Who else has watched the Disney cartoon 101 Dalmatians as a kid? Spots is a light dice game about dalmatians! Well, maybe not specifically dalmatians. Just dogs with spots. Many of the dogs in this game don't actually look like dalmatians. This is a game with a bit of push-your-luck, in which you race to fill six dog cards with dice of the right number of pips.  You start

Dionysia is a microgame from Buttonshy Games. So you know what to expect. A game with exactly 18 cards which comes in a wallet that fits comfortably in your shirt pocket.  Dionysia is a two player game in which you draft cards to make a play. Cards represent scenes. Your play has three acts, and each act must have three scenes. You take turns drafting a card from a market of

I have been playing some Race for the Galaxy (just the base game) on BGA with Jon and Yasmin. This is the game I have the highest play count for, at 2200+ games. Most of these were played against bots on the iPad. However I did play many 2-player games with my wife Michelle, many years ago. It's nice to be playing a stretch with humans again. I find that I am more careful and

This spin-off of The Fox in the Forest changes things up a bit, turning a competitive game into a cooperative one. This is a trick-taking game for two players. You have a pawn moving along a track. There are markers placed next to the track. As you move that pawn back and forth along the track, it removes a marker whenever it stops, if there is one next to it. Your goal is to remove all

Agent Avenue is a two player game with bluffing and psychological play. You are spies hiding in an innocent neighbourhood. You need to find and catch your opponent before they catch you. Well, that is how the story goes. In terms of practical implementation, you and your opponent race around a circular track, starting opposite from each other. Your goal is to run fast enough to catch your

Irish Gauge is a game about developing the train network in Ireland. It is an open information game. It is an investment game, and almost but not really a stock-control game. Players invest in railroad companies and hope to make money as the companies they are invested in do well. You don't own companies. You only own shares in them. It sounds a little like 18XX games, but this is much

 This is a card from my upcoming game Malaysian Holidays. It will be published by Specky Studio.  The art work, which I absolutely adore, is from Sunny Day. Here's wishing everyone a wonderful Year of the Horse ahead! Stay tuned for news for Malaysian Holidays.

Amalfi: Renaissance is a game about the age of sail. You manage a fleet of ships which helps you obtain all sorts of goods from distant lands. With these goods you can recruit characters which give you various abilities. You can secure private contracts, which give you exclusive rights to some trade destinations. You can buy great works of art. They have various benefits.

 

7 Wonders, first published in 2010, has now become a juggernaut of a franchise. The series has multiple expansions and spin offs. Some of the spin offs have different core mechanisms. They are different games, but they use the same theme and art style. The 2 player version of 7 Wonders has now been turned into a Lord of the Rings game. For the dice game version to get released only in

7 Feb 2026. We had a playtesting session at Nasi Kandar Apollo on a Saturday afternoon. I didn't manage to take photos of every game played, not even every game that I played. I did a rough playtest of one idea I came up with just the day before. I wanted to make a simple card game that can be played on a road trip, needing no table. Everyone has a stack of 5 cards. They are ordered. The highest

Popcorn is a game about running your own cineplex. You buy screening rights for movies, you attract cinema-goers and you upgrade your cinema halls to provide great movie experiences. You have to keep your list of movies fresh, taking down movies before customers completely dry up and showing new movies to attract customers. While scoring points (points are called popcorn here), you need to

In Miams (I think it means yummy in French) you roll five dice and try to get combinations which will score you points. Normally you get one reroll, and you get to choose which dice to reroll. Throughout the game you gain abilities which let you manipulate the dice and do other things which help you score points. The game ends when anyone reaches 50 points.  The die faces

Chu Han is a two player shedding game (or climbing game). You play multiple rounds, and you win a round by playing all your cards before your opponent. You score points based on the number of cards remaining in your opponent's hand. There are a few other ways to score points. The game ends when someone exceeds 31 points.  Cards go from 1 to 9. There

Altay is a civilisation and 4X game built on a deck-building engine. It is played on a simple map. Each player starts with just one small village. They defeat barbarians around them and build new settlements, expanding their territory.  The map shows different terrain types. Specific terrain types that you control can help you boost your production of certain resources. Some

 31 Jan 2026. Eric Lang (Blood Rage, Rising Sun, Ankh, Chaos in the Old World) was in town. He has been staying in Malaysia on and off for many years, and is now planning to spend more time living in Kuala Lumpur. He wants to get to know the local designer community and the local boardgame community. Aaron arranged two meet-up sessions for game designers and other industry players to get to