Roti Canai

Roti Canai is from Faculty of Fun, the makers of Nasi Lemak. Nasi Lemak has been highly successful in Malaysia. It is simple and accessible. It has reached many people. I often hear people tell me they've played this fun game, and they sound like they want to say Uno or Monopoly, but the game they want to tell me about is Nasi Lemak. 

Roti Canai, like Nasi Lemak, is a light card game designed for casual players. It is the kind of game you can teach in less that two minutes. Everyone starts with a hand of cards, and your goal is to get rid of all your cards. 

Every round, the lead player rolls two dice. The dice indicate which type of roti your customer is ordering. In the photo above, that would be roti sardine and roti bomb. Everyone must play two or three cards face down to fulfil the customer's order. 

If you don't have the right cards, you can choose to draw cards before you play them. You can draw as many as you want. You don't necessarily stop when you have enough of the required cards. Since the cards are played face down, you can lie about your cards, putting down roti which don't match the customer's order. This helps you get rid of your cards, but there is risk of getting caught. 

Once everyone has played cards, beginning from the lead player, everyone has the option of challenging one card belonging to another player. If anyone is caught lying, all his cards go back to his hand, and he must draw two more cards. However if the challenging player is wrong, he must draw two cards as a penalty. This is a game of bluffing. Sometimes you play a mix of right and wrong cards hoping to get away with it, and using up your cards as quickly as you can. Sometimes you play the right cards and try to trick your opponent into challenging you. 

Most cards in the game are different types of roti, but there are also rat cards and broom cards. Rat cards are traps. If anyone challenges your card and it is a rat card, he will be the one being penalised and he draws as many cards as there are rats on the card. However if he happens to have a broom ready, he can give the rat card to someone else, who will take the penalty instead. 

This is a very simple game. In both cases of Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai, I know I am not the intended audience. I will pick these games if I am playing with a group of non gamers or casual gamers. However in Roti Canai there is one element which gamers will find interesting. It is the bluffing and psychological play. This part is about gaming your opponents and not the game system. How well do you read your opponents? How well can you bluff and get away with playing the wrong cards? 

Bahamut Dispute

Bahamut Dispute is a microgame from Japan. It is a 2 player game about two kings trying to defeat the other by setting a dragon on their opponent. The structure is simple. On your turn you draw one card, and you may play up to two cards. You need to discard only if you exceed the hand limit. You start with 4 health, and your goal is to reduce your opponent’s health to zero. So far, nothing unusual. What makes this game interesting is the card powers and the deny mechanism. 

In the deck of 16 cards, there are only three creatures, i.e. cards you summon and keep in front of you. The dragon (Baleful Bahamut) does 4 damage, which means if you can summon it and it stays in play until the start of your next turn, you will one-shot-kill your opponent. The tricky thing is you can’t just play the dragon card. It can only be summoned by certain spells. Spells are another type of card. There is a baby dragon which deals 1 damage per turn. Not so glamorous but it is slow and steady. And then you have the goblin which protects you from attacks, except for attacks from the dragon. The rest of the cards have various abilities, for example dealing damage, letting you draw more cards, forcing your opponent to discard a specific card, and so on. 

You start the game with two deny tokens. Whenever your opponent plays a card, you can spend a token to cancel the power of the card. This can be a life saver. However when you do so, your opponent may spend two tokens to cancel your cancel, and you can't cancel this cancel of your cancel. It’s not always easy to decide whether to use a deny token. If it is life-and-death, then of course you'd spend it, but often the decision is not so straight-forward. Is the current situation dire enough to warrant spending a token? Should you save your token for a double-token spend on a later turn to force an attack through? You might be thinking of spending a token to lure your opponent into spending both of theirs, but what if that backfires and they decide not to cancel your cancel? You'd have one fewer token. And if you have the opportunity to spend double-token, should you do it? How critical is this card play to winning the game? If your opponent is desperate enough to spend a token, maybe it's worth your while to spend both of yours. Or might that be a trap to trick you into spending both your tokens? This is such a simple mechanism, but it creates much angst. This is the kind of game which appears simple, but there are moments when you realise there is something more and you go "waaaiiiit a minute..."

