Infernal Affairs retheme of Templar Intrigue

When I taught my Taiwanese friends Templar Intrigue (my blog post here), I explained the mechanisms using characters from the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs (later remade in English as The Departed, which won some Oscars). Templar Intrigue was a Kickstarted game, and I'm not sure whether it is possible to buy it through normal channels. For those who missed it, you may need to make your own copy if you want to try this game. If you like Infernal Affairs, then this retheme which I've made using MS Powerpoint may be of interest. I can't share this on BGG since I don't own the copyrights to the photos I used, which were downloaded from the internet. If you are interested, follow this link.

These are the cards from the original Templar Intrigue. The top row is the Royalist cards (i.e. police force). Starting from the left: card back, the king (the equivalent is Anthony Wong Chau Sang, the superintendent), a monk (policeman), and the Templar archivist (Andy Lau, the mafia mole secretly working in the police force). The bottom row is the Templar cards (i.e. mafia) - the card back, the Grandmaster (Eric Tsang, the mafia boss), a Templar knight (mafia thug) and a traitor (Tony Leung Chiu Wai, undercover cop).

There are four pages in the file I created, and here are two of them.

I put a crown icon on the superintendent card to remind the player who is dealt that card that he needs to reveal his card at the start of the game. One of the cop cards specifies a player number range at the bottom left. This means you only use that card for this specific player number range. This saves some trouble looking up the rules. The mole card has a target icon, meaning he is one of the characters the superintendent needs to hunt down.

The mafia boss card has a target icon too, he's the other character the superintendent needs to identify. There are some disjoints from the movie. In the movie the identity of the mafia boss Eric Tsang is public knowledge. Also the superintendent Anthony Wong knows who the undercover cop is (Tony Leung).

Only 12 cards are needed, and 2 of them are rule summaries, one each (double-sided) in English and Chinese. If you don't need the Chinese one, that's one card less. When I made the Powerpoint file, I miscalculated the dimensions of the cards. You can see that the cards I printed are a few millimeters short. Thankfully they still worked for me and I didn't need to redo the whole thing. My approach was to use a normal playing card as a base. I sandwiched it with a card back and a card face which I printed. Then I sleeve the whole thing with a transparent card sleeve.

These are the two main stars of the movie Infernal Affairs. If you play with 9 or 10, there will be two Tony Leungs.

Everything fits into this small ziplock bag.

Times Square

Times Square is a Reiner Knizia game that never got much attention. It's a 2-player only game, and it is mostly a card game. I read some good things about it on www.BoardGameGeek.com, and was almost tempted to buy it. Then one day Michelle said to me, why not make it yourself? So I did.

The Game

This is pretty much an abstract game. The theme is about two opposing nightclub owners trying to attract two important celebrities to their nightclubs. Whoever manages to do so wins the game, or if the game ends with neither celebrity stepping into a nightclub, whoever has the celebrities closer wins. That doesn't sound like a very exciting theme, but then the theme isn't really that important. It is the gameplay that is interesting.

The game board is a long track representing a busy street, with two nightclubs at both ends. There are 6 figures on the board. Saucy Sue and Champagne Charlie are the two persons that determine victory. Get either of them to the doorstep of your nightclub, and you win. If the draw deck is exhausted twice and noone can achieve this, the game ends immediately, and whoever has Saucy Sue nearer to his nightclub wins. If Saucy Sue is standing at the centre of the street, then Champagne Charlie's position is the tiebreaker. The other 4 persons are Handsome Hal, Dancing Deb, and the two bodyguards of Saucy Sue.

The whole game revolves around playing cards to move these characters. Every one of them has different rules, restrictions and/or special abilities. Handsome Hal can allow you attract another character to where he is. Dancing Deb can allow you to use her cards as if they were jokers (i.e. can be used to move any other character). Saucy Sue's bodyguards never let her out of their protection. One will always be on her left, and the other on her right. On your turn, you can always only move one character type, which usually means one character, except for the bodyguards who are the same type. You can play any number of cards, and you always draw enough to get 8 cards, which means it is often good to play as many cards as you can on your turn, to maximise your gain. However, you are also restricted by the rule which states that a card can only be played if its effect can be carried out.

