Malaysia Design & Play game design competition 2026 finalists

This is the second year the Design & Play game design competition is held. I am one of the judges, together with five other local game designers and publishers. Our goal in doing this is to encourage others to try their hands at game design, to develop Malaysian game design, and to bring more good Malaysian games to the world. This year we had 113 registrations. By the time of submission (2-minute video and rulebook required), 65 contestants managed to have their games ready. We have now completed the judging for the first round, and shortlisted our top 9 - our finalists. We are supposed to have just the top 8, but because scores were close, we agreed to make it nine. This exact same thing happened last year. It might become a tradition. Now the finalists are sending to us their physical prototypes, and we will have a judging day for all of us to play the games. Final results are to be announced on Malaysia Day, 16 September 2026. 

These are our Top 9 (in random order): 

Our judging process requires that every game be rated by at least three judges. Around position 8 we had several games tied in points. All these games were then rated by the other judges who had not rated them yet. Even after this scoring, the points for some games were very close. So we agreed to again make an exception and have nine finalists this year instead of the originally planned eight. 

Here are some of my thoughts after having completed the judging for our first round. 

1. The overall quality of the games has gone up. There are more games that make me feel I want to try them. There are some games I am keen to try which did not make it to the top 9, because they didn't do as well with other judges. 

2. AI has been helpful in making prototype art and rulebook layout. Many games look great. Art is not scored, but it does make our lives as judges a bit happier. It helps us get into the mood of the games. We are better able to imagine what it feels like. I am guessing some participants asked AI to help proofread and tidy up their rulebooks. This certainly made our lives easier too. I suspect some asked AI to write the rules or design the game for them. These did not work out well at all. They were incomplete and did not make sense. 

3. I reflect on the fact that we as judges are so very imperfect. As I do the judging, I question myself - who am I to judge this game? How good a game is is subjective. As judges, we all have our biases. Although there are six of us, I think even as a group we still have some common biases. We may think a game is too simple and lacks meaningful decisions, but if that game gets fantastic art and is marketed well, it might become a viral hit none of us would have expected. Fun is subjective. Despite my imperfection, I still need to do my job as a judge, and I rate the games to the best of my ability. I need to be able to articulate at least to myself why a game is good or bad. 

4. I am a little surprised that some good designers did not make it to the top 9. Some of them participated last year. Some of them have participated in other competitions, or we have seen their designs elsewhere. I interpret this as: even when you are a good designer, not every one of your games will be great. Some are better than others, but you keep at it and you keep improving your average quality. I also interpret it as: sometimes your idea just doesn't click with the judges, due to their personal preferences and biases. 

5. We have new faces in the top 9. That's a good thing. 

I think we have already achieved the most important goal of the competition. It is to get many people to be doing game design, discussing it, giving feedback to one another, learning from doing, gaining experience. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to console those who didn't make it to the finals. I truly believe one very important thing you get from competitions is what you learn and how you become better at designing a game. That is why all of us judges take the time to write feedback for every game we judge. 

This is the Youtube playlist of the 2-minute video introductions for the Top 9 games: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO9jzqUhmrEI

 

This is for all contestants: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLciPyvfyKznI 

boardgaming in photos: playtesting

Choon Ean and I were at Kinokuniya bookstore (Pavilion Damansara Heights) demoing our games over the weekend of 30-31 May 2026. This time our tables were occupied more, compared to two weeks earlier when I was there by myself. There were people who stayed to play for quite long. It feels great to see people enjoy my games and want to play again and again. That weekend I think I sold out all the copies of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves at this Kinokuniya branch. At least I didn't see any more left. Not sure if they still had some in storage. 

My friend TS Tan visited, bringing his family. This was the first event I used my new apron. The colour is not the same red as my Cili Padi Games logo, but I quite like it. 

This was my setup. 

Jon had an ad hoc game session at Lolla Paluza cafe on a Tuesday which was a public holiday (replacement for Agong's birthday, which was offset by the replacement for Wesak Day). This was one of the games we played, Martin Wallace's Hit Z Road. It's a zombie game, and it's an auction game. Yeah, this sounds weird, but the game works pretty well. 

The currency in the game is bottle caps. There are three types - ammunition, fuel and adrenalin. 

