My Grand View Garden - a game about Dream of the Red Chamber

This game My Grand View Garden (我的大观园) is made by the Dream of the Red Chamber Society of University Malaya. I recently met a teacher Pey Ling who specialises in the four major Chinese literary works and runs courses analysing them. She is planning to great boardgames for them, to make her lessons more interesting to her students. She contacted me after reading about my blog post on my prototype for Dream of the Red Chamber. She was interested to meet up and exchange ideas. She had a copy of My Grand View Garden, which she hadn't had the chance to play till then, and we gave it a go when we met up. 

This game has already been produced properly. I am not sure how many copies. It has a proper box and production components. The game is in Chinese and Malay. No English. This is a Malaysianised version of Dream of the Red Chamber. The characters are in Baba and Nyonya costume instead of traditional Chinese costume. The Baba and Nyonya are Chinese who came to Malaysia centuries ago and have since developed a unique culture. Most of them are in Melaka. 

The game is a simplified version of Monopoly. Up to four players can play. You start with some money. You roll dice to move your pawn. You will have opportunities to buy land, build houses and collect rent. The game ends when one player goes bankrupt. Whoever is richest by then wins. Alternatively you can agree to play for a fixed amount of time. 

The board is double-sided. One side is Chinese and the other Malay. It's not actually a board. It's poster paper. Most spaces feature specific buildings from the book, which is nice. Some spaces trigger mini games. You can test one another's knowledge about the novel. One mini game even requires singing. 

The two types of cards are fate cards (pink) and chance cards (blue). If you land on a fate or chance space, you draw a card and do what it says. The fate cards feature many characters in the book. This is one way you learn about and discuss the book. 

The chance cards feature other elements in the book, for example objects and poetry. 

Each space is numbered (in Chinese), in the top left corner. This is helpful when you play the game. The land titles, houses and rent work differently from Monopoly. When you land on an opponent's property, the rent you have to pay is the same as the price of the property. So your return on investment is fantastic. The rulebook is not precise about how all this is handled, but we interpreted it this way. 

We had a group of players with very different experiences. Other than me, we had one highly experienced gamer, one moderately experienced gamer, and one non-gamer. For those of us experienced with modern boardgames, My Grand View Garden is clearly designed by inexperienced game designers. And that is no surprise. The society is of people who study literature, not people who study game design. We shared with Pey Ling our suggestions for the game, so that she could give this feedback to the society. One problem we found was people went bankrupt too easily. We didn't start with much money, and just a few bad events can make you lose all your money. 

These are the land title cards. Gameplay aside, the game does contain many elements from the novel, and thus can be a useful tool to learn about the story and trigger discussion about the characters. 

These dice are not for movement. These represent the houses you build on your land. When you build your first house, you place one die showing the house. When you build more, you turn the die to the appropriate number. 

One gameplay suggestion we gave was removing this fate card on the right. The card effect is to draw another fate card. From the gameplay perspective, there is no meaning or value. I am not familiar with this character on the card though. Maybe there is meaning behind this. 

It is encouraging to see people interested in creating boardgames. It means there is more and more awareness in Malaysia. 

On a separate occasion, I-Van (HR Game), Jon (King & Peasant) and I had a chat with a history lecturer who is thinking of asking her students to create a boardgame as their assignment. Now you can easily use AI to write long essays for you. Assignments in the form of essays may not be very effective. It is not easy to get students interested to properly do their research. So creating a boardgame might be a more engaging way to get students interested in the subject matter. 

Chinese Flower Card

Chinese Flower Card is a Malaysian designed game from Specky Studio. It is based on the 24 solar terms and the 72 pentads in Chinese tradition. Before I wrote this post I did not know these English words "solar terms" and "pentads". I only know the original Chinese terms 二十四节气 and 七十二候. One pentad is 5 days in the Chinese calendar, and one solar term is three pentads. The Chinese calendar is neatly divided as such, and every solar term has its own name. Some of them mark the solstices and equinoxes. There are various traditions associated with them. The game is also partly inspired by Japanese hanafuda cards. This is a set collection game. The cards have various point values, and when you collect cards of the same month, you score bonus points. 

