Durian Smuggler is a small box card game from Indonesia. Well, from
both Indonesia and Germany. The designer Simon Schmieder is from Germany but
lives in Indonesia. The game has two modes, one best with three or four, and
one best with two. These two modes are very different, and at the moment I
have only played one of them, the one mainly for two players, but can also be
Starlight Quartet is a game from Hong Kong, designed by Hims Chu and
published by Capstone (Hong Kong). It is an abstract game for 2 to 4
players.
You start with nine empty tiles arranged in a 3x3 grid. Every player has his
own token colour. On your turn, you must place one of your tokens on a tile,
then move that tile somewhere else. To win, you need to
TOBE (Taiwan Original Boardgame Expo) will be held in Taipei 25-27 September 2026. By the time you read this, I will be in Taipei, probably setting up booth, and connecting with other designers and publishers around Asia. This is the first time my wife Michelle is joining me at my game booth. She will be my assistant for the three days. If you are in Taipei, come play with me!
When you were little, did you enjoy playing with magnets? Now you get to
play with magnets under the guise of a strategic boardgame.
Upside Town is designed by Singaporean designer Quentin Quek and
published by PlayByDesign. Quentin comes from a product design background,
and it shows in how well put together Upside Town is. This is not a
game with a gimmick. The
I participated in a mid autumn festival event on Sat 19 Sep 2026. This was not a boardgame specific event, but several Malaysian game designers and retailers were invited to showcase and sell their games. The event was in Pandamaran, Klang, which is an hour drive west of Kuala Lumpur. The event was 5pm to 10pm, and we were asked to come set up booth by 3pm. I had something else on that day which
Teh Tarik Game by Ray Tan was the winner of the 2025 Malaysia Design & Play game design competition, of which I was one of the judges. The winner's prize was either a publishing deal, or a cash prize. Ray decided to take the cash prize and publish the game himself. He did all the planning and the art. The game was released this year. I got myself a copy. I was part of this game's journey,
Bloody Breakers is a 2-player microgame from Japan, designed by Ryusei Nakata. It is a game with just 16 cards. This seems to be a common format in Japan.
Box back
You have four types of cards in the game. There are four copies of each card type. Each card has a scoring criteria on the left and also an ability at the top right.
During the game both players will
The results of the Design & Play Game Design Competition 2026 have been
announced on Malaysia Day, 16 Sep 2026. Congratulations to Muhammad Aiman
Haqiemi Mohd Shaipul (Jalan Jem), Anas Maghfur (Unlawful)
and Andrew Tan Kui An (Malaysia's Last Tigers). I am one of the six
judges for the competition. We had our judging day on 12 Sep 2026 at Lalaport.
It was one full
This is a game I have been keen to write about since I played it. In recent
months, my to-do list of blog posts to write has been hovering around 15 to 20
items long. I generally write in a first-in-first-out manner, but sometimes
some blog posts cut queue, for example when I write about exhibitions I
attend. I have heard a little about Azure, and I thought it was just
Zombicide has been around for quite some time. I have never been a
zombie fan, so I never got around to trying it until recently, when I played
the second edition of the game. This is a cooperative game. Every player
controls two characters. You try to survive in a zombie apocalypse. The game
is scenario based, and every scenario has a different set of winning
conditions.
Neon Reign is a simple game I have played several times, and still
don't understand. This is a 2-player card game about those 1v1 fighting arcade
games. There are several characters you can play, and every character has
their own deck of cards. To win, you need to reduce the opponent's life points
to zero.
You have a hand of seven. Your cards are mostly button
Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends is a 2013 game from Vlaada Chvatil. This
guy is a genius. He made Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker,
Codenames, Mage Knight, Space Alert, and many more. Most
of his games are very different from one another. Tash-Kalar too is
very different form his other titles. He makes bold publishing
decisions.
The basic premise is you
Tanglung is a 2-player abstract game by Mark William, published by
Malaysian publishing house Luma. "Tanglung" refers to Chinese lanterns which
are carried during the Mid Autumn Festival.
I absolutely love the production of the game, especially the attention to
detail. The insides of the box are decorated. I adore the art!
A game is set up
Simon Schmieder is the designer of Jakarta Traffic, Durian Smuggler and Food Alley. He is from Germany and currently lives in Indonesia. I got to know him through boardgame fairs around South East Asia. We were both in Bangkok for the Bangkok International Game Festival (BIGF) in August, and he, Jon and I met up for a playtest session.
The Airbnb Simon stayed in was like a mini
This game will probably always be called the mosquito game. This is a game
from Taiwan, and players play the role of mosquito families trying to attack a
sleeping guy and then escape without getting squashed. I certainly have not
played any other game with this premise.
Everyone starts with the same set of cards with exactly the same distribution.
The only
TOBE (Taiwan Original Boardgame Expo) will be held in Taipei 25-27 September 2026. This will be my first time exhibiting in Taiwan. I got into this beautiful hobby in 2003 when I lived in Taipei. 23 years ago, I could not have imagined that 23 years later I will be exhibiting at a game fair in Taipei as a game designer and indie publisher. Who's in Taipei that weekend? Come play with me!
The Isle of Cats Duel is a 2-player polyomino game. You take turns
claiming polyominoes from a common board to place on your personal player
board. At game end you score points based on how well you have filled your
player board.
On the common board there are both polyominoes (cats in various colours and
poses) and scoring cards. On your turn you must move the
I have been wanting to bring Faiyum to the table again for some time.
Finally I did a 2-player game with younger daughter Chen Rui. She absolutely
slaughtered me, even though it was her first play. She went into building and
using workshops, and I didn't. There seemed to be few workshops so I thought
it wasn't worthwhile to get into. I really enjoy how differently each game of
"Joraku" is a Japanese term which means advancing to the capital. In Japanese history, sometimes local warlords will lead their armies and move to the capital, claiming that they are there to protect the Emperor from evil forces. In truth, they want to take control of the Emperor and rule the nation. The game Joraku has an interesting combination of two popular game mechanisms - trick-taking
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