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? 

boardgaming in photos: Goa, Eslite, Nemesis, Pokemon Code Talk

I asked my artist Edwin to design a roll-up bunting for Pilgrim Poker. I plan to bring this to exhibitions. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. 

I was at Eslite Bookstore (诚品书局) on Sun 16 Aug 2026 to demo Malaysian Holidays. Eslite ran a small event showcasing Malaysian themed and locally designed tabletop games. I was one of several designers at the event. 

Events like these are important because they help us reach out to the general public. In Malaysia, most people know little to nothing about modern boardgames. So it is important to create more awareness. 

I demo'ed at one table and Buddhima of Specky Studio demo'ed at the next one. 

Buddhima also showcased games from LUMA designed by Choon Ean. I joked with him that he looks like a rapper. 

Ray demonstrated Teh Tarik Game. This was the game which won the Malaysian Design & Play game design competition in 2025. 

I saw this game Workplace Dilemma at Play Play Asia (the game shop at GMBB Mall specialising in Asian games). I skimmed the rules and it sounds promising. This is a play copy but I did not have time to try it out. This game pokes fun at the typical workplace. The boss has a project to be done. Everyone must contribute. The project will succeed only if you collectively put in enough effort. If it succeeds, the most visible guy (not necessarily the one who put in the most effort) gets the reward. If it fails, the one who put in the least effort gets penalised. Can you get away with not putting in enough effort because someone else put in even less that you? 

Jon brought this back from Korea. 

Think of this as advanced tic-tac-toe. To win, you need to create three-in-a-row. There are nine sectors each with nine spaces. The spaces are numbered 1 to 9. When you place your pokemon, the number you put it on determines the sector the next player must place his pokemon. That's it. 

The game looks great!

Bulbasaur!

This can be quite thinky. You need to play smart to restrict your opponents' options. If you look at the situation above, green has lost because in all nine sectors there is a space orange can win with. 

The game is for 2 to 4 players

The Korean version of this game is called Hands Up. The original English version is a game from 2015 called Hands. 

You have a hand of cards showing various hand gestures. Every round, everyone simultaneously makes a gesture following one of the cards in hand. You want to find someone who is making the same gesture as you. If that happens, both of you score points. You score your card, and you get to draw a new one. 

That means you have to watch what other players are doing. If you see a gesture that you have the card for, you should do it next and hope the other player will do it too, or notice you and soon do it. 

Some gestures require two hands. If you choose to do one of these, you have to put down your hand cards because you'll need both your hands. Whenever you see someone do a two-handed gesture, drop everything and follow him, because the last person to do so will be penalised. 

This as a rowdy party game. 

I played Nemesis Retaliation on BGA. We played a cooperative scenario. Everybody calls Nemesis the Alien boardgame. They are right. 

In the cooperative game, all of us wake up from hibernation, and we don't really know what's going on on the spaceship. We have even forgotten the layout and have to relearn it by exploring the spaceship. The scenario tells us what our objectives are. In this particular game, we have to discover all rooms of two types, and at least one of us need to survive and bring an alien egg away. 

When we move about the spaceship, we make noise and attract aliens. When we shoot at them, we make even more noise. This is a pretty stressful experience because the aliens keep coming. Also the spaceship itself is not in great shape. Fires break out, systems break down. I got myself killed because the room I was in ran out of oxygen. 

This was my character. 

I must admit I did not learn to play this properly. This is the same problem with me when I play complex games on BGA. Nemesis uses a deckbuilding mechanism. Each character has his own deck. I don't think I utilised my deck well. 

Goa is a game from 2004. I have the first edition. This year it is released again through Kickstarter. The new version is certainly pretty. I played on BGA. 

I remember it being compared to The Princes of Florence, because you also do an auction followed by actions which others cannot interfere with. However I'd say they are quite different games. The auction phase is done on this 5x5 grid above. Players collectively trace a connected path to mark tiles which will be auctioned off. The tiles give you all sorts of benefits and resources. 

This is your player board. You have five tech tracks, each associated with an action type. When you advance on a tech track, you make your action stronger. Advancing is important because you score points for your progress. 

designer diary: Pilgrim Poker

 

Pilgrim Poker is named so because the setting is Journey to the West, the Chinese classic novel. The characters are transported to a modern setting. They are on the first leg of their pilgrimage, taking the train to Dunhuang. Guess what they are bringing on this trip? Pilgrim Poker of course! Five years ago when I started working on this game, it was very different. It certainly was an unexpected journey for me. 

The core idea in Pilgrim Poker is that everyone gets one card and holds it up facing forward. You can see everyone else's card, but not your own. Based on this, you need to bet on whether you are going to win. Only the highest card will win. The game was inspired by Hanabi and Kobayakawa. In Hanabi, you can't see your own cards. There are other games using this concept, like Pikoko and Luz. In Kobayakawa, you do just one round of betting, to decide whether you're in or out. Very minimalistic, but the decision-making can be tricky. Pilgrim Poker was initially called Saikoyu, which is "psycho you" modified to sound Japanese, a nod to both the games which inspired it. 

The first prototype had Malaysian fruits and four suits

In the first version of the game, after cards are drawn and held up, you take turns naming a bet amount. This is done for only one round. After everyone has named an amount, the bet which everyone must place into the pool is the second highest named amount. The reason for this is if most people think one particular player will win, they can all name a low amount, so that even if that single player names a high amount, he won't be able to win much. This is done in turn order as opposed to simultaneously because whenever a player names an amount, it is a clue to the other players. A player who names a low amount is likely seeing a high card. If you don't see any high card, then you might be holding that high card. 