Every round there are as many pairs of encounters as there are players, and the players bid for turn order to pick a pair of encounters. Encounters are a mix of good and bad. As the game progresses, they get worse - more zombies, fewer resources, more types of dangers. I think we bid too much. We spent a lot of resources to try to avoid bad encounters. When bids go high, it's bad for everyone. We have fewer resources to help us survive and fight the zombies. 

I was the first to lose all my people and thus lose the game. It happened in the second last round. Jon and Ji Li lost in the final round. Darryl was the only player who managed to survive and get to California. 

One of the encounters. 

The Collectors Court event was held at the Summit USJ mall over the weekend of 6-7 Jun 2026. This was mostly focused on trading card games (TCG's). Jon and Haireey had booths there. There were tables made available for playtesting. The Design & Play game design competition is ongoing now. Jon, Haireey and I are part of the judging team, together with Chee Kong, Logan and Buddhima. Contestants were encouraged to come to the event to playtest one another's games. We the judges also brought our games to be playtested, even though they were not contest entries. News at 8 is Haireey's prototype. I have seen it being playtested several times, but this was my first time trying it. By now it is already different from the earlier versions. 

Every round, one player needs to perform. He reads a news item, and depending on the intensity card he draws (which the other players cannot see), he needs to fill in some blanks to convey the intensity level (or newsworthiness). 

Intensity goes from 1 to 10, so 8 is high.

The guessing players need to fight for these number tokens. There is only one for each number. You need to grab the one you think is the correct answer. 

This is Vinod's prototype, a game about matchmaking. It will be released by I-van under Roll Rebellion. It is a simple game for casual players. 

To win the game, you need to find bride and groom of matching colours, a date which matches their colour, and also you need a priest. 

On your turn you draw two cards, one after the other. You can take a card for yourself, or you can give it to someone else (they must accept). This is a game where you can mess with your friends a lot. The fate cards have all sorts of powers, some good and some bad. 

Playing this game and observing it being played gave me much food for thought. This is a very simple game with plenty of luck. It is not my type of game. However in the same game I played, I noticed how much others enjoyed it. People liked the setting. I-van's HR Game has been hugely successful in Malaysia. Also a simple game, and also not my type, but it has been very well received. I think I-van has made a good pick with Vinod's matchmaking game and I think it will do well. When I choose which games of my own to publish, I have been moving towards simpler games, which I hope will get more acceptance by the Malaysian general public. My first published game Dancing Queen is the most complex, and my fourth, Pinocchio, is the simplest. The next one, Pilgrim Poker, is not as simple as Pinocchio. It is roughly at the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves level of complexity, i.e. not very complex. I have a weakness in making simple games. I do try to make my games as simple as they can be, while still offering something unique, or a least some twist. However I can never quite make a truly simple game that the casual crowd will immediately like. I hope Malaysian Holidays can be something like that, but even then I think I have some rules that will require some effort for non-gamers to digest. 

Many contest entries for the Design & Play competition were playtested at the Collectors Court event, but I did not get to try many of them, because I couldn't stay long. It is encouraging to see many people actively participating in the playtesting session. 

Jeixel brought his contest entry, a game about lousang, a Chinese custom during Chinese New Year, practised by Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese. Lousing is about tossing various food ingredients to bring good luck. In the game, you mix the cards and make a messy pile at the centre of the table. You then drop dice to claim ingredient cards. When Jeixel explained the rules to us, my first thought was "What? That's it?!"  However once we started playing, this turned out to be more challenging and more fun than I had expected. Those dice that you drop, most of the time they roll away, forcing you to take a different card from what you originally intended. Sometimes they roll off the card pile and you get nothing. You can try to knock your opponents' dice away, and this happened a lot in our game. If two players have dice on the same card, it is the higher valued die which wins. Very simple concept, which didn't sound like much at first, but once I started playing, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Each card is 1 point. 

When you have three of a kind, you get +2 points.

I asked others to help me playtest my Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦) game. I have a nagging feeling that it is too simple. Maybe I should not think that way. Simple is good. Now I am experimenting with adding a bit more to the game. This might be my next game for 2027. 

The green cubes are a new element. When you play a meld, if the exact same meld has been played before, whether by yourself or by other players, your latest meld scores a bonus 1 point for each previously played meld. At the moment this little new rule seems to work okay. People don't find this difficult to remember, and it adds a little bit of strategic consideration. Players may hold back on playing a meld, hoping someone else will play theirs first. Is this absolutely necessary? Maybe not. This might end up being a variant. 

