an earlier age. Second, by covering an existing card with another which has the hexagonal icon in the exact same position. When you draw an artifact card, you must reveal it to everyone and place it on an imaginary pedestal. From your next turn onwards, you have an additional choice at the start of your turn. You may use the artifact card (dogma it) then return it, or you may return it without using it, or you may do nothing and keep it. You can only ever have one artifact card on your pedestal. Artifacts are powerful, but everyone knows what you have, so they can try to prepare for when you use it.

I still think the best way to play Innovation with expansions is to use only one expansion at a time. With two or more the game feels a little tedious to me. Too many aspects to juggle. The fun part of Artifacts is how overpowered the cards feel. Since you will only use a small number of artifact cards every game, this expansion will last you many plays.

This is one of the artifacts. This can end the game by Age 4! Chen Rui won one game using this. At the time I had more coins than her, and I smugly told her I didn't need to fear her. However I was sloppy and forgot to collect the five colours. Since I had more coins, if she used this artifact, I would execute the dogma ability first. If I fulfilled the winning condition, I would win the game. She saw that I didn't even have five cards in hand at the time, which meant it was not possible for me to have fulfilled the condition. Since she had fulfilled the condition, she could safely activate the artifact and win the game. 

This is another powerful artifact. You get to claim an achievement even if you don't have the required points. Artifacts can be turned into normal cards. This way, you don't need to return it after using the dogma power. You meld it like a normal card. After that you can use the dogma power multiple times. 

Artifacts comes with an optional module - the relics. This is a special type of achievement. There are relics only for Ages 3 to 7. When you claim an artifact, you get to also claim a relic of the same age. If that relic has already been claimed by an opponent, you steal it from them. This aspect is different from regular achievements. Normally your achievements are protected and cannot be stolen. Relics are a quick way you can push for a win, but you have to remember they are vulnerable. Relics can be turned into normal cards. When you do this, they are no longer achievements, and they can no longer be stolen as achievements. 

Innovation is becoming an ongoing game between Chen Rui and I. When one game ends, we start another. On BGA there are several expansions. We play expansions one by one, so this means we can rotate. 

Innovation: Echoes of the Past

Playing Innovation online with younger daughter Chen Rui has now become our norm. Now that she is studying away from home, this is a good way for us to continue playing games together. Well, kind of together. We mostly play in asynchronous mode, but sometimes we are online at the same time, and we video call while we play. Innovation is free to play on BoardGameArena.com. In addition to the base game, these expansions are available too - Echoes of the Past, Artifacts of History and Cities of Destiny. Now Chen Rui and I play Echoes of the Past. 

The version implemented on BoardGameArena.com is no longer the latest. Innovation Ultimate was released this year. The base game and all the expansions have been tweaked. I find the online version works just fine. We are now happily enjoying ourselves exploring all the card powers in Echoes. We are in no hurry to delve into Artifacts or Cities. 

In the online version, the rule for drawing an expansion card is whenever you have no expansion card in hand and you are to draw a card, you must draw an expansion card. In the latest rules, if your highest level stack is the only stack of yours at that level, then whenever you need to draw a card, you draw an expansion card. 

Echoes is a big expansion. It comes with a full set of cards, which means you have as big a strategy space to explore as the base game. Plenty of quirky powers to explore and exploit. In terms of game mechanisms, the two new elements are bonuses and echo effects. Bonuses appear on some of the expansion cards, in the position of one of the icons. They simply give you additional points, on top of the cards you score. If you have multiple bonuses visible in your tableau, only one will score based on its face value. The others give you only 1 point each. Echo effects are like mini dogma effects. If an echo effect is visible, if you dogma that colour, you execute all the echo effects first before executing the dogma itself. If you splay your stack in such a way that you make many echo effects visible, your dogma action can become very powerful. 

Chen Rui and I set our games to require an extra achievement to win. Normally with two players and one expansion in use, the victory condition is 7 achievements. We make our game require 8 instead. This way it is more likely we will reach the later ages. Also we more like need to claim some special achievements. This lets us explore and experience more aspects of the game. 

