Boardgames as educational tools

In the past few months I have been exploring the training industry as a possible new career path. Suddenly my Facebook feed was flooded with all sorts of ads related to training. So many gurus offering free two to three hour seminars, on property investment, stocks trading, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and so on. I went to some of these. These free seminars are all preview sessions, i.e. marketing sessions where they try to sell you their non-free workshop or training. All of them sounded a little dodgy to me. Perhaps it was because I recognised the many techniques they used to encourage (a.k.a. psycho) people to sign up, like saying how expensive the course originally is and just for today only you get this special price. In one case the presenter set a 7-minute countdown clock at the end of his talking, and said if you signed up before time ran out, you'd get some extra stuff. All these techniques only made me more skeptical. The presentations were spectacular and entertaining, but was what they sold really effective? It sounded too good to be true. In the end, I signed up for one of these courses.

The most well-known boardgame used in trainings is probably Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow 101. Robert Kiyosaki is the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. I have not read the book or played the game myself. What I have now is this game below called Leverage.

Allen gave this to me when he heard I was considering getting into the training business. This was a game from his friend who attended a business training course. The game was played during the course, and Allen's friend bought a copy. It was quite expensive, and I imagine the training course was probably very expensive too.

I have not played this game, and I do not intend to. Strictly speaking, I should not comment on it. My opinions on it are purely based on reading the rules and looking at the game components. Let's take a look at how it plays.

The game board has a circular track. Every player has a pawn which moves along the track based on a die roll. When you land on a space, you draw a card from a deck indicated by the space, and you do what the card says. This game simulates running a business. The text on the cards are all related to business situations. When your pawn passes a Profit space, this represents your business having run for one month, and you collect a monthly profit. If you have taken an overdraft, you must pay interest.

There are 10 types of cards in the game. 5 of them are called marketing leverage cards. They help you improve some aspect of your sales, and increase your monthly income. 4 of the card types are called business leverage cards. They are on the outside of the track. They represent important aspects related to growing and sustaining your business, e.g. IT systems, staff training and logistics. To win the game, you must achieve two things. You must have a monthly income of at least $100,000, and your business leverage value in all four areas must be at least 5 points. The 10th card type is the Oops card. These are unforeseen disasters that hurt your business.

These are the marketing leverage cards. They all describe various ways a business can improve its sales. This content is what the game is trying to teach the players. In game terms, the general function of these cards are similar. You are given the choice of investing a certain amount of money, for the chance of increasing one of the KPI's of your business. If you decide to gamble, you flick a spinner to see how much your KPI increases. In the best case, it increases by 10%. If you are unlucky, you gain nothing.

These are the business leverage cards. Sometimes you have the opportunity to increase one business leverage value by 1 or 2 points, at a cost. You may sell the rights to an opponent at a mutually agreed price. Sometimes the card is put up for auction, and everyone may bid for it.

If you land on a Bonus space, you may pick any card type to draw.

That's the spinner on the left, and the rulebook on the right.

At the start of the game, everyone draws a random profession card. Your profession card determines the starting parameters of your business. That long sequence of calculations is how you calculate your monthly income. It is another thing the game intends to teach. Every profession card has a different combination of business leverage values (they don't start at zero). The profession card also specifies your overdraft limit. That business at the lower right has no overdraft facility.

After you draw your profession card, you write down all the important starting parameters on your record sheet. This is the front page of your record sheet, where you write your starting situation.

This is the back of your record sheet. Every time you increase one of your marketing leverage KPI's, you calculate your new monthly income here.

I think the paper money in the game is decent. The design is loud and clear.

These are the Oops cards. Some force you to lose turns. Some make you lose money. Some lower your KPI's.

I think this is a very luck-heavy game. It's mostly a roll-and-move game after all, not all that different from Snakes and Ladders. You do have opportunities to make decisions, but you don't really have many meaningful decisions. When you draw a marketing leverage card, you get to decide whether to buy it. In most cases you probably should, because that's how you make progress. I can only imagine not buying when you are short on money and need to wait for the next monthly income. It actually doesn't matter which marketing leverage KPI you are going to bet on increasing. All five KPI's are multiplied to get your monthly income. When you increase one KPI, you multiply it with a certain percentage increase. Since everything is being multiplied, it doesn't matter which KPI. If I look at this from a game design perspective, this is quite stupid and pointless, like all resources are wood in Catan. But remember, the purpose is actually communicating those five KPI's to the players - the students. This game is not about playing a game. It is about teaching business.