Another rule change I have playtested is giving Jia Baoyu (the 0 card) a special power. If you don't play a meld on your turn, you may discard JBY to take any card from the discard pile. This can be a very powerful move if you are short of just one card for a big meld. However, JBY is often a very important card you need for big melds too. So using it for its power is not something you take lightly. I've only playtested this once. The players did use it. I'm not sure yet whether this is a good addition. 

There are other more complicated additions I am toying with. In the game there are 11 types of melds. I have a little board listing them all. When you play a meld, if this is the first time in the game this meld is played, you mark the board with a cube. Every meld in the game refers to a chapter in the book. The characters required for a meld are the main characters in the corresponding chapter. Instead of playing 3 rounds, the game ends after all melds have been marked. This is thematic. The story is complete after all chapters are covered. But this might be tedious. I'm not sure whether the experience is worth the tedium.

The next addition is also related to marking melds off. The player gets a bonus 1 point whenever the 2nd, 4th, 6th etc meld type is marked. Whoever marks the 11th meld type gets 2 points. This mechanism introduces a new layer for planning. I have not tried this, and I am already worried it is tiresome. 

Another one related to marking off melds - the ironman rule. Every meld can only be played once within the same round. If someone else has played a meld, you can't play it any more. You don't need a central board to track this. You just need to check the melds in front of other players before you play any meld. This might be an interesting variant. If someone has already made the strongest meld (11 points), if you have been working towards that, you are forced to switch tact. There will be some anxiety because the melds are first come first served. 

I have just started playtesting my Water Margin (水浒传) game. I am trying to make this a negotiation game. One key concept in the story of Water Margin is how those 108 main characters are stars fallen from heaven. They are the chosen ones. Now if I imagine myself in that world, in a bandits' lair with lots of outlaws, how would I know who are the fated 108 and who are not? Everyone wants to be the chosen one. So the game is going to be about being the chosen ones. 

My initial idea is that all players must play a card simultaneously, and they want to plan such that all their cards added up will make 108. If they can achieve this, everyone who has contributed cards scores points. If they go beyond (i.e. go bust), then some cards are discarded, and those who are forced to discard cards lose points. Some cards have special powers, e.g. being able to remove another card, being able to double the points of another card, and being protected against attacks. This is not a cooperative game, even though every round you generally try to work together to achieve the 108. Ultimately it is everyone for himself. You will want to discard your sworn brother's card if it's going to score him many points. 

I have playtested two versions of my game, and the big big problem is this - too much math. I made the card values 0, 4, 8, 20, 40, and 80, hoping to make the math manageable. However it is still too much. Too tiresome. For my next iteration I will completely remove this math part. The negotiations, the discussions, and the coordination before committing a card, all seem to work reasonably well. You have to rely on others, but you know no one is your friend. 

In the next version, instead of every card being numbered, I'm just going to have some cards which have a "1", some with a "0", and some with an "8". To "achieve 108", you need to have exactly one each of these numbered cards in play. If any number appears twice, there will be penalties and cards will be discarded. Doing it this way will be much simpler. No more math. 

Malaysia Boardgame Design Competition is back!

 

MYBOGADECO is back for a 2026 edition! This year the challenge is to design a game that fits in a mint tin. Scan the QR code to sign up! 

Design & Play 2026 - Malaysian game design competition

 

The Design & Play (DNP) game design competition is back! This is a competition open to all Malaysians. It is organised by Malaysia Boardgame Design (MBD). This was first held in 2025, so this is the second year we are doing this. We have the same team of six judges - all local designers and indie publishers. This year, the criteria is a little different. Instead of being limited to using cards as game components, you can now use dice as well. We are still sticking to the Malaysian theme. The goal is to promote Malaysian game design after all. We want to be an incubator which encourages new game designers. We want to bring good Malaysian game designs to the world stage. Whether you are new to designing tabletop games or otherwise, this is a good opportunity to get those creative juices going and experience the process of bringing a game to life. Every entry will be given feedback from our team of judges. The winner will have an opportunity to get their game published. Let's make some magic! 

I am very excited about this. I felt proud to be Malaysian when I played several of the finalists last year. We do have great talent. We did have entries which needed more polish, and contestants would benefit from more exposure to different games. However even among these entries I saw some promising concepts and healthy innovation. I hope to see several of them return this year. There were a few I wished could have made it to the final round. 

