That Time You Killed Me

Before starting to write about That Time You Killed Me, I checked whether it is a design from Japan. It isn’t. It gives me the vibes. Partly from the name. Partly from the minimalistic components. Partly from the unusual concept. This game toys with the idea of time travel. This is a two player abstract game in which you fight in the present, in the past, and in the future. 

There are three 4x4 grid boards, representing past, present and future. You start the game with one pawn on each board. You have some pawns in your supply and it is possible to add more pawns. You kill your opponent’s pawn by squishing them, for example by pushing them against the wall. You can kill two opponent pawns at one go if you manage to push them into each other, causing a paradox. You win by killing all opponent pawns on two out of the three boards. 

You have a focus token which determines which board you can act on. At the end of every turn you must move it to another board. On your turn you must pick one of your pawns on your active board to act. The basic action is moving a pawn two steps. If you can squish your opponent’s pawn, good on you! There are two special moves - traveling to the past, and traveling to the future. If you travel to the future, you move your activated pawn to the exact same spot on the board one step in the future, provided that spot is empty. A pawn in the past board can travel to the present board. A pawn in the present board can travel to the future board. If you travel to the past, things work a little differently. Your pawn doesn’t move to the board one step in the past. Instead it creates a new pawn there. You can do this only if you still have pawns in your supply. 

These are the base rules. The game comes with several variants, and it is recommended that you use them. They add new elements to the base rules. 

The tree variant allows you to plant seeds. A seed becomes a scrub one step in the future, if the same space is empty.  If the scrub does come into existence, then one more step into the future it becomes a tree, again that is if the same space is empty. Scrubs block movement. Trees can be pushed and toppled to kill a pawn on the other side. 

With the statue variant, there is a neutral statue on all boards at the start of the game. During the game you can build one yourself too. When you build a statue, it will appear in future boards. You can push and also pull a statue. When this happens, the statue will move in the same direction on future boards. You can use this mechanism to push or squish your opponent’s pawns. 

That Time You Killed Me is a clever game. It is an abstract and open information game, and it is unforgiving. The game mechanism is unusual. Sometimes it seems hard to position yourself to kill your opponent. You get a feeling you will just end up in a stalemate. It's only a small 4x4 board after all. If you just take turns pushing each other two steps, you only get into an infinite loop. So you have to think creatively how to make use of the core time travel rules and also the variant rules you are playing. There aren't that many rules, but it is not always easy to consider all the implications of your moves. I find that I keep trying to do something different to get out of a stalemate. You can create copies of yourself in the past. You can disappear from the present to jump to the future. The game can feel a little dry, because of the abstract nature and it being a perfect information game. However I am a little surprised that as we explored different moves, we managed to kill each other eventually. That Time You Killed Me is minimalistic yet thinky.

Yokai Hyakki Hakko (Festival of Monsters)

Yokai Hyakki Hakko is a game from… you guessed it… Japan! This is a small box card game about collecting monsters and ghouls from Japanese lore. There are eight types of monster cards. You will be collecting them. If you manage to collect all eight types, you win immediately. If no one manages that, the game ends when the deck runs out. You determine who wins by points. For each type of monster, if you have the most, each card is worth 1 point to you. There are five cards in each type, so you need three to be sure you’ll score. 

Everyone has a hand of exactly one card. On your turn you draw a card then play a card. This is almost a gold standard for simple Japanese card games. Love Letter works like this too. When you play a card, your place it in front of you, adding to your collection of monsters. You also activate the power of that card. Every monster type has a different power. Some let you steal a card from another player. Some let you exchange a card with another player. Some let you draw an extra card. One monster lets you swap all cards of one type with an opponent. This can be devastating if your opponent has collected multiple cards of the same type. 

There is a lot of attacking in this game. Most cards are offensive in nature. Everyone’s collection is public information. If you are close to winning, others will work together to stop you. So it is not easy to collect eight types of monsters. 

The game is light and short. This is the kind of game that works well with the casual crowd. It is almost a party game. 