Another opportunity for making decisions is when you draw a business leverage card. If it is something you lack, you probably should buy it. If it is something you don't need but someone else needs it, you probably want to sell it at as high a price as possible, unless he is close to winning and you need to deny him. If it comes to an auction, how you value the card very much depends on how lacking you are in that particular business leverage area. Not exactly rocket science. I have not analysed the cost distribution of the various cards. If the distribution is different for different types of cards, it may be an additional factor to consider when making decisions.

I have no urge to try this game myself. I study it only out of curiosity, to see what a training tool boardgame is like. It is certainly very different from what I usually play. It serves a different purpose, and it should not be assessed based on its entertainment value. If it conveys the lesson effectively, and people remember the lesson for a long time afterwards, it has done its job.

Here's another training tool game. I have played this one, during a training course I attended. It is a two-player game. The play area is a network of nodes with terminals along the edges. It is played within a 5-minute time limit, and the players may not speak or communicate in any way. You may play as many times as you want within the 5 minutes, and you take turns to be the start player. There is only one pawn on the board, and it always starts at the centre. You take turns moving the pawn one step. The pawn must not visit the same node more than once. Your goal is to move the pawn to a terminal on your turn. It's a very simple game.

Soon after my opponent and I started, I realised that when played competently, the start player would always lose, due to the design of the network. Both players would avoid setting up the other to win, resulting in the pawn moving in a big circle. Eventually it would run out of options, and be forced into a terminal. I pondered the lesson behind the game as I played. It was telling us that the whole point was to not compete. If we played competitively, a game took rather long to play, and our total wins would be low by the time the 5 minutes was up. If we played cooperatively and took turns to win, we would be able to play many games and score many victories. It was win-win. Once I realised this, I adjusted my method of play. When it was my "opponent's" turn to win, I helped her instead of playing against her, sending the pawn in a straight line to a terminal. Unfortunately she hadn't yet worked out what was going on, and I couldn't tell her due to the no talking rule. When it was my turn to win, she still played normally, which dragged the game. When time ran out, we didn't do very well.

After this exercise, the whole classroom compared scores, and one particular team outscored everybody else by a huge margin. One of the teammates was a German guy, Martin, and he too had figured out what was going on. However, he handled the situation in a different way from mine. Regardless of whose turn it was to win, he always selflessly made the pawn take the shortest path to the nearest terminal. When he started to do this, his "opponent" very quickly racked up many wins. She didn't yet fully understand the situation. However due to Martin's generosity, she felt compelled to also let him win sometimes. That was how their team went on to score many more points in total than the rest of us. I certainly learned something from this experience. Had I been smarter about this, and less insistent on taking turns to win, I could have achieved what Martin's team did. The lesson behind all this is in order to be successful, you must help others to be successful. Give, and you will receive. Great successes are built on a collaborative mindset.

As a game, this is poor design. A game where the start player always loses is a stupid one. However what I learned from it was valuable, and would stay with me for a long time. That is the true value of the game, or rather, this exercise. We probably should not think of this as a game. It is called a game because people associate a game with fun. It makes people feel relaxed. It makes people think it is something easy to do. It takes away seriousness.

When we say the phrase "educational game", we all know it comes with a negative connotation. The first thing that comes to mind is this game is going to be boring. Sometimes educational games fail to be fun, or educational, which is rather sad. There are certainly boring and ineffective educational games. In some cases, they are not as bad as we think. They are bad because we evaluate them based on entertainment value. Most gamers would scoff at those pricey business training games. At these prices, you can buy a dozen fantastic games. I find it amusing to examine some of these educational games. It's novel to me, because the games we play are so very different.

Meeples Cafe spring cleaning sale

Meeples Cafe in Kuala Lumpur is doing a spring cleaning sale, 8 - 19 Jan 2020.

Colonial Twilight

Plays: 2Px1.

The Game

Colonial Twilight is the 7th game in GMT's COIN (Counter Insurgency) game series. These games are categorised as wargames, but they are a very different breed from conventional wargames. Instead of battles between nations, these games are more about rebellions and uprisings. Usually one of the sides is the government in power, while another is a rebel faction. Many COIN games are designed for four players, e.g. Fire in the Lake, Cuba Libre and Andean Abyss, and are at their best when played with four. Colonial Twilight is designed for two. If you often have difficulty finding enough players for a full four-player COIN game, then this is good news. Just note that in a 2-player COIN game, you won't have those intricate relationships between factions, e.g. temporary alliances, betrayals, ganging up on the leader, and checks and balances.

