Limit covers a serious topic. It is a simulation of modern human civilisation. It is based on the Meadows Report "The Limits to Growth", which says that because our planet and its resources are finite, constant growth is impossible. We will sooner or later hit a saturation point. Yet humans behave as if there is not such limit. Every corporate CEO is expected to achieve ever higher results.

 The Design & Play (DNP) game design competition is back! This is a competition open to all Malaysians. It is organised by Malaysia Boardgame Design (MBD). This was first held in 2025, so this is the second year we are doing this. We have the same team of six judges - all local designers and indie publishers. This year, the criteria is a little different. Instead of being limited to

Pantheon is an expansion for 7 Wonders Duel. Allen came across this at Cash Converters in Singapore, and it was a fantastic deal, SGD3.00! That's less than MYR10.00. As a game buyer I’m thrilled about these great deals. At the same time as an indie publisher it’s a little sad to see slightly older games get the stock clearance treatment. I guess to view it positively it is a good

 I will be at the Asian Board Games Festival (ABGF) in the Philippines this coming weekend 2 - 3 May 2026. If you are in Manila, come and say hi! 

The game I am publishing this year under Cili Padi Games is Pilgrim Poker, and it uses the theme of Journey to the West (西游记). I also have another game which will be published by Specky Studio - Rebels of the Three Kingdoms, which, of course, is based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义). The advantage of using a topic or theme which many people are already familiar with is the

The second edition of Snow White and the Eleven Dwarfs has been out for a while, last year in fact, but I have not yet mentioned it. This is a game I struggled with a bit, on whether to do a second printing. The first edition did not sell particularly fast. Partly it is because this is a game with a minimum player count of 7. I was running out of stock, and I still had enquiries, so I

18-19 Apr 2026 was the Malaysia Boardgame Show. It was held at Jaya One shopping mall in PJ. In the past few years there has been several different boardgame-specific events in Malaysia, like Asian Board Game Festival (in Penang), Boxcon, All Aboard, Dice & Dine, Anigames. Not all are recurring. MBS is organised by Jon, who is currently the most active game designer in Malaysia. He has

Playing Bottle Imp with Alex and Ivan at ZUS Coffee. They were both highly intrigued and took learning the strategy seriously. This is a game with much depth. There are serious skills involved. This is an unusual and clever trick-taking game. I showed Pinocchio to Yip, Captain Fuaad and Kelvin. Right from the start Captain teased Yip that he was going to get four donkeys (and lose

The 2026 game title from Cili Padi Games will be Pilgrim Poker. This will be my fifth game published under the Cili Padi Games label. I have been making one game a year since Dancing Queen in 2022. Edwin Chong has been my artist since my first game, and continues to be my artist for this year's project. This above is the concept art for Pilgrim Poker. Since the game uses the theme of the

I can sense the future. I sense that Soothsayers is going to be one of my favourite new-to-me games in 2026. I had not heard of the game prior to playing it. The theme and the art are a little quirky. The backstory is mumbo jumbo to me. However the gameplay completely took me by surprise. I would say there is nothing particularly ground breaking, yet the whole package just works amazingly

Watergate is a two player game about the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. One player is the newspaper editor trying to gather evidence, link them to Nixon and expose the scandal. The other player is the Nixon administration, trying to prevent this and attempting to win by lasting till the end of the presidential term.  The game board is a network of links with

The Malaysia Boardgame Show is happening 18-19 April 2026 in Kuala Lumpur! Cili Padi Games and I will be there. There will be pre-loved games for sale, several game competitions, and there are also game hosts bringing games for visitors to try. There is even a seminar on game design. There will be a lot of the Malaysia boardgame community and events all at one place. Don't miss it!  

When I say spoiler-free, I mean up to the point when you start your first game. That means by then you will have opened the first mission box and you will see what's inside. If that's fine by you, come join me to take a look at what's in Regicide Legacy, the legacy game version of the amazing cooperative card game Regicide from Badgers from Mars, New Zealand. I'm a big fan of Regicide 

 Bombastic was first explained to me as advanced tic-tac-toe. It is a two-player-only abstract game played using 9 tiles laid out face-down in a 3x3 grid. Four of the tiles show a circle, another four a cross, and the last one a bomb. Each player is assigned an icon, circle or cross. Your goal is to reveal exactly three of your icon in a row on your turn. Beware. If you ever reveal the

Skara Brae brings us to the Orkney Islands in prehistoric Scotland. You manage a growing settlement. As more and more people flock to your settlement, you need to make sure you gather enough resources, build shelter, and cook enough food to feed everyone. At the same time you need to manage the waste generated by the settlement. There is a message about sustainability here

Wizards of the Grimoire is a two-player head-to-head battle game. You are wizards and you deal damage to each other by casting spells. To win the game, you need to reduce your opponent's health points to zero. This structure is pretty common. However the way you pick spells to use and manage mana needed to cast them is interesting. The game certainly offers something new.  There is

Toy Battle is a two player abstract game. My first impression is this is a game when you play with not only those tiny green toy soldiers but also with unicorns, dinosaurs and robots, and you make proper rules for a battle game in your living room, which you can imagine to be any world - space station, beach front or graveyard. The game comes with many different boards,

HWC Coffee is a Malaysian specialty coffee chain. They made a card game which was given away for free if you bought coffee (and other stuff) worth more than a certain amount within a single transaction. It is encouraging to see this. I would love to have my game designs used in such projects. Zus Coffee had something like this just last year, a Sembang Raya card game. Something that promotes

Bebop is a tile placement game about a jazz music fair. You are ticket sellers trying to book the right seats for customers who enjoy specific performances - piano, brass (trumpets) or percussion (drums). I find the link between theme and mechanism a little weak, but still, it’s nice to see a music fair setting, which is not something you see often. This being a tile