Still, this is a short game. You will probably run through the deck and need to reshuffle. The game becomes more strategic when you get to know the cards better. You know what to look out for and you anticipate your opponent's moves. 

Bahamut Dispute is quick and clever. It is one of the top-selling titles from Jelly Jelly Games. It is portable. We played it on a small Starbucks table at the Manila airport. 

Bombastic

 

Bombastic was first explained to me as advanced tic-tac-toe. It is a two-player-only abstract game played using 9 tiles laid out face-down in a 3x3 grid. Four of the tiles show a circle, another four a cross, and the last one a bomb. Each player is assigned an icon, circle or cross. Your goal is to reveal exactly three of your icon in a row on your turn. Beware. If you ever reveal the bomb, you lose. 

On your turn you have two options. You either attempt to win, as described above, or you perform a card action. The game comes with a deck of cards, and you always have two face up. On your turn you can pick one card to use. The cards have all sorts of powers, allowing you to peek at tiles and to move them around. It is by using these cards you figure out which tiles are yours, and which are your opponent's and the bomb. You and your opponent will gain different information. You can mess with your opponent when you get to shuffle some of the tiles. It is a race to be first to reveal a set of three icons. Sometimes you have to gamble a little, if you sense that your opponent is close to knowing where three of his tiles are. 

Bombastic is a light filler. There is a memory aspect. The game is quite tactical. You try to utilise the card powers as much as possible. It is a scramble to find three of your tiles, and sometimes you have to risk the bomb. 

Toy Battle

Toy Battle is a two player abstract game. My first impression is this is a game when you play with not only those tiny green toy soldiers but also with unicorns, dinosaurs and robots, and you make proper rules for a battle game in your living room, which you can imagine to be any world - space station, beach front or graveyard. The game comes with many different boards, each with a different layout and usually some unique rules. The core rules stay the same. 

You and your opponent start at opposite ends of the board. There are two ways to win. Capture your opponent’s base, or score a required number of stars. In case the game ends due to a player running out of units, the tiebreaker is the number of stars. Players have the same set of troops, numbered from 1 to 7. There are three units of each troop type. However a few units are removed randomly at the start of a game, so you can’t card count accurately. You don’t even know your own exact unit count. 

You start the game with some units in hand. The rest are in a draw pool. On your turn you either deploy a unit, or draw two from the pool. When deploying units, they must be connected to your base, whether directly or through a connected chain of friendly units. You can attack an opponent unit which is weaker by placing your unit on top of it. He might counterattack by placing an even stronger unit on top of that stack. The fact that opposing units stack up is interesting. If you use the knight power to remove your opponent’s piece from the top of a stack, it may reveal your unit, and suddenly the board situation goes strongly in your favour.  

After deploying a unit, if your units fully enclose an area containing stars, you claim them. 

As you can imagine, the fun comes from the unique abilities of many of the units. The skeleton and the unicorn let you draw units from the pool, saving you some turns. Normally you need to spend a whole turn to draw two units. The robot lets you randomly discard a unit from your opponent’s hand. The knight lets you remove an adjacent opponent unit, even if it is stronger. The toy soldier lets you immediately deploy another unit. The pirate monkey is a paratrooper and can ignore the supply line rule when being deployed. There is one funny unit type - rubber ducky - which has no number and can beat any other number. However it is also vulnerable to all other numbers. There are many clever ways you can use your units. 

The beach

Swimming pool

Graveyard

Islands

Rainbow!

At first the game sounds a little chess-like. Information on the board is open. You can calculate several steps ahead where your opponent might deploy his pieces and how you might respond. This sounds a little dry, like most perfect information abstract games tend to be. However Toy Battle has important concealed information. You may know how many units your opponent has in hand, but you don’t know what they are. And the powers of the units matter a lot. This is a game with surprises and uncertainty. 

Capturing the opponent base is not easy. However it is an important threat you can use to force your opponent into making defensive moves. He can’t ignore the threat. Your eventual goal might be to grab more stars, but your opponent has no choice but to address the other existential threat. 

I first played the digital version, then later played the physical.