The setting is the Algerian war of independence, from 1954 to 1962. Algeria is a French colony. Some rebels want independence, but the French government wants to maintain control. In France and in Algeria, there are people who support maintaining the colony and also people who oppose it. Both the government and the rebels want to win public support for their causes. Public support counts towards victory points, and also gives money. The game board shows a map of Algeria, bordering Morocco in the west, Tunisia in the east, the Sahara desert in the south, and the Mediterranean Sea in the north. Both Morocco and Tunisia became independent earlier than Algeria, and when they became independent, Algerian rebers used them as bases to launch attacks. The three round areas are the major cities in Algeria.

On the track, the two cylinders indicate the money of the players - black cylinder for the rebels, blue for the government. The green square marker is the victory point marker of the rebels. The VP value is calculated based on two things - the number of rebel bases on the board, and the support of the people. The two square markers showing the French flag are the commitment level and the government VP. Commitment can be thought of as the support of the people in France. The government VP value is also based on two things - the commitment level, i.e. support level in France, and the support level of the people in Algeria. The government player and the rebel player each have a VP goal.

This is a propaganda card. Some such cards are shuffled into the deck. You check for victory only when a propaganda card is drawn. If the game doesn't end, you go through a reset procedure, which includes collecting income, and then you resume playing. The game ends when the last propaganda card is drawn, even if no one has reached the target VP. Whoever is nearer to his goal wins. The timing of propaganda cards is semi-random. You can't precisely plan for it. You need to make sure your funds can last until the next propaganda round.

Every area on the board has two square spaces for markers - the support marker and the control marker. A yellow support marker means the people support the government, while a red support marker means the people support the rebels. No support marker means the people doesn't care either way. The light blue control marker with the French flag means the area is controlled by the government. Control simply means having more pieces than your opponent. The dark green control marker means the area is controlled by the rebels. Support and control are separate concepts. An area being controlled by the government may not necessarily support the government, and vice versa. The number at the centre of an area is its population value. This determines the VP value if the area supports the government or the rebels.

The cubes are government employees. Blue are French, green are Algerian, i.e. locals. Darker cubes are soldiers, lighter cubes are policemen. The main difference between Frenchmen and Algerians is Algerians may be persuaded by their brethrens to defect and join the rebels. The main difference between soldiers and policemen is policemen can only investigate and expose underground rebels, while to actually fight and kill rebels, you need soldiers.

The black hexes are the rebels. Each rebel has two sides - a plain black side and a side with a green moon icon. Black means the rebel is still operating underground and cannot yet be targeted by soldiers. Green moon icon means the rebel is exposed and vulnerable. Some actions performed by rebels get them exposed. The government may also perform specific actions to root out the rebels. It's troublesome for the government to kill rebels, because of that extra step needed to expose them. It is also challenging for rebels to kill government personnel. Firstly, because it's iffy - rebels often need to roll a die to determine if the attack is successful; and secondly, because they will suffer casualties.

When the neighbouring countries become independent, they become accessible to the rebels. The rebels may build bases and train operatives here, and government forces may never enter. This is a pain in the neck for the government player.

This track on the right is the border zone track, and it indicates how well the government is patrolling the borders. By patrolling well, rebels which cross the border, especially when in large numbers, are more easily detected. Both the government player and the rebel player can perform actions to manipulate the border zone track.

This is the France track, and it simulates the political mood in France. If this is not managed well by the government player, or the rebel player takes steps to worsen this, the commitment level of the French population will drop, and the rebels will receive more funding.

Every round a new event card is drawn. There are usually two effects, and if you choose to use the event card, you pick one of the effects. Usually one effect benefits the government, and the other the rebels.

This little diagram called the Initiative Track is very important. All your actions are driven by this neat little mechanism. The two boxes at the bottom determine who goes first and who goes second during a round. In this example, the rebel player goes first. If you go first, you may place your marker in any of the five spaces, and execute the allowed actions accordingly. The player who goes second may only place his marker in a space adjacent to the first player's marker, unless he passes (central space). Let's say the first player picks the bottom right space (Execute Op Only). The second player then may only pick the central space or the top right space. This is how the first player can restrict what the second player gets to do.