Champagne Charlie has special movement rules. You never move him by card play. Instead he moves one step towards you at the end of your turn for every character that you have at your nightclub (of course if you already have Saucy Sue at your nightclub then you have already won and who cares about Champagne Charlie). Champagne Charlie also moves towards you if all three of Saucy Sue and her bodyguards are on your side of the board.

My self-made Times Square. I have the game board, rules summary, reference chart and card deck breakdown all on the same piece of A4-sized paper. On the gameboard, the starting positions of each character are marked. The darker spaces at both ends are the nightclub spaces.

I bought a cheap magnetic chess set so that I could use the chess pieces. The black ones are the characters who determine victory - the black queen is Saucy Sue, and the black king is Champagne Charlie. Other pieces are grey - the grey bishop is Dancing Deb, the grey knight is Handsome Hal, and the two grey pawns are the bodyguards.

The cards are rather small, but managable.

The Play

By now I have already played 7 games of Times Square, i.e. I've met the goal of 5 plays in first year of purchase / manufacture. Two were games against Han, and 5 were against Michelle. So far most of the games ended in sudden death, i.e. one of the characters, often Champagne Charlie, being attracted to one of the nightclubs before the deck ran out twice.

We found that the 4 most powerful cards in the game are the 2 "protect Sue" cards, and the "reset Deb" cards. The former make both bodyguards jump to the spaces immediately next to Sue, and the latter make Deb jump to the centre of the board. These cards are especially handy when they can let you move these characters many steps. Also under specific conditions the "reset Deb" card can be a joker, which means it can be used to "reset" anyone else (except Charlie). These 4 powerful cards often need to be saved and only used at the most suitable time. You also need to be mindful of them. Your opponent may be holding them, so don't spend many cards making a move that can be instantly undone by one of these cards.

Managing the movement of Champagne Charlie is very important. This the short term strategy part of the game, whereas getting Saucy Sue to be on your side by game end is the longer term focus. Not to say that it is impossible for Saucy Sue to enter your nightclub, just that it is much harder to do. When you have characters at your nightclub, and you are attracting Champagne Charlie every turn, you force your opponent to counter your advantage, by either getting his own customer(s), or pulling away your customer(s). The urgency gets worse if you are getting 2, or even 3 characters at your doorstep.

Because you have a hand of 8 cards, I find that it is rare that you'd feel your hand is completely useless. Of course, sometimes if your opponent gets very lucky in card draws, it can be tough to catch up. However I feel that generally during the game there are always meaningful decisions to make. You won't really feel restricted by your cards. I think that is quite amazing.

Sometimes you can plan for some powerful combination of moves that span across a few turns. E.g. getting Handsome Hal into your nightclub, and then on your next turn attract one of the bodyguards to your nightclub too. That would mean you'd be attracting Champagne Charlie two steps. Another example is moving Dancing Deb on one turn to position her so that you can make use of her special ability, and then on the subsequent turn using that special ability to move another character many steps towards you. Sometimes you have to watch your opponent and try to anticipate and block such combination moves.

The Thoughts

I quite like the game. It is very fast (10-minute games), and yet there are quite many interesting decisions in the game. There is some bluffing and double guessing - gambling whether your opponent has some of those powerful cards that will completely neutralise your big move, contemplating whether you should make a defensive move to block your opponent's pontential big-gain move or try to make your own big-gain move, and so on. It's an interesting tug-of-war where the game situation can change very quickly.

