boardgaming in photos: Ali Baba and Ra

The game I am planning to publish this year under Cili Padi Games is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It has gone through many rounds of playtesting, but I still needed to get it cold tested. I asked Julian and his gaming group to cold test for me, i.e. I hand them the game and the rulebook, and they learn to play by themselves without me guiding them or answering any questions. I was there, but they pretended I wasn't. The cold test is an important test for the rulebook and the game component design. I can't be there to teach every person who buys my game, so the rulebook and the components must be as fool proof and conducive to understanding the game as possible. 

Just to make sure I don't set wrong expectations - the game on the table is A Feast for Odin. Only what's in Julian's hand (left) is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

I observed and learned a lot by just watching them play. Which rules they were unsure about and how quickly they were able to clear it up by looking up the rules or by referring to the game components were all important information for me. In their first game, it took only one round for Arief to win. That was a short game. It has happened before. That particular round they made it to the higher rewards. It was a little sudden. Maybe it is a problem. I decided not to implement any unwieldy additional rules to eliminate the possibility of short games. Just let that be a possibility. 

The group quickly proceeded to start a new game. This time the length was more normal, about 6 to 7 rounds. As they played, they came up with suggestions on how to modify the components. They even started implementing some of their ideas. That copy of Ali Baba had no component to help keep track of the current sum of all face-up cards. Players have to keep track of it in their heads. It's just one number. If you forget, you have to count again. Julian's group took out a 12-sided die to do the tracking. However after a while they found it tedious to fiddle with the die to find the right number, and they abandoned it. After the game, they gave me more suggestions. This was a very fruitful playtest session. 

Once I got home I started making improvements. I added a yellow background colour to cards with sun and moon icons. This provides a much stronger visual reminder to players to check for the presence of both a sun and a moon. I also added the Cave card (bottom left) to help players keep track of the sum. Initially I was worried whether it would be tiresome. I tried playing with it, and it turned out okay. I may test this more with other groups. 

I asked younger daughter Chen Rui to help me test the various 2-player variants of Ali Baba. She was the one who did the most playtesting with me when I designed Dancing Queen. That's the convenience of designing 2-player games. It's easier to get playtesting done. At one point I planned to make Ali Baba a 3 to 6 player game. I felt it wouldn't be as much fun with 2 players. Later on I decided to tweak it to support 2 players. I knew with less than three some dynamics would be missing, so the game needed to offer something interesting for two. Adjustments were necessary. I came up with several ideas, and tried them all. Having now compared them, the variant I will go with is when drawing from the deck, you draw two and pick one to apply. If you draw the Boss, you must apply the Boss (i.e. you will lose that round). Using this variant, I give a bit more control to the players. In a two player game, you only have one opponent and thus only three face-down cards you can reveal. Your options are limited. Drawing two from the deck and picking one initially felt overpowered. However after some playtesting, I found it wasn't as overpowered as I thought. The Boss rule makes drawing from the deck riskier, balancing things out a little. 

Dancing Queen is going to Hungary. This couple is gamers from Hungary visiting Malaysia. They bought some games from BoardGameCafe.biz including my Dancing Queen. I am always excited to see Dancing Queen reach new countries. 

Ra is a game I played a lot of when I first became a boardgamer. Julian has a copy of the latest deluxe version, with art by Ian O Toole. The Ra marker is huge. I should have put my hand in the photo for scale. 

The tiles in the game are not cardboard but wood. Red in this game means something bad. The first tile is a Ra tile, i.e. the countdown mechanism in the game. The other three are disaster tiles - drought, war and earthquake. 

The tiles in the first row are not Ra tiles, although they do look like the Ra tiles in previous editions of the game. These are actually the backs of the tiles. Yes, this edition has art on the backs. Previous editions have blank backs. The tiles in the next two rows are the monuments. 

First row, from left to right - pharaoh, god, gold, flood and Nile. Second row is the five different civilisation tiles. 