Citadels Duel

Citadels (2000) is a classic from Bruno Faidutti, and a highly successful game. Citadels Duel is heavily based on it, and adds some elements not found in the original. What I am most surprised about is this is not designed by Bruno Faidutti. It is designed by Guillaume Montiage (Kemet, Nefertiti) and Manuel Rozoy (TIME Stories, Altered). 

The nine characters are still in the game. Some work a little differently, but you will be familiar with them all if you have played Citadels. Every round, each player draw four characters, setting the last one aside face-down. From the four that you have drawn, you choose two to pass to your opponent. Now both of you decide which three to keep for the round. 

The numbers will be called out one by one, and if you have the character of that number, you get to use that character's power. Just like in Citadels, you have the assassin which can kill an opponent's character, and the thief which can steal your opponent's money if you correctly guess one of his characters. 

You are going to spend money to construct buildings. You will eventually build to fill out a 4x4 grid. That's when the game ends. You score points for total building value and also for control of council members. There is a council in the game, with 9 seats. Some character powers affect control of council seats or are affected by control of council seats. 

The building types correspond to some of the characters. When you have military buildings, the warlord character becomes more powerful for you. So there is some basis for you to guess your opponent's characters. Sometimes how you pick characters depends on what you think your opponent is going to do. You might pick a less optimal character for the sake of not getting targeted by your opponent. But then maybe he knows how you think and still guesses your character correctly.

You can steal buildings from your opponent, e.g. using the warlord ability. However there is a guard pawn which protects buildings orthogonally adjacent to it. 

This game is more complex than the original. It has more elements. It feels a lot like the original. Playing this is like watching a very good movie adaptation of a good novel. 

Upside Town

When you were little, did you enjoy playing with magnets? Now you get to play with magnets under the guise of a strategic boardgame. Upside Town is designed by Singaporean designer Quentin Quek and published by PlayByDesign. Quentin comes from a product design background, and it shows in how well put together Upside Town is. This is not a game with a gimmick. The magnets are a central mechanism that helps with gameplay. 

Let's first talk about the three types of blocks in the game. The red blocks are a single level high. The yellow blocks are two levels high. The green blocks are three levels high. All these blocks have magnets at both ends. The red blocks have a magnetic north at one end and a magnetic south at the other. The yellow blocks are norths at both ends. The green blocks are souths at both ends. This means yellows cannot be stacked with other yellows, or green with green. However reds can be stacked on any other colour, and themselves too. 

You start with a player board like this. Player boards are different between the players. Your five construction sites are magnetised too, and they are either north (plus sign) or south (blank). The polarity determines which colours you can build at a site. On the right you see a warehouse with four spaces. You will start the game with some blocks here. During the game you can acquire blocks and place them here. You can also upgrade blocks to a larger type. You can even split blocks. The warehouse is for you to prepare for construction. Construction is one action. You can move any number of pieces from your warehouse to your sites. During the game you can also demolish blocks. You can completely demolish a building, or partially demolish it from the top downwards. 

You do all this for the sake of completing objectives. These are objective cards. During the game you claim these objectives and try to complete them to score points. This is the aspect where you will compete with your opponents. You are fighting over the same pool of objectives. All the objectives are expressed in terms of configurations of buildings. When you complete an objective, you score points, and you also get some reward, e.g. a free block, or a free construction or demolish action. 

Along the top of this photo above you can see some public scoring criteria. You try to meet these criteria by game end to score points. These are applicable to everyone and you don't claim the cards. 

You can keep at most three incomplete objectives. You must complete an objective to move it to your completed stack, so that you can claim a new objective. 

The magnetised blocks give a nice tactile playing experience. The magnets physically enforce the rules. If you accidentally try to break a block stacking rule, the magnets remind you because you can't physically stack those blocks. They repel each other. 

This is a game of planning and efficiency. You want to pick objectives that are similar, so that with as few actions as possible you can complete many of them. You need to think about the order you want to complete the objectives, so that you minimise actions needed. The game is a little solitaire, since you don't directly affect your opponents. The main thing you fight over is the objectives. Sometimes you want to take objectives which are easy for your opponents to complete. 

This end game scoring card says you should try to have as few red blocks as possible. If you have 3 or fewer by game end, you will score 3 points. 