Times Square reminds me of En Garde, because of the long track in the game, although they are very different games (but both are by Knizia). En Garde is fast and furious, whereas Times Square is about maneuvering and then occasionally making some big-gain moves. It offers opportunities for both offensive and defensive play, and sometimes manipulating the pace is also critical, because when the deck runs out for the second time, the position of Saucy Sue (and Champagne Charlie) will determine the winner.

the controversy of self-making games

This is a topic I have been wanting to write about for quite some time, but never quite got around to it, because it's a heavy topic that makes me think a lot. I'd have to really sit down to think about it from various angles, and to organise my thoughts, before posting this blog post. Of course, the main reason I want to write about it is because I do this - I self make games which are designed by other people (here's a link to when I last wrote about this), and I play these self-made copies. Is this right or wrong?

Self-made R-Eco. It's quite a clever and quick game with a unique twist. I quite like it. But somehow I don't play it a lot. Probably because it's a short game.

First, there are different ways to define what's right and what's wrong. Legally right and morally right are different. The latter will probably have different interpretations, depending on your background, your culture, your world view. Let's start from the legal viewpoint. If I'm making a copy to play with my own friends, and not making a business profit out of it, I think this is not against any law. If I don't freely (as in "without care", not "free of charge") share the tools, equipment and techniques that I use for making a home-made game, I think I'm not breaking any law. Based on my limited understanding, the line is crossed only if you are making a profit out of it.

I have read on BoardGameGeek a discussion about a version of Bang released commercially in China. The Chinese version has a Romance of the Three Kingdoms theme, and is much richer than the original Bang, with more characters, more powers, weapons, etc. However, from reading the description (I have not played either game), it seems very obvious to me the Chinese version (I forget the name) is obviously based on Bang. And the designer of Bang was never credited, and never received any royalty or fee. To me, this is wrong. But there are some who think differently. I have read that only game rules and artwork are copyrighted, as written / drawn. If you use the same game concepts, or use rewritten rules, it's not illegal, as long as you don't copy the text straight and don't re-use artwork. If so, I guess this Chinese version is not illegal, but I'd say it's wrong, from a moral perspective.

Well, this is one extreme - plagiarism (in my opinion). And it's for commercial use.

How about if it is only for personal use? It can be argued that if you self-make a game, then you are depriving the game designer and the publisher of one sale. If you support the designer / publisher, and think their work should be rewarded, you should buy their game. Why self-make a game and not support the designer / publisher? There can be many reasons:

1. Try-before-buy: You are not sure whether you'll like the game. You don't have easy access to try it, e.g. a friend's copy, or a shop's demo copy. So you make your own copy and see whether you like the game. For me, I find that more often than not I don't end up buying a copy of the real game. Usually that's because I found that I didn't like the game as much as I had thought I would (e.g. Medici & Strozzi, Felix: the cat in the sack). Or I just don't play the game a lot (e.g. Incan Gold, R-Eco). There are some exceptions, e.g. I eventually got Ra (a gift), Modern Art. Should I feel obliged to buy a real copy of the game if I like it? Or if I like it enough to play it more than X number of times? Even when the home-made copy works just fine?
2. Cost: In Malaysia, the cost to buy a game (well, at least the type of game that boardgame hobbyists buy) is not cheap to an average Malaysian. If I were an American or European making a living in US Dollars or in Euro, games would be much cheaper. Also I usually buy from overseas, because not all the games that I want to buy are available at local shops or local online shops. So shipping cost is a factor.
3. Speed: Sometimes I just can't wait. E.g. Ra: the dice game. I can't wait for the next overseas bulk order that I make (usually only 2 or 3 times in a year). I can't wait for the local shop / online retailer to stock the game.
4. Availability: Sometimes the local retailers do not stock the games I'm interested in. Sometimes I make games because they are out of print, e.g. when I made Ra in 2004, or Traumfabrik / Hollywood Blockbuster.
5. Retheme: I self-made Traumfabrik using files downloaded from BoardGameGeek which use more modern-day (~1990's) movies and actors / actresses. I quite like that, and I have no interest in getting the Uberplay-published Hollywood Blockbuster which uses cartoonised / humourously tweaked movie, actor and actress names. I am also not interested in the original Traumfabrik with movies from around the 1930's, because I don't know the movies and celebrities from that era.