If the space you pick is a shaded space (top left or bottom right), in the next round you will be the second player.

Let's look at what the five spaces mean, starting from the top right. Execute Limited Op means performing actions in only one location on the board. At the bottom right, Execute Op Only means performing actions in one or more locations on the board. At the top left, Execute Op & Special Activity means you can perform both normal actions and special actions in multiple locations. At the bottom left, Execute Event means using the event card of the round. The central space is for Passing, which means earning a little bit of money.

The number of game pieces is limited. If you run out, you won't get to train new troops or build new bases. This section of the game board is for placing the available rebel pieces. The black discs on the right are the rebel bases. The numbers allow you to instantly tell how many bases have been built on the board (10 now).

This is the section you place the available government pieces. The discs are the bases. The government has fewer of these.

These are Pivotal Event cards. Depending on the scenario you play, both players start with some specific Pivotal Event cards in hand. During a round, you may play a Pivotal Event card to replace the normal event card of the round. Pivotal Event cards have long term effects. They have their pros and cons. In the game I played with Allen, I never played mine because I thought it wouldn't be beneficial for my situation. Since Allen's Pivotal Event card had mine as a prerequisite, he never got to play his either.

In Colonial Twilight, you need to train troops, move troops and fight, but you must remember that ultimately it is the victory points that matter. All that fighting are but means to an end. You need to win the support of the people. It is a big chunk of your victory points. The rebels want to build bases, and the government needs to manage the political mood back in France. Rebels building bases is a tricky thing to manage. If you are the rebels, building bases is victory points, but when these bases get destroyed, it's victory points for the government. Many events are powerful, and drive the story. It is not just about whether you want to use the event. You also need to think about not allowing your opponent to use the event.

The timing in earning victory points is important, since the victory condition is only checked when a propaganda card comes up. Even if your opponent has achieved the required victory points, all is not lost yet. You can still pull him back before the next propaganda round.

The Play

I played the government, and Allen played the rebels. We did the mid length scenario, in which Morocco and Tunisia were already independent.

There are two rebel bases (black discs) in Tunisia. This is a good place to recruit and to launch attacks from, because the government can't march in. Tunisia is now an independent country and French forces can't just walk in. Normally each space on the map can accommodate two bases. See the circles printed on the map.

Cities (round spaces) are more easily controlled by the government, whereas the rural spaces are more easily controlled by the rebels.

As the government, if I wanted to fight rebels, I had to use my army, and not my police force. The police could expose the rebels, but could not actually kill them. Only soldiers could kill rebels. I think soldiers need to be concentrated into a few or even just one strong army, so that they can kill off rebels and destroy rebel bases efficiently, i.e. spending fewer actions and taking fewer turns. That was how I played. Concentrating my soldiers did mean I only had a few armies, and I could not be everywhere. I had to prioritise and pick the most troublesome areas to focus on. In this photo I had one such army - the dark blue and dark green cubes just outside the city. Most of my other cubes on the map were light coloured.

Later in our game, we realised that Allen's strategy was probably not a good one. He had been using the concentration strategy too. We felt this was bad for him, because it meant making things easier for me. I could just send my armies to where he had amassed rebels and bases, and strike hard. He had conveniently gathered his pieces for me. In hindsight, he probably should have adopted guerrilla warfare. A whack-a-mole situation would have been difficult for me.

One nifty thing which Allen's rebels got to do was to convert Algerian units. They could convince Algerian soldiers and policemen to stop working for the government, and even convince Algerian policemen to become rebels themselves. This was a pain to deal with. I had to make sure I didn't leave a group of Algerians unsupervised. I must get some Frenchmen to partner with them. At least if the locals were converted, I still had some Frenchmen remaining.

Near the top left in the photo above, I had an army of four dark blue cubes, poised to destroy the last remaining rebel base (black disc) in the territory. In the city (round space) near the top right, I had two French policemen (light blue cubes). A rebel (black pawn) had just entered, and was certainly up to no good. I had to do something. The countryside had many red Oppose markers. I only managed to maintain support (yellow markers) in and around the cities.