You get a Scrabble style tile holder

The game box was smaller than I expected

The small unique powers on maps create interesting combinations with some of the powers of the units. One of the maps let you return a unit to your hand. That means you will get to use its power again. Getting a skeleton back lets you draw another two units! 

I talk about many fun combinations and clever moves, but this is a quick game. You only have 20 units in your pool. The game is like potato chips. When you finish one game, you get the urge to start another. 

Little Fighters 2 - The Card Battle

Little Fighters 2 was a hit digital indie game released in Hong Kong in 2000. It was remastered and re-released in 2025, its 25th anniversary. Together with the re-release, a novel was published, and the deluxe version of the novel comes with a small box card game. This is that small box card game. 

This is a game for 2 to 4 players. You play one of four characters in the digital game and you will have a hand of 13 cards, corresponding to one suit in a typical poker deck. That means the numbers go from 2 to Ace. The card values represent strength, and depending on the character you play, some cards have special abilities, e.g. taking back a discarded card. 

Every round, everyone simultaneously plays a card from his hand. The highest number wins, but if there are ties, all tied players automatically lose. The winner of a round gets to place the winning card into a 3 x 3 grid. You play tic-tac-toe on this grid. Whoever makes three in a row in the grid wins the game. If the grid is filled without anyone managing to make three in a row, you can use your winning card to displace a weaker card in the grid.

After reading the rules, I thought the game was rather simplistic. There was nothing particularly new or interesting. Only when I played the game I found that it worked better than I expected. It is indeed pretty simple, but there are some meaningful tactical considerations. I did a three player game, and I think 3 or 4 players will be more interesting than 2, because it is possible to clash numbers. When Han was leading and Xiu Yi (or was it Xiang Yang) and I wanted to stop him, we played the same high number and lost that round to Han. With three or four players, you can actually discuss what numbers to play if you want to gang up on the leading player. It is important to count cards. If you know your opponents' Aces have all been played, you can be confident yours will certainly win. The four characters are similar but not exactly the same. When you understand their personalities, you can adjust your play style accordingly. 

Overall this is still a simple game. Fans of the original computer game will find this enjoyable. Some IP boardgames and card games are made by non-gamers, and these are painfully obvious to us gamers. Little Fighters 2 is made by gamers, so you get a package which not only honours the original IP but is also a properly decent game. 

17: Diciassette

The Game

17 is a game design from Japan, originally called Diciassette which means seventeen in Italian. What attracted me to try this game is the similarity to my own game Pinocchio, and also to some extent Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves too. I want to see how others do it. The common mechanism between these games is how cards will be drawn or played, and something bad happens when the sum of the card values reach or exceed a certain number. This is what happens in Black Jack. The number is 12 in Ali Baba, 21 in Pinocchio, and of course 17 in 17. 

In 17, you have a hand of three cards. You take turns playing cards to a row at the centre of the table. You can play your card face up or face down. At any time if you think the total has reached 17, you may call for the round to end. Face down cards are revealed. If you are right, you get a point token, and the last player to have played a card gets a penalty token. If you are wrong, you get the penalty token instead, and the last player gets a point token. You play multiple rounds until a player wins by having three point tokens. 

One interesting aspect of the game is some cards show their values on their backs. So everyone knows what they are even if you play them face down. Some cards have special abilities, e.g. reversing the order of play, or removing other cards from the row. There is a trap card which penalises whoever calls for the round to end. 

The Play

I did a 2-player game. The game supports 2 to 6. The 2-player game wasn’t interesting for me. I think the game will work better for a larger group. You have three cards in hand, but you don’t always have many options. If you have exposed cards (cards with values on their backs too), and the total will hit 17 when you play them, then they are not valid options. You might get caught in a situation when you’ll go bust openly no matter what you play. So you probably want to consider playing those exposed cards much earlier before you have too many of them. There is a bit of hand management in this game. You can save good cards for the right moments. 

The feeling of playing this game is everyone taking turns to be the vulnerable one who might get penalised. Wherever you decide to play a card to the row, you are taking a risk that the total might hit 17 and someone might call for the round to end. Based on player count and turn order, you can manipulate who will be more vulnerable. Which card you choose to play, and whether you play it face up or face down influence this. Let's use an example. If you can play a 5 to make the apparent total go to 16, and you want to put the next player in a difficult position, you would choose to play the 5 face up, so that everyone knows the end is near. The next player will have a dilemma, unless they have the special power card which removes other cards from the row. 