Would a game designer to happy or upset to find that someone had self-made his game? Will he be happy or proud that a person has gone to such lengths to home-make his game? Or will he be unhappy that he is denied his reward in the form of another copy of his game sold?

En Garde, designed by Reiner Knizia. Knizia's games are often easy to self-make, because often the components are simple and can be made from generic pieces. En Garde is also a quick and clever game, even simpler than R-Eco. Unfortunately filler-like games in my collection always suffer the same fate of not getting played much. I guess if I had a bigger gaming group and frequent game sessions where people trickle in at slightly different times, then fillers would get played more.

I will continue to self-make games. I realise that I'm doing this less and less though, probably because there aren't many games that are easy to self-make that I am interested in. There's no way I'm going to home-make a game like Race for the Galaxy with so many different cards. My tolerance for time spent on self-making a game is also less now. I can't imagine myself spending the kind of time and effort on self-making Ra (200+ tiles) and Traumfabrik now.

Do you think self-making a game is right? Or when is it right and when is it wrong, if such a distinction can be made?

Roll Through the Ages

Roll Through the Ages is a new game, designed by Matt Leacock, designer of Pandemic. It is published by the same company that published Through the Ages in USA, FRED Distribution. It is a quick dice game, and is nothing like the long and complex Through the Ages. Well, except for the civilisation theme. I quite like Pandemic, so I self-made Roll Through the Ages, to give it a try, using just normal dice.

In Roll Through the Ages, you roll dice to collect various resources, and develop your civilisation. The die-rolling is like Pickomino and Risk Express , i.e. you roll, set some aside (i.e. "freeze" them), and may roll again, until you are happy with the results. Most die results are good, so it is a matter of prioritising what resources you want to collect. You use workers to build more cities (which let you roll more dice, but you'll also need more food to feed your population. You also use workers to build monuments, which give victory points. You also collect goods and money, and use them to develop new technologies, which give victory points and also special powers, e.g. allowing you to collect more food, or protect you from certain disasters. Sometimes disasters happen, if you roll an even number of skulls, or if you roll five or more skulls. The tricky thing is the side of the die with the skull also has 2 goods. So sometimes you want to roll that side. So it's about how much risk you want to take. Having more cities means more dice, but also higher chance of rolling too many skulls, and getting hit by the big disasters. When you roll the skull + 2 goods side, you must freeze that die.

I find the game to be quite thematic. It has many elements of a civilisation building game. You do see your civilisation grow and progress. However I think of it as a filler, and to me a filler is a game that you get out to play when you just want a quick game, when you don't have enough time for a longer "normal" game. So, not really something that I'd plan to play. There are interesting decisions in the game, and so far, having played 3 games, I don't think there is one sure-fire winning strategy. There is quite a variety of technologies in the game, and I think they allow for various strategies. I have not tried them all. The game is quite simple, short, thematic, and has meaningful decisions. However to me it is not very deep and is not interesting enough that I would play often. So, I probably won't be buying a copy, and I'm glad I tried it out beforehand.

R-Eco

R-Eco is my latest home-made game. It is a simple card game, and I decided to self-make it because it sounds interesting, and because Michelle prefers card games (due to shorter length). Also recycling and the environment is something Michelle cares about.

R-Eco is very simple. Every turn you deliver (sorted) garbage to one of the four recycling plants, and then pick up all the (unsorted) garbage from the dump site of that plant. When a plant gets four or more pieces of garbage (of the same type, of course, since each plant can only process one type of garbage), it will process them, and if you are the one delivering enough garbage to allow the plant to start processing, you earn a victory point chip.

Your hand size is 5, representing the size of your garbage truck. If by picking up garbage you exceed your hand limit, you will be forced to dump garbage illegally. Each garbage card that you are forced to dump gives you -1 victory point. However if you can avoid illegal dumping completely, you will be awarded a bonus. The game ends when one recycling plant runs out of victory point chips.