Typically, the government is rich and the rebels are poor. In our game, the opposite was true. At one point I ran low on cash and struggled to get things done. Many actions require spending money per location you want to perform the act. Being poor means doing much less, and sometimes not even having the choice because you can't afford it. I had thought I was rich, and I had spent too recklessly. In the photo above you can see I was down to $5 (blue cylinder). I sometimes had to Pass just to earn a bit of money. I think it is important to not run out of money. If you are completely out of money, or close to it, it means you have no options except to Pass. This is a vulnerable position and you don't want to be caught with your pants down like this. I think it's better to Pass and sacrifice some progress when you are near bankrupt, and never let yourself get into a bankrupt state.

In this photo you can see I had a large army (8 dark blue cubes) near the centre. I was going to destroy that concentration of rebels and bases, and afterward I would send my troops to the east, where the rebels were multiplying like rabbits. At this point Allen already had 13 (of 15) bases on the map, as indicated by the table at the bottom right.

Now my main army was in the east, ready to kick names and take ass. Rebel bases were attractive to me, because by destroying them, I not only reduced the rebel victory points, I also gained victory points myself in the form of political commitment in France. Destroying bases is not easy. As long as there are still undercover rebels, the government needs to first expose them, then kill them, before moving on to destroy the bases. So the rebel player can protect bases using rebels as human shields.

Pieces killed during fighting are moved to the Available Forces area and the Casualties area alternatively. Sometimes pieces are moved to the Out of Play area. When you recruit, you can only recruit from the Available Forces area. Usually pieces in the Casualties area and the Out of Play area are only moved during the propaganda phase. It is important to manage your pool of pieces because it determines how flexible you are on the map itself.

In this photo you can see my government funding was down to $4. I was in dire straits and my position was about to crumble. I was only saved by the next propaganda card coming up in time. After that I spent my money more carefully.

This was after the propaganda phase. My money was now at $39. In this game the government player is supposed to be richer, but I don't think that's true. Although the government has more money, its actions are also more costly, usually $2 compared to $1 for the rebel player. Things work out to be about the same. The government isn't really that much richer than the rebels. In this photo you can see that the rebels in the eastern part of Algeria had been dispersed. However the support for the rebels was still strong - so many red Oppose markers all over the map.

Algiers the capital city had a Pop +1 marker, so the population was actually 4. It was supportive of the government (yellow marker), so it was worth 4VP to me at this point.

Intense fighting was bad for the rebels. Allen had many pieces (black) in the Out of Play box, which limited his recruitment on the map.

This territory in the centre is a plains space, while the territory on the left is a mountain space. It is harder for the government to deal with rebels in mountainous spaces. The effort is double. E.g.2 policemen are needed to expose 1 underground rebel, or 2 soldiers are needed to kill 1 rebel. On plains, the rate is 1:1. In this territory in the centre, the two policemen (light blue cubes) had exposed two rebels. We still needed to update the control status of the territory. This should be controlled by the rebels, because there were six rebel pieces to the government's three. The white pawn is just a reminder pawn used for marking locations where actions are being performed. Often the active player must pay based on how many locations he is performing actions in.

If you look closely, you will notice that in many territories there were exposed rebels, showing the green moon icon. This is because Allen had performed the Extort action. Extortion means taking money from the people. Whenever the rebel player does this, one rebel is exposed.

At this point, my government VP was at 36, which meant I had achieved the required 35VP. The rebels needed to reach 30VP, and they were at 26 now. Allen had much local support, especially in the rural areas. I had strong commitment from France, mainly because I had destroyed many rebel bases. Soon afterwards, the next propaganda card was drawn, and I won.

Four rebels had gathered in the capital. I had to expose them quickly and then get rid of them.

The Thoughts

Colonial Twilight is a complex wargame. This is not a conventional war. It is a rebellion. You fight mainly for the support of the people. Killing enemies are just the means to this end. The government and the rebels play very differently, and this is one of the main attractions of the game. The game has strong historical flavour and strong character. The event cards is a box of chocolate. You never know what surprise lies beyond the corner. It keeps you on your toes. Every card can be a crisis or an opportunity. You need to be mindful of the timing of the propaganda cards. You must ration your spending wisely, and be prepared for the next victory condition check. The game is certainly educational. I learned about the history of Algeria. Compared to 4-player COIN games, I must admit it is not as rich and the interaction is less varied. However it is still a decent and worthy COIN game.

my 2019

My boardgame playing patterns and statistics have been about the same since 2016. There was a significant drop from 2015 to 2016. I realise now the change might have been because of a transition in my work life in 2015. Aug 2015 was when I joined a mobile game company. Work became busier. I had much fun at work and also committed more energy to my work, compared to my previous jobs. I had less time to play boardgames, but I still played a lot, and I still enjoyed boardgames as a hobby. Overall it was good - I found more satisfaction at work, while still having enough time to enjoy my hobby. I am now undergoing another change in work. I will be starting something new in 2020. I don't expect my boardgame playing to change much, and I'm pretty happy with its current state.