The basic cards in the game score 1 point each. Cards with animals, insects, relics, special sceneries and farmers are worth more points, ranging from 2 to 5. Cards are grouped into 12 months, and there are six cards for each month. As soon as you start collecting the second card of a month, you score bonus points. If you collect all six cards of a month, you will score a whopping 15 points.

Every round, twelve cards are drawn from the deck and laid out in a 4x3 grid like this. Each player has three butterflies in their colour, and you take turns placing them along the edges of the grid. Only one butterfly can be placed in a segment, so if somebody has placed a butterfly, you cannot use the same spot. However, each row and column has two ends. If only one end is occupied, the other end is still available. When you place your second and third butterflies, you get to claim cards at the intersections marked by your butterflies. Make sure you mark 2 columns and 1 row or 1 column and 2 rows, never 3 columns or 3 rows. That would be pretty dumb. Normally you will claim two cards per round.

The core mechanism is very simple. The game is for two to six players, but the play experience can be quite different at different player counts. With two or three players, the game is quite chill, and this is the exact word one of the designers Buddhima uses to describe the game. Most of the time you will be able to get valuable cards. With five or six players, the game is more challenging. Not only will you find it harder to get what you want, sometimes you might not even get two cards.

Specky Studio specialises in educational games. The concepts in Chinese Flower Card are all based on the Chinese calendar and Chinese tradition. You get a glimpse into Chinese culture and history. Every card is a painting, and the elements in the paintings have meaning behind them. If you look closely at the cards, you will find tigers mating, because that particular card indeed represents mating season. If you are a teacher familiar with Chinese culture, this game offers many opportunities for you to tell stories and share knowledge. Since this is a simple game, non-gamers and even primary school children can easily pick it up and enjoy it. One story which Buddhima shared with me was how this game became a shared pastime between a grandfather and a grandchild. It created moments of conversation and passing knowledge to the next generation. Yes, games are just games, and at the same time they are also our heritage and shared memories. 

Pick Eat

Pick Eat was the first game from Malaysian publisher Specky Studio. It is an educational game about a healthy diet. Specky Studio specialises in making educational games, and Pick Eat certainly contains valuable knowledge and messages. Now this is not the type of educational game which many of us gamers are wary of. This is a proper game, and not learning content trying to be a game. You can tell that this is a game made by a gamer, and not by a non-gamer educator. I've known about Pick Eat for quite some time, and I have always assumed it is a game designed for primary school children, i.e. I am not the target audience. So I've never spent time to understand it more. It was because Buddhima and I went to the Thailand Board Game Show together that I found time to ask him to teach me the game. I was pleasantly surprised. It isn't what I had assumed. 

When you open the box it looks like someone eating

Pick Eat is a set collection game. You collect different types of food. Each card is a food, with different properties and ways of scoring points. The mechanism for choosing and collecting cards is interesting. The active player draws three cards, looks at them, and then offers them to the next player with one card revealed and the other two face-down. The next player then either claims the revealed card, or looks at the two face-down cards to pick one. Whichever option the next player takes, the active player is left with the remaining one. So the active player will also claim one card. This sounds simple, but when actually doing it you'll realise there are some interesting thought processes. 

Let's say you are the active player and among the three cards you draw, there is one particular card you really want. Should you reveal that or keep it face-down? If there is another card which is attractive to the next player, you can reveal that one and hope he takes it, so that you will get what you want too. However if there is no such card, what do you do? Maybe you can show him that good card, and try to trick him into thinking that there is an even better card among those two face-down cards? From the perspective of the next player, choosing a card is sometimes hard too. If the active player shows you a lousy card, it's a no brainer and you'd pick up the two face-down cards. The difficulty lies with those cards which are somewhat good but not great. It's a simple mechanism, but sometimes it gives you analysis paralysis. 