Upside Town is a light strategy game that offers a unique play experience. This copy I played is a 3D-printed prototype and not even the final product yet. The game will be at the Essen game fair in 2026. 

Teh Tarik Game

Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan was the winner of the 2025 Malaysia Design & Play game design competition, of which I was one of the judges. The winner's prize was either a publishing deal, or a cash prize. Ray decided to take the cash prize and publish the game himself. He did all the planning and the art. The game was released this year. I got myself a copy. I was part of this game's journey, and I definitely want to own a copy. 

The game comes in a small tuck box. 

It's pretty compact

This is the card back

The rulebook is in English and Malay. The cards are in four languages - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. 

The cards are numbered 1 to 40. The version at the competition last year was a strictly four player game, played in teams of two. The published version now supports 2 to 4 players. I think the game is best played with four, and I will prefer to play it only with four. 

I will only describe the four player game. There are two cups at the centre of the table, one belonging to each team. On your turn, you must play a card to either cup. Cards must be played in ascending order, so you can only play a card which is higher than the most recently played card. If you are unable to play a card, you will spill your team's cup. That means discarding all the cards so that you can start a new cup. Spilled cards cost you 1 point each. Each player has one Siap (Done!) card. Siap cards are used to score points. That means your team only has two opportunities in the whole game to score points. The Siap card can always be played. If you think your cup is valuable enough, you can play your Siap card, and you will score all those cards in your cup. But remember, once you have used your Siap card, you won't be able to score for your team any more. You can only rely on your partner (assuming he hasn't used his Siap card). 

If both of you have used your Siap cards, I hope the game will end very soon, because any cards played to your cup from now on will only be spilled, i.e. they will cost you points. Holding on to and knowing when to play your Siap card is crucial in this game. The game is played until the deck is exhausted and every player has played all hand cards. 

There are four reverse cards in the game. If you add such a card to your cup, the number order reverses, e.g. you now play in descending order instead of ascending. If your cup value has gone up to the high 30's, a reverse card will let you add more cards. Reverse cards can be very useful. 

The fact that you can play to your opponents' cup is a key element of the game. This can be a very mean game. When your opponent is still playing single digit numbers, you can play a 39 to force them to spill their cup. Of course they can do the same to you. You know that when playing to your opponents' cup you might be giving them 1 point. Sometimes you play to your opponents' cup because you can't play to your own, and you don't want to spill your own cup. This is an interactive game with a mean streak. When I played this with my family, my wife Michelle didn't like this nastiness. We ended up playing harmoniously, which I think was dull. If you are going to play this, please play it with jerks. 

Quick takes: Neon Reign, Mercado de Lisboa, Jurassic Snack

Neon Reign is a simple game I have played several times, and still don't understand. This is a 2-player card game about those 1v1 fighting arcade games. There are several characters you can play, and every character has their own deck of cards. To win, you need to reduce the opponent's life points to zero. 

You have a hand of seven. Your cards are mostly button presses or joystick moves. Some are specific defensive moves like blocks and throws. On your turn, you either play cards to attack, or you draw to seven. Some cards when played in combination give you extra effects. For example extra attack points, or storing energy for your power attack. Some cards can be used in response to your opponent's attack, possibly cancelling some of their card plays. 

These are the various combinations and their effects

Every character has a different power attack. You need to store energy for this. Once the energy bar for this is full, you unleash the power attack. Usually you'll deal some damage, and there are usually other effects as well.

Although I have played three games, I feel I have been doing the equivalent of button-mashing. I still don't quite know what I'm doing, and I am losing consistently. I always complain that when I play complex games on BGA, I don't have patience to learn the game properly. Neon Reign is not a complex game, and it's not hard to learn. I don't know why I am so clueless about this game. Is this just a pretty random game? Or are there tactics I have not discovered? Looking at how consistently I am losing games, my hunch is I don't really get the game yet. I need to play this more. 

So far I have been mostly playing as many buttons and joysticks as I can, until I'm out of cards, and then I replenish. I suspect that is not necessary the best move. Maybe I should be replenishing more to try to get better combos. Also I suspect I need to be building up my shields more. Possibly I need to be saving cards for defence. Maybe I need to anticipate attacks and keep cards that can break the opponent's combos. 