We had one particularly exciting game. She did well early on, scoring many points and quickly grabbing the normal achievements from age 1 to 6. 

This was bad for me. She only needed two more achievements to win. I had no choice but to work on the special achievements. I kept falling behind on points. I worked on making my nation strong. I collected many cards, splayed them as much as I could, and built a huge empire with many icons. It was by doing this that I was able to start claiming the special achievements. Special achievements are hard to claim, but if you can persist until late game and build a large empire, it becomes easier. Patiently I built my nation, and step by step I managed to get seven special achievements! 

Later Chen Rui managed to get a seventh achievement too, a normal achievement based on her score. Now we were tied at seven achievements each. Eventually I managed to get my eighth achievement, which was a normal achievement based on my score. That was a hard-earned victory. By this time three of my stacks were splayed up. My nation was a superpower. 

Innovation: Figures in the Sand

The Game

I have been playing Innovation with younger daughter Chen Rui frequently. We both enjoy the game. Some time ago I had purchased the expansion Figures in the Sand, but it sat on the shelf for many years. Now finally it can see some use. Chen Rui and my default mode in playing Innovation is with this expansion now. 

The card backs in this expansion are green, so you can easily tell the cards apart. During game setup, the expansion cards are kept separate and stacked below the base game cards and rotated by 90 degrees. The expansion cards are only drawn under specific situations. Normally you only draw the base cards. When one stack of base cards is exhausted, that age is considered to have ended and you move on to draw base cards from the next age. You don't continue to draw expansion cards from the current age.

Cards in Figures in the Sand are all famous people and leaders from history. You can only have one active leader at any one time. Whenever you have two leaders as your top cards, you must remove one of them and place the removed leader in your score pile. Figures in the Sand is the second expansion for Innovation. It uses some mechanisms that were first introduced in the first expansion. For me to be able to play this expansion, I need to learn the rules to both the first and second expansion.

This is one of the leader cards. In the game leaders are called figures. The figures themselves do not have dogma abilities, which means you do not directly activate them or use them to perform any action. Instead they enhance other actions you take. In this photo above the light square with text inside is an echo, a mechanism first introduced in the first expansion. When you perform a dogma action on a splayed stack of cards, you get to execute every echo power from bottom to top before you perform the dogma action itself. 

This is called a decree. It is a new type of achievement introduced in Figures in the Sand. To issue a decree, you need to have three figures from three different ages in hand. You return them all along with all other hand cards to issue a decree. This is very expensive, but a decree is a very powerful. You not only get to perform this powerful action, you also get to claim the decree card, which is an achievement. That means you are one step closer to victory. A decree is vulnerable, as in you might lose it. If another player issues a decree of the same type, you will be forced to return your decree card to the centre of the table. After that, whoever issues the same decree again gets to claim the decree card. There are 5 types of decrees, one in each colour. Due to the introduction of decrees, The win condition is increased. When playing with this expansion, you need one additional achievement to win.

That copper coin at the bottom left represents points. Now you get points not only from cards in your score pile but also from visible copper coins in your play area. If you have multiple copper coins, only one of them counts based on the value shown. Other copper coins are worth only 1 point. 

The fuzzy circle is an inspire power. Inspiring is a new game mechanism which is roughly an enhanced version of the draw action. When you perform an inspire action you must first pick one specific stack in your play area. You will be performing a draw action based on the top card of this stack only, not based on the highest top card in your whole play area. However if there are visible inspire powers in this stack, you get to execute them all before you perform this draw action. 

I have played several games using this expansion, but up to now I still have not used the inspire power even once. I wonder whether it is because I have been playing only two player games, so the game ends earlier and we do not have much opportunity to splay many cards or reveal many inspire powers.  