The Axis & Allies series will have a North Africa game! I call myself an Axis & Allies fan, but I have not been playing it for a long time. I still own many games in the series. I'm still a supporter because nostalgia. When I eventually get this, it will probably get one play and then sit on the shelf for a long time. I still haven't played Rommel in the Desert again. #firstworldproblem #toomanygames

Upin & Ipin

The Game

Upin & Ipin is a popular cartoon TV show in Malaysia. It is hot is Indonesia too, and is also aired in several other countries. It was first released in 2007, and now in 2024 it is still going strong. If the twin brothers Upin and Ipin were 5 years old in 2007, they would be 22 now. 

Upin & Ipin: Ke Sana Ke Sini the boardgame is based on the characters in the TV series and their village. The game board (above) shows their village. It is a 8 x 6 grid, basically a chess board. You can see roads, but movement is based on the grid, not these roads. 

Some squares on the board are homes, shops or other buildings. Those with photos are homes and the photos show who live where. For a kid to enter a home, the host must be at home. You can't enter other people's houses when they are not around. That's basic manners. And this is one of the traditional values the game designer Effendy aims to convey. At the homes and buildings you can collect items with various powers. 

These are the item cards. You may carry at most three of them.

Upin & Ipin comes with 10 different scenarios. This means 10 ways to play the game. There are some basic rules which don't change from scenario to scenario. Every scenario has some unique rules or modifications to the basic rules. Your objectives will be different. Some scenarios are cooperative. Some are team-based competitions. Scenarios have different setups and use different combinations of characters. 

On your turn, you have 3 options. First, you may move any one of the characters on the board. You do not play a specific character. Anyone can move any character. This is something a little unusual. Your second option is to choose a character card. The third is to choose a location card. You may have at most one character card and one location card in hand. If you take a new one, you must surrender the old one. 

This is a character card. You may use the card power at any time, after which it is returned to the pool. You can use the card to allow the character one more step. Normally a character only moves one step. You can prevent another player from moving a specific character. You may allow a character to be moved on consecutive turns. Normally after a player has moved a character, the immediate next player may not move that same character. Only the player after that may move this character. Using the character card of the specific character, you can circumvent this restriction.  

This is a location card. There are also three ways you can use it. You can allow a character to enter the specific home when the homeowner is not at home. You can prevent another player from entering a home. When another player claims an item from the location, you may piggyback on that and get one for yourself too. 

Dice in the game are bicycles. When you ride a bike, you move as many spaces as what you roll. This can greatly increase your mobility. However there is a price to pay. If you have items, you must discard one each time you ride a bike. 

Let's talk about the first scenario. It's Operation Rooster. Now this rooster is an important secondary character in the cartoon. It appears all the time. In this scenario, it starts at one corner of the village, and moves about randomly. The children start at the other corner of the village, and want to catch the rooster. You win by getting one child to catch the rooster. Remember, you are not any one specific child. You can move any child. If you help one child get close to the rooster, you may be helping an opponent catch it, not yourself. Character cards can be important in this scenario, because you can use them to prevent specific characters from moving, or have them move an additional step. These can mean winning or losing. 

The rooster moves based on the die roll of an 8-sided die.

It can get quite rowdy, with a whole bunch of kids running after the rooster. 

Victory points are represented by chicken drumsticks, the favourite food of Upin and Ipin. 

This is Scenario 6. The eight kids are divided into Team Blue and Team Yellow. This is a team-vs-team contest. Everyone starts at the playground. Your team objective is to capture 7 locations, including Upin and Ipin's home. You capture a location by simply entering it. However, you can easily lose a location. Once you leave, an opponent can enter and capture it. If an opponent enters an occupied location, a fight ensues (okay, let's be nice and call this a "strength comparison"), and the winner controls the location. The defender wins ties, and thus has a slight advantage in... umm... strength comparisons. 