I can't conclude about this game yet. I'm still need to figure it out, despite it being such a simple game. 

Mercado de Lisboa is a game about opening market stands, placing restaurants, attracting customers, and most important of all, making money. 

This is a tile laying game. You will place market stands, which will cost money depending on how crowded the row and column are. You will also place customers along the edges. When you do this, all market stands in the row or column which sell something the customers want make money. The board starts with some restaurants. When market stands are placed next to matching restaurants, they can earn more money. If a market stand is placed on top of a grey restaurant, you claim that restaurant and you can place it (coloured side) on a future turn. 

You win by having the most money. In the early game, you need to earn money to fund your subsequent market stands. This means spending victory points to earn more victory points. Money is victory points. This is a perfect information game. You have to plan carefully how to position your market stands well to make the most profit, and at the same time try not to help your opponents. A market stand can potentially earn money from four customer tiles. Customer placement spots are valuable and you have to watch out. The game looks simple, but I think if you want to play well you have to play thoughtfully, considering your opponents' possible moves. 

If you claim restaurants (the round tokens) but fail to place them all before the game ends, you will lose $1 per restaurant. Restaurants don't belong to anyone. They help all matching market stands next to them. 

Customer values go from 1 to 4. You can play the higher level customers only when a row or column has the required number of market stands. It is important to position your market stands to score big in late game. I think the game is deeper and more serious that it appears to be. 

Jurassic Snack feels like a children's game. Maybe it is. It is an abstract game for 2 players that plays in about 15 minutes. 

You move your dinosaurs in straight lines (like rooks in chess) to eat vegetation. When you eat a patch of vegetation, you flip over the tile to see what's in front. 

Some of the vegetation tiles show special powers, e.g. you can fly one dinosaur anywhere, or you give birth to a new dinosaur. Tiles have point values (represented as number of leaves). 

Two of the vegetation tiles show a T-Rex. Once a T-Rex comes into play, on your turn you can choose to move it instead of one of your dinosaurs. The T-Rex moves in a straight line too, but it eats dinosaurs instead of vegetation (of course). 

If you manage to have a T-Rex eat all of your opponents' dinosaurs, you win, ignoring the points scored from eating veggies. The victory points only apply if the game ends in a normal way - when players are not able to eat anything on two consecutive turns. 

Technically the T-Rex doesn't eat your dinosaurs. The rulebook clearly says it just scares them away. If you are playing this with your child, please use the proper term. 

10 to Leave

This game will probably always be called the mosquito game. This is a game from Taiwan, and players play the role of mosquito families trying to attack a sleeping guy and then escape without getting squashed. I certainly have not played any other game with this premise. 

Everyone starts with the same set of cards with exactly the same distribution. The only difference is the card colour. Cards represent mosquitoes. You will be playing cards to sting the sleeping guy. He will be waken up several times during the night and he will try to kill some of you mosquitoes, either with his bare hands or using something nearby he can grab. Some mosquitoes might get killed. Some will make a lucky escape. You play until everyone has played all their cards. You don't score points for the mosquitoes that managed to escape. Instead, you score negative points for those that are killed. The player with the least negative points wins. 

This poor guy is going to get very upset and won't be getting much sleep.

Cards are valued 1 to 6, and when a mosquito is killed, you lose points based on the card value. It is very painful to have your 6 killed. Notice that the 3's, 4's, and one of the 5's have a dot below the number. These cards are marked on the back. When you play one of these cards, your opponents know it is between 3 to 5. 

Some cards have icons on the back

A round of play is set up by placing a random weapon next to the sleeping guy. Let's call him Sam. Depending on how Sam is waken up, he might use the weapon to kill you. The weapon specifies the positions of the mosquitoes which will be killed. In this photo above, you can see the positions are I and III. In one of these rows, if your card is in positions I or III, it is at risk of getting killed. 

You will be playing cards into rows next to Sam, almost like queuing up. You will be able to manipulate the rows too. 