In 2019, I played 58 distinct games (lowest since 2003) a total of 339 times (slightly higher than the previous 3 years). I played 40 new-to-me games, which is the highest in the recent 4 years, though not by much. My wife and children still played some games, each having had around 30 plays of 10-15 distinct games. We completed the Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle campaign, and also the Machi Koro Legacy campaign. We played some Exit games. My family are not regular players. They are occasional players.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Two of my dimes (games played 10 times or more) are the same ones again - Star Realms (146) and Ascension (79). Han and I are still not yet tired of them. Another dime is The Mind (12), which I found very interesting. It worked very well with casual players and non-gamers. The last dime is Machi Koro Legacy. The campaign takes exactly 10 games to complete. I played most of them during the Christmas holidays back in Sabah. My fives are Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, Keyforge, Spyfall and Pandemic: Rising Tide.

The Mind

13 games entered my collection in 2019. Four were Exit games which my wife Michelle encouraged me to buy, so that we could play them as a family activity. Two were legacy games, Machi Koro Legacy which I have just completed with my family, and Betrayal Legacy which I am now playing with Benz's group. 6 of the 13 games were bought because of nostalgia, or because I liked the series - Pandemic: Rising Tide, Mystery Rummy: Murders in the Rue Morgue, Santiago (out-of-print game which I first played many years ago in Taiwan), Machi Koro Legacy, Food Chain Magnate: Ketchup Expansion, Axis & Allies & Zombies. Only two games were completely fresh - Res Arcana and Photosynthesis. I bought Res Arcana due to my admiration of Tom Lehmann and his Race for the Galaxy. Photosynthesis was a gift. I don't buy many games nowadays. There are more than enough new games in my circle of friends. I am a lucky guy.

I gave away some games in 2019. Most of these are games I have not played for a long time. I think it's better to give them to people who would appreciate and play them. Some of the games are children's games which my daughters have outgrown. They were given to my nephew and niece, who are of the right ages for these games.

The most memorable new-to-me game was Three Kingdoms Redux from Singapore. Happy discoveries this year include games by Wolfgang Warsch - The Mind, The Quacks of Quedlinburg and Fuji; and Mooncake Master (also from Singapore).

Three Kingdoms Redux

The Quacks of Quedlinburg

The most memorable game session was Wingspan, due to the juvenile jokes about birds and eggs. I must clarify that the game itself does not encourage or condone such inappropriate behaviour. I introduced Ra to Benz, Ruby, Xiaozhu and Edwin, and that turned out to be a very funny series of games we played. Ra is magical.

Ra

New-to-me games in 2019: (alphabetical order)