There are three adults in the game. Any player can move any of them. This works the same way as the kids. In Scenario 1, the rooster is a target everyone chases after and it is not controlled by anyone. In other scenarios, you control the rooster in the same way as the other characters. There is one special rule regarding the rooster. Kids may not enter the rooster's space. So you can use the rooster to block a child's way. For that child to enter the space occupied by the rooster, first the rooster must be moved away. 

Eggs are one of the items. It can be used to increase your defense or attack by 1. Items are single use. Once you use them, they are spent and returned to the pool. 

In Scenario 6, location cards are used for keeping track of locations captured. They cannot be claimed and used in the normal way. Different scenarios have different rule adjustments, but most of the basic rules remain the same. 

The Play

This game is made for people who have watched Upin & Ipin. It is a mass market game, and not a hobbyist game. The game mechanisms are not new to gamers, but to non-gamers, there are some new concepts. The group I played with was mostly non-gamers. They were pleasantly surprised by the idea that players do not control specific characters. This game introduces some fresh ideas to non-gamers. The rules are mostly straight-forward. On your turn you either move a character or pick a card. The different scenarios have different additional rules, but they are manageable for non-gamers. 

I did a 6-player game, and despite the large group, the game moved briskly. Your turn is quick and simple. There is little down time. Although we had a mix of experienced gamers and non-gamers, the game worked fine. This is the kind of game which parents and children can play together. It is not too simple that parents will find it dull. There is enough luck that children have a decent chance of winning. 

The yellow and blue bases indicate the teams the characters belong to. Not all scenarios are team-based. 

I seldom appear in photos in my own blog, because most of the time when I take photos, I shoot game components and games in progress. This time Sufiz took a nice photo with me in it. Just to clarify, I am the one on the right. 

The Thoughts

Upin & Ipin is a mass market game designed for children and families. It is not a gamer's game, but I like that it introduces some modern boardgame concepts. The target audience is people who enjoy the cartoon. Teenagers and young adults may no longer watch Upin & Ipin, but they might have watched it when they were younger. Playing the game will be a trip down memory lane for them. 

Being gamers, we tend to be sceptical about boardgames using well-known intellectual properties. Sometimes they are just money grabs, using the IP to make more money, when the game itself is poorly designed. Upin & Ipin has heart. It was developed with the spirit of the cartoon series in mind. In addition to presenting the characters, stories and values in game form, it also introduces some modern gaming mechanisms to the mass market. I hope it brings more players to the hobby.

Obsession

The Game

Obsession is set in Victorian era England. You are an upstart aristocratic family. You grow your prestige, expand your estate, network with other nobles, climb the social ladder, and you do all of these by holding parties! Technically it's called holding an activity, but it's much easier to understand by calling it what it is. It's a party! You need to have the right facilities, the properly trained servants and enough prestige to invite the guests you want. You'll gain benefits from the party, and you use what you've gained to plan the next party. The game is played over a fixed number of rounds. The highest scorer wins the game. 

At the top left you have a round track. The spaces on the track indicate special rules that apply for specific rounds. On this board there are two cards - the Fairchild kids - a young gentlemen and a young lady from the famous Fairchild family. Throughout the game players will compete to befriend them. There is a reckoning every four rounds, and whoever wins the favour of the Fairchild family gets to invite one of the scions to parties. 

 

This is the main board, and it is primarily a market for buildings - that row of square tiles along the bottom. Building prices start at 300 Pounds (leftmost tile), and get more expensive as you move right. Whenever you buy a building, all remaining tiles are shifted left, and then a new tile is drawn and placed at the rightmost spot. 

This is the player board. At the bottom left those pawns in different colours are your servants of different types - valets, housekeepers, butlers, footmen and so on. They are needed for different purposes, e.g. some buildings will only work if a specific servant type is present. Some guests require a specific servant type to serve them. Now servants need to take breaks. Working for an aristocratic family is stressful. They can't work consecutive rounds, those lazy bums. The three boxes here are to help manage which servants are available and which are on leave. 