I have played 4 games with Michelle, and find this a rather clever card game, despite the simplicity. It is also quite thematic, to me. This game is designed by a Japanese, and I think the Japanese are very responsible and civic-conscious in sorting and recycling their garbage. In this game, to avoid illegal dumping is actually not that easy (at least for 2-player games, which is the only player count that I have experienced). There are ways to play that will make it difficult for your opponent not to dump illegally. Trying not to dump and trying to dump as little as possible is an interesting challenge.

Another clever thing is you can actually know what cards your opponents have, if you are willing to spend the effort. Players only get cards into their hands from the (face-up) dump sites of the recycling plants. You don't draw cards blind from the draw deck. So if you really want to, you can card-count. If you prefer to spend less effort, you can still roughly remember what cards your opponents have recently taken. Looking at what cards you will take by delivering garbage to the plants is important. This is a planning element. There is also a "chicken" element. Since only the player delivering the piece of garbage that gives a plant critical mass will be rewarded, usually you try to avoid setting up your opponent to deliver that crucial piece of garbage.

Yet another clever element is the -2 chip. Instead of simply increasing in value, there is a chip with a penalty among the stacks of victory chips. This can mess up your plan, and this gives the game yet another interesting twist.

There is yet another twist. (Hmmm... I seem to be contradicting myself, but honestly this is a simple game) If you only have one chip of a colour, that chip doesn't count. There can be two extremes for this. If you have a single -2, it doesn't count, and you're good. You don't mind picking up the -2. If you only have a single 5, then it is of no use to you. Probably the only good thing you get out of it is you end the game immediately by exhausting the victory point chips of one recycling plant. Timing is also important. Since the game ends when one plant is out of chips, manipulating the timing of the end game is also one thing to consider.

Michelle is the conservative type when playing R-Eco, and tries to avoid illegal dumping. In 2 player games there is a big bonus for not dumping - four points.

The cards and the victory point chips. For the cards I found the icons on the net and I coloured them by hand. For the chips I just drew directly on cardboard paper.

A game in progress. The upper half is where the sorted garbage is delivered, and the bottom half are the dump sites of the recycling plants, where the players would collect cards. The dump sites of the plants are refilled based on the number of garbage pieces at the plant plus one. The card backs are, naturally, the triangular recycling icon.

Close-up of the blue (glass bottles) recycling plant. Factory icon on one side, garbage bin icon on the other.

R-Eco is a simple game, with few components and few rules. It plays quick. Each turn is very simple. Yet within this small unassuming package, there are quite a number of clever and interesting twists. I find this a very well designed game. Very Euro, and I'd even say Knizia-like - concise and "a-game-should-be-as-simple-as-it-can-be-and-no-simpler". My salute to the designer Susumu Kawasaki.

This game is well worth the effort of self-making it. Michelle and I call this the "recycle game".

Africa, Felix: The Cat in the Sack

Yet another visit to Carcasean, this time two new games.

On 28 Dec 2007 I played Africa (2 player game against Michelle), and Felix: The Cat in the Sack (5 player game, using my home-made version).

Africa is not a highly ranked game at Boardgamegeek. When I told Chong Sean (owner of Carcasean) I was interested to try it, he seemed to be amazed that I was interested even to try it. He asked me, "After reading the rules, do you expect it will be fun?". After we played the game, and Michelle told him it was fun, he was surprised.

Africa is about exploring Africa (of course). There are face-down chips placed all over a map of Africa, and you explore. You discover natural resources (gold and diamonds), you collect trade goods, you find animals and try to herd them together, you find nomads and try to relocate them to places with more space, you find monuments, you set up camps to extract natural resources or to study the animals / people / monuments. Throughout the game, you move your explorer, you turn over tiles, and do various actions, and earn victory points along the way. You do this until the 11th monument is discovered. Then the game ends. At game end, there is also some scoring for the gold, diamonds and trade goods.

The exploration of Africa is well underway.