When you claim a card, you add it to a row before you. If the card you claim is face-up, it stays so. Ditto if it is face-down. This matters because it affects scoring. You may add the new card to the left or right end of your row of cards. Where you place it may affect the scoring of some cards which score based on their immediate neighbours. In this photo above some cards are placed slightly lower to indicate that they are face-down. When the game ends, you need to flip them over to score them, and being slightly offset reminds you that they are the face-down cards. 

These cards are from an optional module. They are missions. At the start of the game you draw two then pick one. If you fulfil the mission by the end of the game (in the form of having only specific types of food) you score bonus points. These missions are all real diets, e.g. a low carb diet. 

Water cards (e.g. the leftmost one in the photo above) are the most valuable. Most of the time they are a no-brainer. Always take one when you have the opportunity. This may seem unbalanced, but I like this kind of design decision. It sends a message that staying hydrated is important. And I believe perfectly balanced and symmetrical games are boring. You should have cards that feel overpowered. If the active player offers me the choice of a face-up water card, I will be suspicious whether there is another even better water card among those two face-down cards. 

The scoring conditions are linked to the theme. For example some fruits help our bodies better absorb vitamins. Such fruits score points for vitamin type cards you have. When you understand the reasoning behind the scoring conditions, you find that there is much knowledge about nutrition you can teach using this game. You don't need to be a nutritionist to play the game well. You simply apply common sense about eating habits. You will do well when you apply healthy eating principles. So the game feels natural. 

Pick Eat is a light game. It has a simple core mechanism which non-gamers can execute without trouble. Ultimately it is only about collecting cards. Gamers will appreciate the subtle strategy and psychology in the card offering and card choosing. I am glad I tried the game. It is certainly not of the same type as many typical educational games I have played. It feels more like a hobby game. Yet at the same time it is founded solidly on an important subject - healthy eating. 

Hardback

Hardback can be quickly described as Scrabble meets deck-building. It’s a neat idea. I wondered whether there has already been other deck-building word games, so I did a quick search and found a few. Hardback itself is a reimplementation of a 2014 game called Paperback. That is apt indeed. Upgrades, folks! 

Here’s the basic idea. Every turn you draw five new cards from your personal deck. Every card is a letter of the alphabet. You try to make a word with your cards. If you manage it, you gain the benefits on every card. It can be points. It can be money which you can then spend to buy new cards for your deck. There are also other powers. You can flip some cards face down. When you do this, that card becomes wild. Often you need to do this to be able to make a word. However you won’t enjoy the benefits from face-down cards. You don’t need to use every card. You can discard some. Naturally you don’t get benefits from unused cards either. You don't save money from turn to turn. Leftover money will be used to buy ink. 

This above is an example of how I spelled PERIL. In hindsight, I should have spelled PRUNE, making the L wild instead. It would have given me an extra point from the U.  

Throughout the game you will buy new cards for your deck to augment it. You may remove cards from your deck too. Newer cards are generally more powerful and help you score points more efficiently. The game ends at the end of a round when someone reaches 60 points. 

The core idea is simple. Here are some mechanisms which make the game more interesting. In addition to the basic cards, there are also genre cards in four types - horror, romance, adventure, and mystery. These are all better than the basic cards, and each type provides some unique bonuses. The powers of genre cards usually have two parts. One part will be activated as long as you use the card in your word. The second part will also be activated if you have another card of the same genre in use. What this means is you probably want to specialise in one or two genres so that the chances of you drawing two or more cards of the same genre are higher. 

One card power lets you double the point or money value of an adjacent card. If you manage to pair this with a high valued card, it becomes a huge bonus. One card power lets you reserve a card in the purchase pool. Since this is a deck-building game, there is also a power which removes weak cards from your deck, so that your chances of drawing strong hands increase. 