The Thoughts

I need to play this with more players. I feel this should be a minimum 3-player game. It works differently from both of my games, delivering a different experience. This is a light game so non-gamers can easily learn to play and can quickly enjoy the game. There is bluffing and hand management, so even for experienced gamers there are interesting tactics to consider. This is a clever game with some original ideas. 

Dracula vs Van Helsing

The Game

Dracula vs Van Helsing is a short 2-player card game played over 5 rounds. Van Helsing need to kill Dracula before time runs out. Dracula wins by surviving. He also wins if he is able to bite and transform all villagers of one district. 

This is a lane battle game. Between the two players there are five districts each with four villagers. At the start of a round each player gets five cards, each allocated to one district. You can see your own cards but not your opponent’s. Cards determine your strength in a district. Strengths are compared at the end of a round for all five districts. If Van Helsing wins a district, he deals damage to Dracula. If Dracula wins, he bites one villager. 

There is a trump suit. Cards in that suit always beats other suits. Else the larger number wins. If tied, resolve by suit strength. 

A turn is very simple. Normally you just draw a card then play a card for its power. The card you draw can be used to replace an existing card. The card being discarded will have its power triggered. Each card rank has its own power. The higher ranked cards have stronger powers so it’s a dilemma trying to decide whether to keep this high card or to use the strong power. The lowest card has a bad power. You are forced to reveal one of your cards. If you want to discard a low card, you have to suffer this penalty. 

Other powers in the game include revealing your opponent’s card, changing the trump suit, exchanging a card, revealing the next card in the deck (i.e. what your opponent will draw). A round ends when a player passes. The opponent gets one last turn, and the round ends. You compare the five districts to see how many villagers get bitten and much damage is dealt to Dracula. 

The rightmost icon (red) is the trump suit. 

The Play 

Every round starts with many unknowns, and as the round progresses you get more and more information. You can certainly card count. Your opponent’s actions give you clues too. However consider too that they might be feinting. Choosing when to pass is often tricky.  Your opponent only gets one action but sometimes that one action can be pivotal. 

You have limited control in this game since you don’t have a hand of cards. You only draw one card and you must use it or swap it with one of your existing cards. Still there are meaningful decisions to be made. 

The Thoughts

Dracula vs Van Helsing is a clever little 2-player card game. It’s a decent spouse game and filler. 

Dracula wins because all four villagers in the 4th district have been bitten. 

Panda Panda

The Game

This is a design from Japanese designer Kaya Miyano, who is most known for Trio / Nana. He also designed Trick & Snipers. When I looked him up, I found that I have played an older game he designed with another designer - Zombie Tower 3D. I thought that was quite clever. The first edition of Panda Panda was released in Japan in 2023, and it was named Cat Poker. The international edition Panda Panda was released only shortly after the original, in 2024. 

Panda Panda is a simple and short card game. Every round, you race to be first to collect a winning combo. Whoever achieves that scores a point. You need to score two points to win the game. The cards in the game are labelled from A to G. A's are the most common. There are 10 A's in the game. The G is the rarest card. There is only one G in the deck. Here are the winning combos: 

To make a winning combo, you must have the exact number of cards, no more, no less. For example you want to make the C and E combo. That's a 2-card combo. You can't have more than 2 cards. If you do, you need to spend turns discarding the surplus cards. A turn is super simple. You either take a card or discard a card. When taking a card, you may draw from the common draw deck, or take the top card from the discard pile of any player. Yes, every player has his own discard pile. What this means is if someone wants a card you discard, chances are he will be able to get it, because that top card in your discard pile will not be covered by anyone else's card. It takes a full round before you can cover it with another discarded card. 

If you choose to discard a card on your turn, you simply place it face-up at the top of your discard pile. If you discard an A (the most common card), this triggers a special action. Everyone must pass a card to the left. This is an important mechanism. This can really mess up someone's plan. It is not easy to collect a winning combo, and an untimely (or timely!) A being discarded can really screw someone's plan. 