The tiles in five colours on the right are your buildings. Think of them as facilities, rooms and equipment at your estate. I'll just call them buildings. Everyone starts the game with the same set. Building tiles are double sided. Often the front side is worth negative points, and the back is positive. You need to use a building just once to flip it to the upgraded side. The building tile specifies the requirements for holding a party - any servants needed, how many guests, and the prestige level of your family. The benefit of holding a party is also shown, e.g. money, prestige or getting acquainted to more nobles. Some buildings cannot be used for parties. They just give you new special abilities. 

Your hand cards are characters, i.e. guests you can invite to parties. You already start the game with some characters, some of whom are your own family members. During the game you will draw more character cards. Some characters need to be served by specific servant types if they are to be invited to a party. They also require your family to be of a certain prestige level. When then attend your party, they give you some benefit. 

On your turn you do just two things. You hold a party, and you buy a building. Both are optional, but you will want to do both as often as possible. When you invite a guest to a party, you play the character card on the table, and it becomes temporarily unavailable. Imagine being hungover. You need to forgo holding any party for one turn to take back all your played character cards. The whole game is about organising party after party. You buy buildings to hold more happening parties. You increase your prestige so that you can invite even more famous celebrities. You make sure you employ enough servants and get to know enough people to keep throwing fantastic parties. 

When the game ends, you score points for various aspects, including your character cards, your family's prestige level, your buildings and your servants. 

These are the front and back of the same building. The front is -1 Victory Point, and the back is 4VP. That's a 5VP difference. While on the front side, you need a footman (white servant) to hold a party. You need 3 guests. You need to have a Prestige of at least 3 (number in bottom left corner). If you manage to hold a party, you earn 300 Pounds and flip the tile to the upgraded side. From then on you use the upgraded side to hold parties. 

This is the Fairchild boy. If you become his buddy, you can invite him to parties. That little green man at the bottom left means you need to have a valet to serve him. The three lions at the bottom right means he advances your Prestige by 3 steps when he attends your party. Prestige increases one level for every 5 steps. 

These are objective cards. If you fulfil the criteria, you score points. You start the game with some cards. You'll draw some during the game, and will also be forced to discard some. This particular objective card highlighted requires that you own three specific buildings. If you have them by game end, you get 16VP. 

This madame is a big shot and it's not easy to invite her. You need a Prestige of at least 6 (top left corner). She demands two servants (bottom left corner). At game end she is worth 6VP (top right corner). If she attends your party, she gives you a victory card and increases your Prestige by 3 steps (bottom right corner). 

Some "friends" you make are not exactly good persons. This lady here is worth -2VP. You will want to try to use an unfriend ability to get rid of her before the game ends. If you invite her to a party, she reduces your Prestige. However parties do require a specific number of guests, and sometimes they require guests of specific genders. So when you are desperate, you might have to invite her anyway, even though nobody likes her. Sacrifices to make for the greater good. 

The Play

Obsession is a pretty typical point-scoring Eurogame. The core thing you are doing is holding parties. You plan and manage your resources to be able to keep holding better and better parties. It's a bit like project management. You have to make sure all pieces fall into place and you are not missing any crucial component. Just one small mishap, and the party may have to be cancelled, or you have to switch to a less wild party. This takes some organisational and planning skills. You have to plan when to not hold a party too, so that you can reset and put all characters back into your hand. 

Players compete for the Fairchild scions. Every season (a series of four rounds) you need to focus on a particular building type if you intend to befriend the Fairchild family. Some objectives require specific buildings too. I don't think the objectives overlap (I haven't checked), so you probably don't compete directly over objective cards. It's just that sometimes others may just happen to buy a building you want. Overall there isn't much direct player interaction. You do your own parties and you have your own hand of character cards. There are a few direct attack cards. I've used one of them. But there aren't many such cards. 

By late game you will have quite many character cards. 

The buildings in the five different colours have different characteristics. The blue ones tend to give special abilities and cannot be used for parties. The purples ones usually improve Prestige. The green ones give you money. 