And I am hoping someone will make a game about how chill Malaysians are even when flights are delayed heh heh... 

DNP Game Design Competition finalists

Judgement Day for the Malaysia DNP game design competition was Sat 30 Aug 2025. All six of us judges assembled at Bored boardgame cafe to play and rate the nine finalists. The final results of the competition will be out on 16 Sep 2025 (Malaysia Day).  

• Awake En - Botanical Grabber (video) (rulebook)
• Lim Feng Keat - Gotong-Royong (video) (rulebook)
• Tang Hoe Ching - Malashion (video) (rulebook)
• Rasis - Rentak Wau! (video) (rulebook)
• Ray Tan - Teh Tarik Game (video) (rulebook)
• Jeixel Heng - Twin Towers (video) (rulebook)
• Jason Sondoh - Kandar Klash! (video) (rulebook)
• Anas Maghfur - Batik (video) (rulebook)
• Kenny Goh - JAM! (video) (rulebook)

All of the games are short or very short. We started at 10am, and I had expected we would be done by 4pm comfortably, including a lunch break. It turned out to be not the case. We needed to play some games multiple times to properly assess them. We also needed time to discuss and debate. It was a serious and intense affair. We challenged one another and posed sharp questions. It was a good mental workout for me, like I've played a full day of Splotter titles. It was interesting to hear different perspectives and opinions. 

One thing I observed was that some games were as good as they appeared to be based on watching the video introduction and reading the rulebook, while some were not as impressive in action as on paper. This is a limitation of our competition format. We didn't want to ask everyone to send in their prototypes, because we didn't have enough time to play every prototype. In Stage 1 of the competition we scored the game designs only based on video and rulebook, without actually having played the games themselves. This is certainly not a perfect approach. It is what is feasible and practical, and we have to accept the limitation. We mitigate the risk by having every game scored by multiple judges in Stage 1. 

One thing we might consider doing if (or maybe I should say when) we run this again next year is in Stage 1 to encourage contestants to share some or all of their print-and-play game cards. Some games have simple rules, and much of the gameplay is captured in the card powers, which are not shown through the video or rulebook, unless the designer deliberately inserts some of this information to showcase to the judges. If the card powers are submitted, we as judges can get a better idea of what the game is like. 

I notice how rulebook writing can be very difficult. We had a mixed bag. Some were done very well. Clean, clear and minimalistic. Some were frustrating and we had to spend time debating the designer's intention. We had to decide for ourselves how to interpret the rules. I have written rules myself, and I know how hard it is. It is not a surprise that some contestants have difficulties. It is more surprising that some managed to write so well. 

By the end of the day, we were quite happy with our ranking of the nine finalists. We had debates and we made adjustments after hearing different views, but ultimately all of us felt confident and proud to stand by our final ranking. 

Now that I have experienced being on the other side of a game design competition, I have learned that judging someone else's game is highly subjective. Whether a game does well in a competition is not an absolute measure of how good it is. It is only a measure of how good the panel of judges collectively think it is at the time of the competition. We the judges do our best to be objective, and to select the best game of the crop, but we know in game design there is no such thing as being 100% objective. 

Competitions are cruel, in that 99% of contestants walk away feeling disappointed. There is only one winner. Unfortunately, and this is probably an Asian culture thing, we tend to fixate on whether we win anything, and we overlook other things we gain along the way. Going through the whole game design, development and testing process and learning how to do them hands-on. Writing and rewriting the rulebook. Writing the script for a 2-minute video to make sure I present the most notable aspects of my game. Sharing my rulebook and asking others to critique it. We as judges wanted to give all contestants as much as we can, and we wrote detailed feedback and suggestions. We hope we will grow the community of boardgame designers in Malaysia, and have more and more quality designs emerge from this community. 

Here are our nine finalist games. 

Rentak Wau by Rasis is a 2-player microgame using only 18 cards. Over three rounds you want to fly your kite higher than your opponent, or you want to cut his kite down so that yours become the only kite remaining. Beware, if the wind is too strong, you might lose your kite to the wind. 