When you make a winning combo, whether by taking the last card you need, or discarding the last extra card you don't need, you don't score immediately. You still need to wait a full round until the start of your next turn. This is always a nerve-racking moment, because if anyone discards an A, you will be forced to break your combo. During the game if you see anyone getting cocky, you may want do discard an A to see whether you'd destroy his plans. One rule about A's - if the top card of a discard pile is an A, you can't take it. 

The Play

This is a quirky little game which I can't quite categorise. I guess you can call this a set collection game. It is brisk, and it'll work well as a filler for game night. The game is simple and doesn't require deep thinking, but if you do think about it, there are some tactics you can consider. When you pay attention to the cards others are discarding, you may be able to guess which combos they are making, or which ones they are not making. If anyone takes a card from another player's discard pile, that's a big hint too. Keeping some A's in hand is a good tactic. If you sense someone might be winning, discarding an A can severely delay him. It's always a pleasure to hear someone groan when you discard an A. 

One general strategy I use is to just keep drawing cards in the early game, and then depending on the cards I have, decide which combo to go for, and then start discarding. I'm not sure whether this is an optimal way to play. It seems sensible. When an A is discarded and everyone needs to pass a card, what you get from your neighbour might be a useful clue. 

I mention several tactics here, but you don't really need to think so much to enjoy this game. You can choose to focus on your own combo and just enjoy the race to make a winning combo. This is a light and casual game. 

The Thoughts

Playing Panda Panda was a refreshing experience. It is something a little different. It'll work well with non-gamers and casual gamers. This is the kind of game you can play while chatting. For gamers, this is something novel worth trying out. 

Ketupat Rendang

The Game

Ketupat Rendang is a short card game about your favourite Hari Raya dishes. This is the latest game from Malaysian publisher Meja Belakang, the team which brought us Drama Pukul 7 and Nak Makan Apa. Everyone is randomly assigned one main dish and one side dish. This is kept secret. Throughout the game, you lay down cards which have dishes and also fire which is used to cook the dishes. Parts of cards can overlap, hiding some dishes and even fire. Dishes are only cooked if they are adjacent to fire. At the end of the game, you score points for your dishes which are cooked and whoever has the most points wins.

Your secret objective card

Regular cards

You have a hand size of two. On your turn, you simply draw a card then play a card. Cards can be played next to existing cards and they can also be played partially overlapping other cards. Every card is divided into three equal sections. There are many ways cards can overlap. The golden rule is no single card can be completely covered by other cards. That means if two sections of a card have been covered, the last section is protected.

This is how fire works. A section containing one fire cooks one dish in every orthogonally adjacent section. If the section has two fires, then it cooks two dishes in every adjacent section. The game ends after the last card is drawn. You check the play area. For each of your main dish which is cooked, you score 2 points. For your side dish, you score 1 point each. In case you have any fire in hand, you lose points.

At the moment my main dish rendang (red background) scores 8 points because 4 are cooked.

The Play

The gameplay is smooth and fast. Initially, no one knows who has which main dish and side dish. However, there will be clues if you observe your opponents closely. At the same time, you may also want to play in a way which hides your intentions. It is not easy to hide your main dish until the end of the game. After all, you do want to manipulate the play area to show as many of them as possible, and to cook them. It is always a little nerve-racking to play a card with your main dish. It is not always easy to protect your main dish from being covered. The board situation is fluid. There can be many attacks, as in players covering one another’s dishes, or at least what they think are their opponents main dishes and side dishes. You can attack your own main dish if you want to, but I am not entirely sure this is a good idea. The game is short. Shooting yourself, even just a little bit, might set you back significantly.

Don't worry. This is not Overcooked. Too much fire will not burn your dishes.

The Thoughts

This is a pleasant and breezy game. It is of just the right length that it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and there is enough time and space for you to make meaningful plays. So this is satisfying. The board is open information. Player cards is hidden information. The game reminds me of Carcassonne. You can only play one card, but there are several possible positions on the board where you can play it. I am glad I backed the game when it was crowdfunded.