There are some special cards which modify the core rules. Anyone holding the 10 wins or loses double. 10 is strong, but it is not the strongest. The numbers go from 1 to 13. Getting 10 is good, but it will be painful if you lose to an even higher number. If the 4 is in play, it is the smallest card which wins instead. When you hold the 4 and you see that everyone has high cards, you might think there is no hope of winning, but you would be wrong. If anyone holds the 8, it turns all odd numbers to zero. That means the 8 beats 9, 11 and 13. It only loses to 10 and 12. These cards add a twist to the game. You have to think carefully as you observe the actions and expressions of your opponents. 

Playtesting session

The Control Problem: Players feel there is little control

One big problem I had was players feeling helpless. When two players feel confident (or desperate) enough to want to name a high bet amount, you will be forced to put in a large bet, even when you are pretty sure you will lose it. This feels bad. I didn't want to add more rules to handle such a feel-bad situation. I thought maybe that should just be what the game was. But still, I had a nagging feeling this wouldn't work. I was stuck for a long time, and I had to set the game aside. It took more than two years for me to revisit the game. I am glad I did, because I had an idea that helped to move this design forward. Well, it wasn't exactly my idea. It was just poker. I applied the poker mechanism to the game. 

Everyone must commit to an ante. During a round, it is possible to raise, and when anyone raises, you can decide to fold, sacrificing your ante. This is simple, and most people understand this, because most people know a little about poker. By using a tried-and-true mechanism, I not only solved my problem about the feeling of control, I also made the game more intuitive to learn. 

Prototype in play

The Information Problem: How much information is enough?

When a round starts, you have no idea what your card is. I want to make sure there are ways for you to get clues. Your opponents can't and won't tell you, but I want to make sure their actions will give you hints. Or there are things you can do to try to get information. One mechanism I introduced for the purpose of helping players gain information was the Side Bet. Making a Side Bet means challenging another player to a duel. You state a bet amount. If your target agrees, you resolve this at the end of the round. If your target declines, he must pay you half the bet amount immediately. As you can see, this is a chance for you to bluff and intimidate an opponent into giving you money. Of course, if you happen to be holding the 1, this will backfire, and everyone will laugh at you. The Side Bet action gives information. Normally the player with the lowest card will be targeted. If you are being targeted, you probably have a low card. The bet amount named is also a clue. If you are being targeted but the bet amount is low, then maybe your card isn't too low. 

Here is one hilarious situation that I came across when playtesting. One player was the target of a Side Bet, but he saw that another player had a lowly 2. Since the active player did not target the 2 and targeted him instead, he knew he probably had an even smaller card, the 1. Throughout my playtesting, it was moments of realisation like this which truly tickled the players. 

Another funny situation was the player holding the 4 confidently issuing a Side Bet to the lowly 1. When 4 is in play, the lowly 1 becomes the strongest card. The active player didn't know he had a 4, well, at least until the other players started giggling. 

Game prototype

The Existential Problem: Isn't this just Indian Poker?

I found out rather late in my development journey that there is already a public domain game very similar to Pilgrim Poker. It's called Indian Poker. Indian Poker is not widely known in Malaysia where I live, so I had no idea there is such a thing. It was depressing to find out what I had been working on was something someone else had already made. Eventually I decided to still proceed with the project. Pilgrim Poker is not exactly Indian Poker, due to the special characters and also the action cards. So I felt I still had something new to offer. 

The Theme Problem: Why Journey to the West?

I must admit, Pilgrim Poker has a pasted on theme. This is a mechanism-first game. I did not start with any theme. Most of the other games I have published under the Cili Padi Games brand have fairy tale themes - Snow White, Ali Baba and Pinocchio. This time I thought why not pick a Chinese fairy tale. I chose Journey to the West because it is a story every Chinese knows, and many non-Chinese too. A familiar theme will attract attention, make the play experience more enjoyable, and also make learning the game a little easier. I do feel a little guilty because Journey to the West is supposed to be about Buddhism, and here I am with a gambling game... 

The final pilgrimage team in the game

There are many characters in Journey to the West, so I had more than enough source material to use. The pilgrimage team consists of four main characters, Master Tang Sanzang, eldest disciple Sun Wukong the Monkey King, second disciple Zhu Bajie (Pigsy), and junior disciple Sha Wujing (Sandy). Among the number cards, only three of them - 4, 8 and 10 - have special powers. That means I had to exclude Sha Wujing and move him to one of the action cards. Strictly speaking the pilgrimage team has five members, the fifth one being the horse. That horse is not just any horse. He is a dragon prince. I did not include him at all, since most people think of the team as just those four. 

10 became Sun Wukong, because he is the strongest fighter. 4 became Zhu Bajie. Zhu Bajie is often depicted as the greedy and lustful one. His flaws remind us that we are just human.  

Other characters in the game

For regular number cards (i.e. other than 4, 8 and 10) my original idea was to put some generic minor demon character. Some minions. My artist Edwin Chong suggested the Bull Demon King. Now the Bull Demon King is certainly no minor character. He is a big shot demon. I loved how Edwin turned him into a tired modern day salaryman, carrying a laptop bag and standing in the train. In Pilgrim Poker when you initiate a Side Bet, that's an act of aggression. I thought Red Boy would be most fitting. He is the fiery character in the story. In many chapters, it was the Goddess of Mercy (Guan Yin) who came to save the day, when the pilgrimage team got really stuck. So I put her on the Change Card action card. This is a card that can completely turn things around. Halfway through a round, you can discard your card and draw a new one.  

Pilgrim Poker was released in Malaysia in August 2026. It started as "Saikoyu", and now it has a theme of Journey to the West, which in Japanese is "Saiyuki". If this game ever gets a Japanese edition, it might be called Saiyuki Poker. 

Finally, the end product

Game components

Action cards

Number cards

Start player card (night side)

94 coins

Game page at Cili Padi Games website: https://www.cilipadigames.com/pilgrimpoker