What you do on your turn is simple. Refer to the bottom half of this reference sheet above. You will definitely have to play a card, but there is one other action you can take. You may peek at another card, which can be done before or after you play a card. You can also move the first card in a queue to the back. This too can be done before or after you play a card. The third option is to wake Sam up. That means he's going to try to kill some mosquitoes. You can do this only if all the queues have at least 2 cards, and you can only do this before you play a card. 

When Sam wakes up, there are three possible outcomes for each of the queues. Refer to the top half of the reference sheet. You resolve the queues one at a time, revealing the cards one by one until the total reaches or exceeds 10, or until all the cards are revealed. If the total is less than 10, Sam kills the biggest mosquito or mosquitoes by hand, and the rest escape. If the total is exactly 10, the mosquitoes get lucky and they all escape. If the total exceeds 10, Sam uses his weapon and kills according to the weapon. Lucky mosquitoes are removed. Dead mosquitoes are placed before the owners so that you can keep track of your negative points. Sometimes there are unrevealed mosquitoes. These are now shifted to the front of the queues. 

This mosquito game is actually a queuing game! Almost like a guillotine game, because Sam is probably going to kill some mosquitoes. When you play this game you will feel like telling all your mosquito family members, "Survive! Survive!" Playing your 6 is always nerve-wracking. Should you play it early to get it out of the way? I think many people will be tempted to do that. You can collaborate with others to make those perfect 10's. You can talk about your numbers. But can you trust your opponents? Afterall, they are still your opponents. Also even if you line up a few cards to make a perfect 10, you can't stop some other uninvolved fella from moving the first card in the queue, messing everything up. 

10 to Leave teeters between giving you control and putting you at the mercy of other players. You have limited information because you don't know what cards your opponents have played. However you know the marked cards are 3 to 5. Also as the game progresses, you can card count. You get to peek at cards, and that's important information. This helps in making those perfect 10's. Yet you never know when someone else will move a card and spoil your plans. There are two ways Sam wakes up. A player can wake him up, or he wakes up when all queues have four cards. You try your best to position your cards well in anticipation for all queues getting full. However there is always a possibility of a player waking Sam before that. There are several tactics in the game. I like that balance between giving you control and subjecting you to the whims of others. There are skills to this. Also I believe the game experience can vary depending on the group you play with. Some groups may share more information and try to collaborate. Some may be secretive. Some may choose to lie about their cards. That creates a different dynamic. Overall this is still a simple and short game. I hear this game is doing well in Taiwan, and I can certainly see why. 

The Isle of Cats Duel

The Isle of Cats Duel is a 2-player polyomino game. You take turns claiming polyominoes from a common board to place on your personal player board. At game end you score points based on how well you have filled your player board.  

On the common board there are both polyominoes (cats in various colours and poses) and scoring cards. On your turn you must move the white cat token two steps. You then claim the item it is on or the item it has just passed through. Scoring cards specify various conditions. You score points if you fulfil them at game end. Cats are placed on your player board (boat). Every cat you place must be adjacent to an existing polyomino. 

Certain sections on your boat are rooms. Every room that you fully cover is worth points. Some spaces are rats. Any that you don’t cover will cost you points. You want to keep cats of the same colour together, because you score points for doing that. Certain spaces when covered by a cat of a specific colour give you extra polyominoes. That helps you fill your boat. During the game you can collect fish, which can be spent for special actions, e.g. you can move the cat marker an additional step, or you can make it jump anywhere. Fish give you extra flexibility. 

This game offers a spatial puzzle. You have multiple goals. Completely covering rooms, covering rats and grouping cats by colour are just the basics. The scoring cards give you many more goals. Sometimes you claim a scoring card for the sake of denying your opponent. The main board is refreshed three times. You don't always take everything. When both players pass in succession (passing means not taking any item), the board is refreshed. 

You will be constantly competing for items with your opponent. You have to watch out for what they need and which scoring cards are useful to them. Even though you can't directly interfere with their board, you can take the items they need, which can certainly spoil their plans. There are quite many polyomino games in the market and I have played many of them. The Isle of Cats Duel is decent but I did not find it particularly outstanding. If you like polyomino games and you often play 2-player games, this will work well.