Gotong-Royong by Lim Feng Kiat has players playing cards to get as close to a specific target number as possible, but not more than that. If you go overboard, you get nothing. If you and another player achieve the same number, you clash and both get nothing. Of the remaining players, whoever is nearest to the target number wins the round. Cards can be played face-up or face-down, so you often don't know for sure what your opponents have. Cards have special powers which can modify your own total or your opponents' totals. One interesting aspect of the game is how you must conserve your cards. You don't draw cards by default. At the end of every round, you may decide to refill your hand to the standard hand size. However, whenever you do so, your hand size shrinks by one. 

Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan is played with exactly two teams of two, and teammates sit across the table from each other. Each team has exactly two opportunities to complete a teh tarik (bubbly milk tea) in the whole game. Each card in your cup scores 1 point. However, during the game you may spill tea too, either because you are unable to play a card on your turn, or you decide not to use your teh tarik card yet. When you spill tea, each card is negative 1 point. 

Each team has one cup, and when you start making tea, cards must be played in ascending order. The nasty part of this game is you can play a card in your opponent's cup. Yes, you are potentially giving them a point, but most likely you will be messing with them and limiting their plays. Some cards allow you to change the number requirement to the opposite direction, e.g. play in descending order instead. This can help you get more cards played to your cup, and thus score more points. 

Kandar Klash! by Jason Sondoh is a real-time game and requires some spatial skills. Every round an order is revealed, and everyone tries to complete that order as quickly as possible. 

Everyone has the same set of 6 cards. You must arrange them to create the pattern shown on the order card. Ideally you do so with as few of your 6 cards as possible. If you are quick enough, you score 1 point plus 1 point per leftover card in hand. If you are too slow, you get nothing. If you are quick, but you make a mistake, you are penalised instead. 

JAM! from Kenny Goh unites all Malaysians in hating traffic jams. Everyone wants to advance, and you simultaneously choose whether to take the highway, the city road or the back alley. If others choose the same route as you do, you will clash, creating the dreaded jam. You may end up in a standstill, or you may even be forced to go backwards. This is a game about trying to guess your opponents' choices. 

Batik from Anas Maghfur is a game of pattern recognition. Cards are double sided, with one side being a batik pattern, and the other being an objective you can try to fulfil and score points for. On your turn, you normally draw a card (deciding up front whether to make it an objective or batik), or play a batik to the table. 

At any time, including on other players' turns, if one of your objectives is fulfilled, you may declare so and play that objective before you. One interesting mechanism in the game is each completed objective can be tapped once per game to give you an extra play action on your turn. This can be crucial in completing some of the high-valued objectives. 

In Malashion by Tang Hoe Ching you try to claim traditional costumes by creating a row or column of three specific materials. You always have a hand of four materials which you can use for swapping with materials on the table. There are specific rules around when the swapped card stays face-up or must be turned face-down. Turning a card face-down is important because only the row and column of that face-down card can be used to claim a costume. 

Costumes come from different ethnic groups in Malaysia. If you collect two or more of the same ethnic group, you score bonus points. 

Botanical Grabber by Awake En is a 2-player game in which one plays the human and the other the monkey. The monkey has just stolen the human's bag, and the human needs to hunt down the monkey to get it back. Side note: Haireey who is from Penang has a different take on this. When we played, he was the human and he tried to run away from me, the monkey. He said in real life that is what he would do, because the monkeys in Penang are mad, and if you lose your bag to them, just kiss that bag goodbye. I think he's just making an excuse for having lost to me. 

The game is played over 8 rounds. The human wins by catching the monkey, and the monkey wins by avoiding capture for 8 rounds. Every round, both players simultaneously play a movement card and optionally an action card. The human movement cards offer more flexibility. The human can always choose one of two directions. The monkey movement cards only point at one direction. The human's movement is resolved before the monkey's. 

Action cards are drafted before the game starts, so once you are familiar with the game, you'll know which cards your opponent has chosen. 

Twin Towers by Jeixel Heng is a 2-player cooperative game with communication restrictions. You can't discuss your cards. You build the Petronas Twin Towers and try to go as high as possible. At Tower A, cards must be played in ascending order, while at Tower B, it must be descending. You must play a card every turn, because once you fail to do so, the game will end, and you will score based whatever you have achieved so far. 

You want the two towers to be of the same height. If they are not, a penalty is applied. I needed to take this photo to show how good I was at the game. I scored 23 points, partnering with Haireey. That was the high score. The other judges were nowhere near. Haiya... what are you guys doing? 

Haireey, Buddhima, Chee Kong, Logan, Jon and I