interviewed: Monkey Plays (Philippines)

 

I was interviewed by Dan of Monkey Plays at the Asian Board Games Festival in Manila. The full video (mostly English, some Tagalog) was her experience at the fair, and other designers were interviewed too. The video also shows Pinocchio being played. 

Link: https://youtu.be/WJ1WzEpplpw?si=VShCuwwhvFwZk8VH&t=667 

Dice N Dine event 14-15 Mar 2026

The past weekend was the Dice N Dine event at Lalaport, Kuala Lumpur, organised by The Magic Rain. It was not entirely a boardgame event. There were art booths and some cosplaying too. Surprisingly not many local game designers set up booths this time. Normally we have more. The venue is the Level 4 food court. The Dice N Dine concept is to run smallish events at food courts, because there will be foot traffic (I almost typed "food traffic"), and the event itself will also attract some foot traffic. Everybody wins. 

This being a smallish event, I didn't have high expectations about game sales. However my sales turned out okay, better than I expected. My main reason for attending these events is to promote boardgames as a whole. These are opportunities to let the public get to know about modern boardgames. The Malaysian boardgame industry still needs to do much to grow public awareness and to grow the market. 

Since many of my local designer friends couldn't make it to this event, I brought their games along to sell. Nasi Lemak is doing well. The Faculty of Fun team has done a great job developing and marketing their game. At the event, many people who visited my booth already knew about Nasi Lemak. They have either already played it before, or they have seen it somewhere else. It is often the first game visitors pick up to check out among all these titles. There is a lot I can learn from the success of Nasi Lemak. Faculty of Fun has just released their second game Roti Canai. 

I'm ready. Let's play!

This group of IIUM students had much fun with Pinocchio.

I was unwell a few days before the event. I had a slight fever and a sore throat. Thankfully the fever was gone by the time of the event, but my sore throat hadn't fully recovered. My booth was generally busy on Saturday. I was occupied most of the day teaching games. By mid afternoon I started to lose my voice. The event was 11am to 9pm. By the end of the day I almost completely lost my voice. I had a big problem now. How was I (well, my throat) going to last another full day? So I made this little sign board above. My thinking was if I couldn't speak at all, or if I wanted to rest my voice, I'd ask visitors to scan the QR codes to watch how-to-play videos themselves. Self-service. In the end, that didn't happen. I still did all the game teaching on Sunday. In a terrible voice. The crowd was smaller on Sunday. It feels weird to say that it's a good thing, but it was less taxing on my throat. 

They placed me at the first spot, which was nice. It was a visible spot. 

The Malaysia Boardgame Show had a booth too, to promote the event, which is happening on 18-19 April 2026. 

The game which sold best at the event was Pinocchio. That surprised me a little. Out of four of my published game titles, the one which is selling best in Malaysia is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. I had prepare the most copies of Ali Baba. I think Pinocchio did well partly because of the price point. It is MYR29, and this is the kind of price that the general public thinks of as "that's not expensive". Card games like that in the boardgame hobby sell for roughly MYR60 to MYR120. Boardgamers are used to that price range, but non-gamers find this rather high. One couple who tried Pinocchio straight-away bought two copies, one to keep at home and the other to bring to the office to play with colleagues. They expected the office copy to suffer much wear-and-tear, and they wanted one longer lasting copy for themselves. 

One other thing that made me happy at the event was when two gamer guys sat down to try Dancing Queen and then they each bought a copy. This doesn't often happen. Usually when a few friends visit my booth together and one of them buys a game, the others will think since you have a copy, I can also borrow it from you when I feel like playing it. When these two guys both liked my game enough to want a copy in their own collections, that made me proud and happy. 

I had a visitor from the Philippines. She is a gamer. She asked whether I would be at the Asian Board Games Festival in Manila in May this year. I said yes. If she knew about the ABGF, she must be a gamer. I'm looking forward to that event. I have never exhibited in the Philippines before. I'm keen to see whether my games will do well there. 

I am thankful several of my friends who knew I was at the event came to visit. This photo above was taken by Chung and Moh Yen. Proof that I was working hard. Teacher Teh came to visit. Eva came to visit, and even bought me some lozenges when she saw (well, heard) the condition of my throat. 

Kuplay is a Malaysian online boardgame retailer founded just a few years ago and is doing well. Ji Li (right) regularly took stock from me, so Cili Padi Games is grateful to him for supporting local designs. At this particular game of Dancing Queen, I the veteran lost to both of them playing as a team. They were new to the game, but certainly not new to boardgames. I guess I can't beat dual core! 