The Thoughts

Obsession is a BGG Top 100 game. I've heard positive comments, and I was looking forward to try it. Now that I have played it, I find it decent but not remarkable. It's a game about planning and coordination. For every party you plan, you have to make sure all the elements are ready. You have to keep outdoing yourself, increasing your Prestige, inviting more famous nobles and using more fanciful venues. There are many things which score you points, but not really many different strategies. Everyone's central strategy is holding parties. There aren't significantly different strategies to pursue. It is in the small tactics that you try to outdo your opponents. So it's an efficiency game. Do the little things well, and in the long run you win the race. That feeling of climbing the social ladder is nice. It gives you a sense of progress. I would say the theme is executed well. This is literally a party game. Ba-dum-tss! 

boardgaming in photos: the fun in making games

A Japanese visitor to Malaysia purchased a copy of Dancing Queen. I always feel excited when I see Dancing Queen reach different countries around the world. The art for the game was done in a Japanese 90's comics style, so it is extra meaningful to see it reach the hands of a Japanese player. 

I met up with my friends from the mobile gaming company, and taught them my third game title Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. If all goes well the game should be out by Christmas 2024. They all enjoyed the game and asked to play again after we finished the first game. That is encouraging. Edwin (2nd from left) is my designated artist for Cili Padi Games now. He has done the art for both my previous games, and will be helping me with the third one too. We met up to have him experience the game, so that it would help him think of ideas and concepts for the artwork. 

I taught Xiaozhu (right) Dancing Queen. When we met up last year he wanted to order a copy. I didn't bring enough then. I said I would certainly keep a copy for him. And then the next time we met was one year later. We should meet up more. 

TTGDMY (Tabletop Game Designers Malaysia) did an annual meeting at FnD Mindspot recently, to talk about what we wanted to do as a community. It was great to be able to meet Evan in person. He came all the way down from Penang. His games won both 1st and 2nd place at the 2023 Malaysian Boardgame Design Competition, and one of them will soon be published by LUMA. 

TTGDMY did a playtest session in Kajang on 9 Mar 2024. I tried quite a few games, but only remembered to take photos of a few. This is Haireey's wedding game. You need to invite guests, of which there are four categories - family, friends, elders and VIP's. You need to prepare services - food, music, photos and decorations. All eight elements score points in different ways.  

This is the player board. You use it to mark who you have invited and where they will be sitting. Some guests don't like sitting next to some others, and you lose points if this happens. Sorry, your elders don't want to sit next to your rowdy friends.  

Availability of services is determined by die roll.

This is Jon's ESG game, about how to be a socially responsible corporation. It's a cooperative game. You run a diamond mining company. You mine diamonds and process them. Decisions you make affect the environment and society. How do you take care of these while maintaining profitability? 

Diamonds are Forever

You'll operate your company for one year, and then at the next Annual General Meeting you need to have achieved an average ESG score of 7. 

I have been playtesting with the TTGMDY community for quite some time. It has been a fun and fulfilling journey, supporting and helping one another, and together learning to be better. I am grateful to have this circle of friends. 

The Search for Planet X

The Game

The Search for Planet X is a deduction game which uses a mobile phone app to handle the mystery you are trying to solve. Scientists have discovered a mysterious Planet X in the solar system. It cannot be detected directly using conventional equipment, but based on the movement of celestial bodies, we know it is out there somewhere. In this game you are the scientists. You do your respective observations and detections, and you compete to be first to accurately locate Planet X. You also publish scientific journals. When someone finds Planet X, the game ends. You add up your points, and the highest scorer wins. 

The game is for 1 to 4 players. These are the game components of the purple player. The square tiles are theory tokens, i.e. scientific papers, you can publish. If you think a certain sector of the sky has a particular type of celestial body, you can announce your theory. If you turn out to be right, you score points. If you are the first to publish, you score more. 