1. All Manor of Evil
2. Axis & Allies & Zombies - A fun Axis & Allies variant which shakes things up a bit, but it's still Axis & Allies.
3. Betrayal Legacy
4. Caverna - For me mostly an Agricola variant.
5. Colonial Twilight - COIN (counter insurgency) game for 2 players.
6. Cryptid - Interesting deduction game, something different from the usual Eurogame fare.
7. Detective: City of Angels
8. Era of Kingdoms
9. Exit: The Game - The Forbidden Castle
10. Exit: The Game - The Sunken Treasure - Too easy for experienced players. I played it more because I wanted to spend time with the family than because I was looking for a challenge.
11. Fireball Island
12. Founders of Gloomhaven
13. Fuji - Cooperative and unusual.
14. Greenland - Somewhat complex, and luck can screw you. I like Neanderthal better. Luck can screw you too there. Life is not fair. Just enjoy the ride and laugh at your own misfortunes, and often others' misfortunes too.
15. Gugong - Popular, but it didn't work for me.
16. Hurlyburly
17. Illusion
18. John Company
19. Knister
20. Machi Koro Legacy - I prefer Machi Koro with the expansion rule, i.e. the dynamic card market. Machi Koro Legacy offers some novelty, and a shared journey.
21. The Mind - One of the more memorable games. Something quite unusual. It is fun to teach this to new players, and watch how they learn and strategise. Don't teach them the tactics. See how they figure them out.
22. Mooncake Master - A simple and pretty game that'll work for non-gamers.
23. Mystery Rummy #2: Murders in the Rue Morgue
24. Mysthea
25. Neanderthal - Successor to Greenland. See Greenland above.
26. New Frontiers - The Race for the Galaxy boardgame which has similarities to Puerto Rico. It's just okay for me. I prefer the two earlier games.
27. Pandemic: Fall of Rome
28. Pandemic: Rising Tide - More unforgiving than expected. I guess that's not surprising when one of the designers is Jeroen Doumen (Splotter Games).
29. Photosynthesis
30. Q.E. - Clever but a little dry.
31. The Quacks of Quedlinburg - Enjoyable push-your-luck and combo-building game.
32. Res Arcana - Few but impactful decisions. You have to know what you are doing. No muddling around.
33. The River - Worker placement for beginners.
34. Scythe
35. Spyfall - I played using an app and not the physical game. It's very much about lying convincingly, and quick thinking.
36. Stephenson's Rocket
37. Terror Below
38. Three Kingdoms Redux - A complex economic game that rewards good planning and prioritising. At its core a worker placement game, and it has some area majority too.
39. Western Legends
40. Wingspan - A well-deserved KdJ winner. Well produced. Decent gameplay. I had a pleasant experience with it.

boardgaming in photos: Ra, Coconuts

23 Nov 2019. I met up with Benz, Ruby, Xiaozhu and Edwin to continue our Betrayal Legacy campaign. The campaign takes 13 games, so it requires some commitment. That day, I also brought along Ra and Carcassonne. I thought it would be nice to have some variety. To my pleasant surprise, we had an absolute blast playing Ra. We enjoyed it so much that we played a few games back-to-back. I had originally expected to play the whole afternoon. Eventually we played all the way into the evening, only taking a break for dinner.

Ra is a 1999 game. It is a classic by Reiner Knizia. It is an auction game with an Egyptian setting. You compete in auctions to win various types of tiles. Different tiles score points in different ways, and these ways of scoring are all related to the Egyptian setting. The game is played over three eras. In each era there is a countdown. When time runs out, you may no longer collect any more tiles, even if you have unspent suns in hand (suns are your currency). In the photo above you can see that the Ra tiles have almost filled up the countdown track. One more Ra tile drawn from the bag and the era will end. At this time everyone with suns remaining is nervous. At any time the era will end and all unused suns will be wasted.

When I taught the game and played it, I was proactive in explaining how to evaluate the set of tiles on the board. I described the options available to the active player, and explained the pros and cons of each option. I wanted to make sure everyone understood the implications of the possible actions. Because I was so enthusiastic, I ended up sounding more like a used car salesman than a sincere teacher. I was convincing and my arguments were sound, but that only made me even more suspicious. Ruby said she had never seen me so keen and talkative, having known me for more than four years. I kept saying yeah this set of tiles are good, because of so-and-so, and then with another set I said again this is great too because of so-and-so. They all found it hilarious.

Benz said my #1 sun was the most powerful sun in the game. The #1 sun is the lowest valued sun in the game, and thus the weakest. When I had the #1 sun, I often invoked Ra, i.e. I triggered an auction round. In Ra, if your suns are weaker than others, you must not allow too many tiles to accumulate on the board. By the time a valuable set of tiles are gathered, the players with higher suns will certainly beat you in the auction for it. By invoking Ra early, you put them in a dilemma. There may be some tiles they are interested to get. If you succeed in making them win the tiles, you would be forcing them to spend their high suns without claiming too valuable a set. If you win the set yourself, you are only spending a low sun for a semi-decent set of tiles. I understood this principle and explained it to everyone. I used it to good effect, and everyone with high suns felt under pressure. That was why Benz said my #1 sun was the biggest threat.

We kept making fun of one another for being uncultured swine. In Ra, you need to collect at least one culture tile every era to avoid a 5VP penalty. This felt painful and everyone felt an urgent need to have some culture.

As we played more, we realised that fighting for pharaohs was important too. If you win the lead and stay in the lead for most pharaohs over three eras, you will earn 15VP, which is a lot.