(photo courtesy of The Magic Rain)

My wife Michelle dropped me off and picked me up both days, so that I didn't need to park my car there the whole day. I'm grateful for that, and that she supports me in doing crazy stuff like this - I was not feeling well, and I was still going out for full days doing something that was tiring and not very profitable. When she picked me up in the evening, she came early and accompanied me for a while at my booth. She saw how players laughed and had fun with my games, and she understood the value and the purpose behind me doing all this mad stuff. 

boardgaming in photos: Axis & Allies & Zombies, Pinocchio, Money Laundering

In recent months my blog has been so full of screenshots of digital implementations of boardgames that it is looking more like a computer games blog than a boardgame blog. So I need to post some photos of physical boardgames to balance that and make me feel more like a boardgamer. 

Han was in town, and we met up to play. This time it was only the two of us. We wanted to ask Allen to join us, but he wasn't back in town that weekend. I suggested Axis & Allies & Zombies. I quite like the Axis and Allies series. It's one of my nostalgia games, and I haven't played the series for quite a while. I have only played this zombie version once, and I didn't even manage to complete the game then. This time, the first place where zombies (white) appeared was Sweden. 

This is World War 2 with zombies, so don't expect history accuracy. This is fantasy, not history. Germany (black) attacked Egypt. Although the battle went well for them, they decided to retreat because there were too many zombies. In this game, whenever an infantry unit dies, it turns into a zombie. This is quite a scary thing. Germany basically left the zombies for the Brits to manage. Later the zombies killed the remaining British troops, and Egypt fell to the zombies. 

This was Asia before action started. This is a low unit count version of Axis & Allies, which means it is simpler, but also the swing of luck is bigger. Things can go in many different ways after the first round. 

UK sent troops from Australia and India to capture Malaya and Indochina. Japan did not attack Pearl Harbour and instead concentrated it's fleet to destroy the UK Pacific fleet. It also did an amphibious landing to attack and eventually capture Yunnan. 

Surprisingly our game ended in Round 2. Germany blitzed into Moscow and captured it. There was one territory before Moscow, but it was occupied only by zombies and not Soviet troops. This allowed Germany to blitz through it with all the tanks it had. There was some risk, since Germany infantry could not keep up and support by being cannon fodder. It would be an expensive offensive. If this failed, Germany would lose most of its tanks and the next offensive would take many rounds to be ready. Thankfully I managed to capture Moscow. 

In this version of Axis & Allies, victory is checked at the end of each round. If you capture an opponent capital while keeping all of your own, you win. USSR had an army just next door which could have easily recaptured Moscow, but USSR had taken its turn and the recapturing would need to be next round. Its other allies were too far away to help. So this game which I had expected to take the whole evening ended much earlier than anticipated. 

The funny thing about playing this game was sometimes we felt like cooperating to push back the zombies. This is a game in which both players can lose. If zombies capture territories worth $25 in total, they win. It is quite a horrifying experience watching infantries turn into zombies. 

We played Lost Cities. This two-player card game is a classic from Reiner Knizia. It was one of the game I bought when I just got into the hobby. I hadn't played it for quite some time, and playing it again reminded me of how wonderful this design is. 

We also did another Reiner Knizia classic Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I played the Light side, and the game was a slaughter. I lost horribly. We were not true to original story at all. 

28 Sep 2025. There was a boardgame event at Lolla Paluza cafe. Several local designers attended, and some local gamers too. I introduced my games Pinocchio and Dancing Queen. I also played some of Jon's (King & Peasant, Furmation of Rome) prototypes. I played a newer iteration of Foundations of Rome. This has similarities to Castle Combo, and I think it is a better game. The need to plan for buildings getting built over is challenging and interesting. The other prototype I tried was Money Laundering in this photo above. 

I find the theme hilarious. This is a bad boy game. Think Breaking Bad. The core game mechanism is interesting. You run illegal business like smuggled cigarettes, drugs and weapons, and you need to launder your dirty money before they are worth points. You can tip off the police and get everyone raided. Anyone who doesn't have enough hiding places for illegal goods and dirty money will lose them. That's very painful, even when it's crime money. It's not easy being a crime lord. 

This is a mid-weight strategy game and I hope to see it published. 

30 Sep 2025. My business community the BNI Lighthouse chapter had its annual teambuilding 2D1N trip. I brought Pinocchio to teach my friends, and they had great fun with it. I am glad I had the foresight to bring two copies, because I needed both. Of the four games I have published, this was the only one suitable for this occasion. This was a casual crowd and not the boardgame special interest group subset of friends who would be mentally prepared to learn a few more rules. It made me very happy to see my friends have so much fun with the game. 