The Play

The figures introduced come with lots of interesting and strong powers. Figures are drawn only under two situations. Firstly, when an opponent claims a normal achievement, i.e. based on score. This makes claiming a figure a catch-up mechanism. Your opponent is making progress, you get a figure. Secondly, when you perform a dogma action and your opponents who are stronger than you get to piggyback on your action, you also draw a figure. This is also a catch-up mechanism, because your stronger opponent is taking advantage of you. This second situation creates incentive to intentionally take dogma actions even when it can benefit your opponent. Sometimes you want to do this for the sake of drawing a figure. Sometimes a dogma power may not be very useful for your opponent, or it might even hurt your opponent. You can intentionally force them to use your dogma power and at the same time let you draw a figure. Sometimes the weak can bully the strong.

The decrees are terrible! When I read some of these powers, I imagine the victim losing it and flipping the table. That bad. It is not easy to issue a decree. You don't get to draw figures all that often, and you need figures from three different ages. However there are some figures which make it easier to issue decrees.

Some of the figures in the expansion affect things I have never seen before. For example some figures temporarily increase your number of icons based on specific conditions. This translates to your civilisation being more powerful as long as this particular leader is still around. Some figures add cards to the achievement area. Normally there is one copy each of cards numbered 1 to 9 in the achievement area. If cards are added, it means more opportunities for everyone to claim achievements. There is an additional challenge if you try to claim a numbered achievement which you already have. For example to clean the number 2 achievement you need to have 10 points. If you want to claim your second number 2 achievement you need 20 points. If there is a third one, you'd need 30 points before you can claim it. Some figures grant you a virtual achievement which does not require adding any card to the pool of available achievements if you fulfil a specific condition. So you can see how figures can really shake things up and give you surprises.

When I play with this expansion, I feel that 80% of the time I am still playing the base game, in terms of the cards I actually play with. You don't draw figures all that often. However they can have a big impact. The game play experience changes significantly even though only a handful of figures ever appear each game. I like this change. I don't mind that Innovation is still mostly Innovation.

When I was back in my hometown Kota Kinabalu, Chen Rui and I played using my mother's mahjong table. The size of the table was just nice. If we had three players it would not be enough.

This was one interesting situation we had. I only had one icon type - castles. I had many castles and nothing else.

Younger daughter Chen Rui

In this particular game we managed to draw an Age 10 card. This is very rare. We do 2-player games and normally our games end at Age 6 or 7. Sometimes we reach Age 8, but it is very rare to get to Age 9 or 10. This particular card helped me win, because at the time I had more achievements than Chen Rui. 

Both these figures help in issuing decrees. If you have one of them as an active leader you only need two other figures (of any age) to issue a decree. 

The unusual thing about this particular game was we skipped most of the Age 2 and 3 cards. We had access to Age 4 cards, and after playing them as top cards, we continued drawing cards from there on. 

When mum and the aunties needed to use the mahjong table, Chen Rui and I played using the coffee table. Thankfully the size was just right. 

The Thoughts

I don't quite remember whether I have played the first expansion of Innovation - Echoes of the Past. I probably did. I quite enjoyed Figures in the Sand. It has many interesting and fun cards. There are quite a few new rules, so this is meant for experienced players. I still remember Innovation the base game was hard to learn for a new player. Don't start your Innovation journey with any expansion. For experienced players, it might take a few games to get comfortable with all the new rules. Once they become second nature, the gameplay is smooth. 

My gut feel is you should not play Innovation with more than one expansion. Now I have not tried this yet, so this is just my guess. With more than one expansion, my guess is it might be too much work and too many things to think about all at the same time. The latest version of Innovation is called Innovation Ultimate, and it is being released now. I have preordered a copy. It has all the previous expansions plus one all new expansion. I'm going to try two expansions at the same time to see if it works well. My copy of Innovation is the first edition. By now the base game is up to the fourth edition, and it has been tweaked. I'm pretty happy even with the first edition, and I don't feel it needs to be tweaked. Well, maybe I'm not expert enough at it yet to see issues that others see. I'm actually a little worried whether I would dislike the tweaked latest edition because I'm too used to the first edition. 

Chen Rui is going overseas to study in September. We won't be able to do impromptu Innovation games like we do now. I found out that the game is free to play on BoardGameArena.com though. So maybe I can still arrange to play with her on BGA.