One mechanism which I find a lot of fun is the ink and ink remover mechanism. At the end of every turn you can decide to spend some of your money to buy ink. You spend ink to draw more cards. This way you can make words longer than five letters. This means you can earn more money and score more points within the same turn. In the game, there is a bonus for having made the longest word. There is some risk though. A card you draw using ink must be used in your word. It cannot be turned face-down to become a wild card nor can it be discarded. If you are unlucky, you may be forced to pass because you can't make a word. You waste a turn. Here’s how the ink remover might save you. This is a rare resource. You can use it to turn a card drawn using ink into a normal card. That means you are not forced to use it and you can flip it face-down to become wild.  

In this example above, the B and O are of the same genre, and the Y and D are of another. This means I am able to use both the basic power and the genre power of these cards. The G and U are wild. I need to flip the L and the C to become G and U respectively. It is always satisfying to be able to spell long words. 

There's one mechanism called timeless classics. These are cards which have their letters in landscape instead of portrait orientation. You can see an example in the screenshot above - the V. When you are able to make a word using a timeless classic card, it stays in front of you and gives you benefits every round, regardless of whether you are able to use it in future words. Your opponents can force you to discard such timeless classics by making a word including your letter. They don't gain anything from your letter though. They only force you to discard your letter. 

I had much fun with Hardback. It is certainly something different from what I usually play. The deck-building and card power parts might feel a little complex to non-gamers, so if you are using the word game premise to lure them to play, do be a little patient in explaining these aspects. I like that this is a game in which you can ask your opponents to help you make a word. They will get a small reward. It is satisfying to be able to puzzle out a decent word. The option to turn cards wild offers much flexibility to players. This will work as a family game. Although adults will have an advantage over children, being able to help one another with making words can turn this into an educational game at the same time. Even when you play with friends, you might learn some new words from them. 

The World Game

This is an educational game, and it'll teach you about all the countries of the world. It is a card game. Every card is one country. On it you will find information like the capital, the population, the area and the number of neighbouring countries. 

This is a game for 2 to 3 players. You start the game by having everyone draw 20 cards from the deck. You hold all 20 cards in your hand as your own personal deck. At any point you only look at information on the first card facing you. That is your current country. During play, you try to win cards from your opponents. The game is played until someone loses all cards. At that point whoever has the most cards wins. 

On your turn you have two options. You compare stats, or you declare a challenge. If you want to compare stats, you announce one of the features on your card, e.g. the population. Everyone then shows their cards, and whoever has the highest number in that feature takes all the cards. The cards are added to the back of the winner's deck. This is how you win cards from your opponents. 

If your current country is a small one, you'd be at an advantage when comparing stats. You can decide to declare a challenge instead. When you do so, you pick a person to issue a challenge. It doesn't have to be yourself. The person who issues the challenge tests the knowledge of everyone else. If the question can be answered correctly, the first person to do so wins cards. If no one gets it right, the person who asked the question wins the cards. You can ask things like the capital, or which continent the country is in. You can show the flag and ask which country it belongs to. You can also ask where exactly the country is. The game comes with a world map, and you can point at the country on the map. The map itself is only labelled with numbers, not country names. 

My sister Mei bought this game for her 11-year-old son Oswald as a Christmas present. This is very much what you would imagine a parent buying for their child. It's something educational. My sister is not that keen about playing boardgames. When they visited Kuala Lumpur recently, they brought along the game so that Uncle (me) can teach Oswald how to play. The rules are pretty straight-forward. However, five minutes into playing, I was already itching to change the rules (sigh... game designers...). Based on the rules that come with the game, if the players are roughly equal in their knowledge about countries around the world, the game may drag for a long time. They will win cards from one another at about the same rate. It's not easy for one player to completely bankrupt another. Well, I might be wrong, since we didn't finish a game using the prescribed rules. I suggested that when we won cards, we could set them aside as a score pile, instead of adding them to the back of our deck. That way the game has a finite end. You'll play 20 turns, because everyone has 20 cards to start with. 

This game reminds me of Top Trumps which I used to play when I was little. I remember I have a deck with tanks, and one with battleships. The carriers were the biggest and often won. The submarines were the weakest.