Pinocchio at Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore

Pinocchio is one of the Asian games featured at a special exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore - Let's Play: The Art and Design of Asian Games. This exhibition runs from Sep 2025 to Jun 2026. Big thank you to Casey from To The Table for introducing Pinocchio. 

There is going to be a copy of Pinocchio you can play at the museum. If you are in Singapore, go check out this exhibition. 

Pinocchio has a serial number of 071, which means there are many other games you can check out. 

Pinocchio is released!

The first batch of Pinocchio has landed in Kuala Lumpur! I flew a small batch in by air, so that I can bring them to the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang on 11 - 13 July 2025. My plan has been to launch the game at ABGF, but the project was a little slower than I had hoped. If I were to send all the games by ship, they wouldn't make it for the event. So I split them into two batches. The second, bigger batch will be coming by sea. 

Pinocchio is my fourth game release.

The box is a little bigger than I had imagined. I had originally envisioned it to be about the same size as the first edition of Dancing Queen, i.e. like a regular deck of poker cards. Late in the production process, the manufacturer suggested adjusting the size to be larger. I had requested that the box be big enough so that after the cards are sleeved, they can still fit comfortably. The manufacturer is more conservative and recommended a larger size. 

This is what it looks like after sleeving all the cards. It looks like a perfect fit. There is actually still a little extra space, but not too tight is good. I won't stress the box and risk tearing it. 

Now I add both Traditional and Simplified Chinese rulebooks to my games. 

All the game components

Some of the cards

Mock-up of game in play

Pinocchio cards

Donkey cards

This is the unboxing video: 

This is an overview of how to play the game: 

Webpage (and order form): https://www.cilipadigames.com/pinocchio

The Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) will be in Penang 11-13 July 2025 (Friday to Sunday). If you are in Penang or in the north, come visit me to try Pinocchio!

Behind the scenes: Pinocchio

Pinocchio has gone to print. It is estimated to land in Malaysia in July. Here's a sneak peek at what happens behind the scenes. The manufacturer Magicraft sent me this video for production check, to make sure the components are complete and correct. Of course the music was added by me. That's not part of the game manufacturing process. Pinocchio will contain rules in three languages - English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. 

Pinocchio going to print

The game I plan to publish in 2025 under the Cili Padi Games label is Pinocchio, my fourth game (not counting the second Malaysian edition of Dancing Queen). The art is done, and it is going to the manufacturer to schedule production. Pinocchio is a simple card game. The main components are just 14 cards. Other cards in the box are supporting components, for score keeping and for player reference. The box will be about the size of a standard deck of poker cards. Pocket-sized. It will be a tuck box. 

Cards in Pinocchio are numbered from 0 to 20. Two of 0, 1, 2,  3, 5, and 6, and one of 10 and 20. The easiest way to describe the game is it is like Liar's Dice. In fact an earlier working name for the game was Liar's Deck. It is even simpler than Liar's Dice. In Asia, Liar's Dice is often played as a drinking game. You can play Pinocchio as one too, but please drink responsibly. 

In Pinocchio, a round starts with one card being revealed, and the start player drawing a card. He looks at it and then placed it face-down before him. He then announces what it is. He may lie. From the next player onwards, a turn works like this. You only have two options. Challenge the previous player, or draw a card. Challenging the previous player is not actually about calling him a liar. It is about saying that the total of all cards drawn (including the revealed card and all players' cards) has now exceeded 21. Once you challenge, everyone reveals his cards. If the total is indeed more than 21, the previous player takes a penalty. Otherwise, you do. Very simple. The difficulty is in guessing whether the total has exceeded 21, because you can't be sure whether everyone has been truthful. 

If you decide to draw, you announce it first before actually drawing a card. This is to give an opportunity to everyone else to issue a double challenge. A double challenge works the same way. It is called a double challenge because the penalty is doubled. 

The game mechanism is simple. I chose to publish this game because it is something non-gamers can easily learn to play, and are able to quickly find the fun. The games I am publishing seem to be getting simpler. My first game Dancing Queen is a short game, but it is by no means simple. It is a filler for gamers. It is difficult for non-gamers to learn by themselves. Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs is much simpler, perhaps even more so than my third game Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Ali Baba and Pinocchio have one thing in common. In Ali Baba you don't want the total to exceed 11. In Pinocchio you don't want the total to exceed 21. However in Ali Baba all cards chosen are revealed. In Pinocchio the players announce the values without revealing the cards. The cards are only revealed when a challenge is issued. 

Donkeys are your "points". When you get a penalty, you get a donkey. Reach four donkeys and you lose, and the game ends. The player with the fewest donkeys wins. 

Card back

I am to release Pinocchio on or before 11 July 2025, which is the Asian Board Games Festival (Malaysia) that will be held in Penang. Come give it a go!