Michelle liked Africa, which totally upset Chong Sean. :-D Hey, I just realised she was wearing a T-shirt from Africa - from Egypt!

The white Indiana Jones and the brown Indiana Jones fighting over a tent.

These camps were set up to study the animals, nomads and monuments. 1VP for each adjacent.

Africa was a pleasant surprise for me. It is quite a light game. There is a lot of luck. Yet somehow I do enjoy it. I don't know whether it's something I'd enjoy after playing for the tenth time, but my first play was definitely enjoyable. Michelle liked it too. I think one thing that makes the game fun is the "lucky draw" factor. In this game, every time you turn over a tile is a lucky draw. Also, every turn you try to maximise your score. You try to make clever moves like setting up camp, or moving already revealed animals or nomads. There is some, but not a lot of, player interaction. You can compete in gold / diamonds / trade goods. You can compete for good spots to set up camp. You can also try to block your opponents' explorers using your own explorer.

I like Africa. I think it's fun. This is a game that should be played in a relaxed way.

Felix: The Cat in the Sack, is a recently released game. The designer, Friedemann Friese, is well known for unique and strange themes for this game (and also for many F's in his games' names, and green colour in his games, and his green hair). The theme in this game is not too weird, but it certainly has an interesting twist in its auction mechanism.

I home-made this game after reading the rules. It's cheaper, and I don't need to wait for the English release. This is my first time making a colour-printed game, because I used my father's printer. I don't have a printer at home, and the laser printers at the office are black & white. I enjoy home-making games, searching the internet for pictures, creating the components on Powerpoint. I can even choose to change the theme of the game.

I played Felix: The Cat in the Sack twice with 5 players - Michelle, Chong Sean, and two other customers (I think). This is an auction game, and what is unique about it is you usually do not know for sure the value of the sack which you are bidding for. As people drop off from the auction, information about the sack is gradually revealed. However, often you won't know what that last card is, even if you are one of the last two players competing for that sack.

Chong Sean and two other players joined us to play a 5-player game of Felix: The Cat in the Sack. We used Chong Sean's high quality poker chips.

My home-made version. Printed in colour this time.

Every player starts the game with 9 cards. There are cat cards with positive and negative values, dog cards which may chase away cats, and even a rabbit card with value 0. In every round, each player places a card into the sack in the middle of the table. This is the sack which everyone will bid for. One card is revealed before the auction starts. Each time a player drops off from the auction, one more can is revealed. By the time there are 2 players remaining, there will still be one card unrevealed. Only when the sack is won, the last card will be revealed. So, usually no one will know for sure what the total value of the sack until that moment. The only exception is when you are the one who played that last card.

When you pass, you earn some money. The later you pass, the more you earn. So, it is probably possible to win the game without winning any auctions. At game end, you add up your money and the value of your cards to determine your final score.

There is some psychology in the game. By watching how other players bid or concede, you can try to guess what kind of card they have played into the sack. The game is also about risk management - should you press on with the bidding, or drop off and gain money immediately. Sometimes you actually earn more money by dropping off than winning the sack, e.g. when the value of the sack is low, or when the amount bid is high. It is even possible to lose money when you win an auction, when the amount bid is higher than the value of the sack. Sometimes the value of the sack can even be negative!

Although there are some clever twists in the game, I found it to be quite random. There seems to be many ways to guess the value of the sack, and it seems you should have quite a bit of control. However, I find that I often ended up having to make wild guesses. There seems to be quite a bit of luck in the game to me. So, overall it was just an OK game for me. Maybe having 5 players make things more random and chaotic than I like. Perhaps I should try with fewer players.