Suns in hand are scored at the end of the game. Highest total scores 5VP, while lowest total is penalised by 5VP. In this particular game the suns I held were 1, 2 and 4, so certainly I came dead last and had to take the penalty.

21 Dec 2019. We celebrated younger daughter Chen Rui's birthday in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, my hometown. It was a family dinner event at home. I brought out Coconuts. I had brought the game to Sabah because I was going to give it to my nephew Oswald and niece Lauren. The occasion was a non-gamer occasion, so I taught the game without the action cards. It worked fine that way, probably better than it would have otherwise.

In Coconuts any coconuts which land in cups must not be taken out. If all coconuts are used up and no one has won a 6th cup, you compare the total number of coconuts in the cups you have won. Whoever has the most wins.

Chen Rui won this particular game. She got so excited that she fell off her chair. Literally.

The monkey-shaped catapult.

It was the first time Michelle's uncle played, and he won. In this game Chen Rui robbed a cup from him, and he became determined to take revenge and win back his cup. It was funny watching them play. This is what gaming is about - adults get to be children again.

Merry Christmas!

why you totally should hire a boardgamer

You are a company CEO. Your business is growing. As your headcount grows, you start needing a strong management team, from middle to senior level, which can help you run your business. You get your HR person to create a job posting at Jobstreet (recruitment website), or LinkedIn, or Glassdoor, or Wobb. You get a flood of resumes to sift through. You dread the many interviews you'll need to conduct. This is so much work. But there is a simple solution - go hire a boardgamer! Here's why.

They are fast learners - These fellas play a new game every week, often more. They devour new rules faster than most people finish a glass of teh tarik. They are always keen to learn and to explore. Think of all those weird strategies they come up with trying to break a game. Remember the Halifax Hammer?

They are strategic thinkers - Many employees drag their sorry bums to work day in and day out and work like mindless zombies. Boardgamers, however, are people who are motivated and think three steps ahead. When playing A Game of Thrones, they consider every possible move of every opponent and the implications of every move. They always see the big picture, the bird's eye view. They know what are important and what are not, where the risks are, and where the opportunities are. They know how to prioritise.

They are good at planning - In Agricola, they are already building a new room and stockpiling baby food even before the make baby action card (a.k.a. family growth action card) appears.

You save on legal costs - These rules lawyers... if they can argue game rules so convincingly, like the honour of their family depends on it, imagine what they can do in real business.

They are often good judges of character - Such skills are honed in games like Poker, Sheriff of Nottingham and Liar's Dice.

They are decisive - If they can send thousands to die on the beaches of Normandy, you can rest assured they have the stomach for tough decisions. They weigh their options coolly. They quantify the risks and rewards. They pick the most practical approach without being swayed by their personal biases.

They are creative - Those crazy stories from Dixit; those wild clues from Codenames; those seemingly NSFW sculptures in Klaus Teuber's Barbarossa. That's innovation. That's genius.

They are excellent warehouse and storage experts - How else could they have managed their collections of indecent sizes?

They are well trained in stealth and deception - Think about those games they manage to sneak past their spouses without leaving any financial trace.

They are top-notch negotiators - These people would trade their grandmothers in Diplomacy and Genoa. Sometimes even Bohnanza.

They start with the end in mind - They are crystal clear what their goals are. They have a laser focus. You don't need to remind them what the victory conditions are. They are trained to remember all the sources of victory points. They are able to quickly analyse and determine the most efficient ways of scoring points. In Puerto Rico, they are already eyeing the large purple buildings by the end of Round 2.

They are good at maths - Especially those who play Power Grid without a calculator. Even more so those who play Francis Tresham's Civilization without a calculator.

They are walking encyclopedias - They can tell you about obscure ancient battles, names of towns in countries you don't even know exist, and how cats meow in more than 7 languages. They can strike conversations with any kind of client you may be serving. They are well learned and they are excellent spokespersons for your company.

They are excellent trainers - If they can teach Paths of Glory, they can train your staff on any topic.

They are dedicated and hardworking people - All those painted miniatures, sleeved cards, pimped components, laminated player boards. I've seen people sleeve Carcassonne tiles and Samurai tiles. These boardgamers have passion. That's love and dedication!

Warning: Never make them your financial controller - The way they buy games... how they Kickstart games... and the sets of metal coins in their collections. They are going to bankrupt you if put them in charge of procurement.

So yes, go boardgamers!