The game has two modes, and this above is the easy mode. The sky is divided into 12 sectors. In hard mode you have 16 sectors. At the start of a game every player gets a different set of information. In the night sky there are many types of celestial bodies - gas clouds, asteroids, comets and dwarf planets. They all have different characteristics. A section of sky has at most one object. A gas cloud is always next to an empty sector. A comet can only be found in specific sectors, e.g. sector 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11. An asteroid is always next to at least one other asteroid. You know how many of each of these objects there are in the sky. You need to piece together all this information, and also gather more data, to work out where Planet X is. 

This is one set of information that one player gets at the start of a game. 

The player pieces are observartories

There is no fixed player order. This game works like Tokaido and Thebes. It is always the player furthest behind a track who takes the next turn. Here, the track is a circular one around the game board. When you perform an action, it costs a certain amount of time, and you move your pawn that many steps along the track. At the centre of the board there is a disk which covers half of the sector numbers. This is called the earth board. Sectors with their numbers covered by the earth board are temporarily not observable by the players. At any time, only half the sky is accessible. The earth board rotates in response to player actions. It has a little arrow which will always point at the last player on the action track. Whenever that player moves, and there is no other player in the same segment, the earth board rotates, changing which sectors become available to everyone. This is nifty and thematic. 

The Search for Planet X is a deduction game. It is a puzzle solving exercise. You get a note sheet to help you record information you collect. Most actions in the game are related to gathering data. You can sweep a section of sky to see how many of a particular object type there are. You can target one specific sector to see what object it has. This of course is very powerful, so you can do this at most twice. Also this focused observation won't help you find Planet X, because it is not detectable. That sector will just appear to be empty. You need to know where the other objects are in order to calculate where Planet X is. 

You can research a particular object type. In game terms, this is looking at specific clues set up at the start of the game. The last thing you can do is to attempt to locate Planet X. You need to know not only its location. You must also know the objects in the two adjacent sectors. If you get this right, the game ends and everyone scores points. 

When the earth board rotation reaches certain positions (the easiest way to think of this is in certain months of the year) everyone gets a chance to publish theories. You attempt to guess which section has what object. You do so by placing one of your tiles facedown. You won't know yet whether you are correct. You have to wait for a future theory publication round before you know the results. The truth is handled by the app. You will use it frequently. 

In addition to piecing together the data you collect, you also have to watch what your opponents are doing. From their actions you can make guesses about what they might know, and also how close they are to finding Planet X. Whoever solves the position of Planet X has a good chance of winning, because the point value for doing that is high. Not a guarantee, but quite likely. 

The Play

I played the solo game and have not experienced a proper multiplayer game. My guess is playing with other humans will be more fun. In the solo game you still compete with a bot, so it's like playing a 2-player game. The bot's actions are managed by the mobile app. 

You start the game with some information already, and this is the basis from which you investigate further. The game is a process of elimination. You want to work out what object is in which segment, until eventually you find the only possible location of Planet X. Your opponents' action will give you some clues. The earth board restricts your actions and is something you have to plan around. If you miss an opportunity, you'll need to wait for the next cycle. This fits the setting very well. 

When you are ready to take a guess on Planet X, this is where you do it in the app. 

When you publish a theory, you place a square token in the outermost position. Every time there is an opportunity to publish theories, the tokens are moved one step inwards. When they reach the innermost position, they are revealed, and you use the app to check the correctness of the theories. When the game ends, all theories are revealed and scored, even if they have not reached the innermost positions. 

The rulebook has suggestions for now to take notes, but you can do it your own way. 

The Thoughts

The Search for Planet X is a clean design. There aren't many components. The rules are almost minimalistic. Most of the tedious stuff is handled by the app. I appreciate that. Some may feel that a boardgame should stay pure and not involve electronic devices. In this case, I like that the advantages of an app is utilised well to create a fresh experience for players. This is certainly not using an app for the sake of having it. 

This is fully a deduction game. There is not a lot of player interaction. You don't know a lot about what your opponents know. However you do feel that you are in a race to find Planet X. This is a game of logic and reasoning. If you like solving puzzles this will probably be your thing. I like that many elements of the game match the astronomy theme well. If you are into this kind of theme, this will be fun.