self-made games

I have self-made quite a number of games. I did not design these games. I just bought materials and hand-made them myself, by referring to available information of these games, e.g. number of cards, how the board looks like. In some case I self-made these games because they were out-of-print, or they were too expensive or too difficult to buy. In most cases I am just being cheap-skate and want to save some money. Most of my self-made games are self-contained, i.e. I have all the required components in a box or in an envelope (or both) and I can just take it off my shelf and play, e.g. Ca$h n Gun$, Medici & Strozzi, En Garde. Some games need some components to be taken from another game, e.g. Samurai (which uses the nice soldier pieces from Samurai Swords), Can't Stop (which uses markers and dice from Age of Steam). Some games I shouldn't really claim that I own or that I have self-made them, because I can simply use components from another game to play them, e.g. Babylone (I can use the different coloured tiles from Tigris & Euphrates), Loco (I use the Sticheln cards and the plastic poker chips I bought from Taiwan). The disadvantage of these games which use components from another game is that I tend to put them together with the other game, and when I scan my boardgame self for games to play, I won't see them and won't think of pulling them out to play. Even for the self-contained self-made games, their boxes are not as flashy as the real games. Sometimes they are just in envelops and they are not eye-catching.

Can't Stop

This is my current list of games that I have self-made (I'm pretty sure I will make more in future):

• Through the Desert
• Traumfabrik (Hollywood Blockbuster)
• Modern Art
• Ra
• Ca$h n Gun$
• Acquire
• Samurai
• Battle Line
• Medici & Strozzi
• Yinsh
• En Garde
• Poison
• Verrater
• Can't Stop
• Kingdoms
• Reef Encounter

For some of these games, I ended up buying them later anyway, because I like them, or because they were later republished (i.e. I made them when they were out-of-print). E.g. Modern Art, Through the Desert. 10 out of 16 games above are designed by Reiner Knizia. It's because I tend to like his games, and also his games tend to be easier to self-make.

Verrater, rethemed from clan wars in the Scottish highlands to the Romance of the Three Kingdom's period in Chinese history

The first game that I self-made was Samurai. This was even before I really got into the boardgame hobby. At the time my hobby was still PC games, and I downloaded this free PC version of the Samurai boardgame. I didn't even realise it was originally a boardgame. I played it and liked it and thought that this could be made into a boardgame. So I did it. Only later I realised Samurai is one of the highly regarded games in the Eurogames hobby.

Sometimes I wonder whether the effort spent making these games was worthwhile. Some games were made and then only played once or twice, e.g. Kingdoms, Reef Encounter (a LOT of effort into this one). Time spent making them was more than time spent playing them afterwards. I guess I am enjoying the process of making these games as well as playing them itself.

The self-made games that are most worth the effort are Ra, Ca$h n Gun$ and Traumfabrik (Hollywood Blockbuster). I played Ra many many times with my friends in Taiwan. I had a lot of fun playing Ca$h n Gun$, and I liked Traumfabrik (roughly translated as "Dream Factory") a lot.

Traumfabrik (Hollywood Blockbuster)

The tools I use in self-making games include Microsoft Powerpoint, hard cardboard paper, wide sticky tape, cutter, scissors, permanent marker pens, and cheap game components (like cheap playing cards, cheap Go pieces). I download pictures from the internet to create my own gameboard and game components. I bring printouts to the nearby shop to be laminated (some are for gameboard, some are for cards, after cutting them up).

I like some of my self-made games more than the real ones, because when self-making a game, I can apply a different theme to it which I like more. For Traumfabrik, a game about movie-making, I downloaded some files from Boardgamegeek which allowed me to create my copy about movies, directors and actors from around the 90's period, as opposed to being about old, classic movies which I am not familiar with. The recently reprinted version, Hollywood Blockbuster, uses modern day movies, but the publisher distorted the names a bit so as to avoid copyright issues. Also the actors are cartoons and not photos. For Ca$h n Gun$, I used photos of Hong Kong actors holding guns, as opposed to the cartoon characters in the original game. Sometimes when playing this game we call it "Infernal Affairs" 无间道 (which is an award winning movie starring Andy Lau 刘德华 and Tony Leung 梁朝伟). It is especially relevant to the movie when playing the undercover cop variant. I have both Andy Lau and Tony Leung in my self-made version.

I wonder what will be my next handicraft project.