The biggest change at my boardgame blog in 2025 was the quantity. Since starting this blog in 2007 (at the time only posted on Blogspot), I have never written this many blog posts. The number of posts is more than double of the next highest year. This is mainly because of the many new-to-me games I played on BoardGameArena.com. Together with my long-time gaming buddies Han and Allen, we started playing asynchronous games on a regular basis. I discovered many new games this way.  

This year I have played 252 different games, and of these, 181 are new-to-me. For comparison, in 2024 I played 72 different games. In 2025, I had 741 plays, of which 271 are my usual suspects top three – Star Realms, Race for the Galaxy (played vs AI) and Ascension. My other dimes are Innovation, Daybreak, Regicide and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. I shouldn’t count Ali Baba, because my records of games I design are not accurate. I demo them a lot and don’t always record these. Also I treat demoing games as work and not play. I get all these numbers from the https://geekgroup.app website. This is such a nifty tool. It’s easier to use and has more features than what BoardGameGeek.com currently does, and its data is synced from BGG. 

Surprisingly when I list my favourite new-to-me games played this year, the top two are heavy Eurogames, a genre which I proclaim to no longer like. Stupor Mundi offers very different ways to improve your capabilities. You need to compete in several different aspects. It presents difficult decisions. The many aspects in the game are linked in different ways so you have to take care of all of them. There are so many different ways to build your castle. 

Darwin’s Journey was a challenge to learn. Part of why I like it is the challenge. I did so poorly in the first game it motivated me to want to do better. It was a puzzle to solve. There was so much I was supposed to do, and I was appalled by how little I had achieved by the end of the game. This is a rewarding game to learn to play at least half competently. 

My most memorable game session was Blood on the Clocktower. This is a social deduction game, and ironically social deduction games are generally not my thing. Blood on the Clocktower is an improved and more complex version of Werewolf. In the game I played, I was the demon, i.e. the main bad guy. That made me rather nervous. In this game, every single villager (here called townsfolk) has a unique ability, which makes playing the demon challenging. Thankfully there are balancing factors. Even though the townsfolk do know some pieces of information, this information might be wrong. The moderator might give them wrong information because they have been poisoned, or their powers have weaknesses in certain situations. I won as the demon, and learned that I can be a pretty convincing liar. 

I played many good games this year. Others new to me which are memorable include Santa Maria, Tiger & Dragon, Maracaibo, Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, Duel for Cardia, and Drones vs Seagulls.

Tiger & Dragon

Santa Maria

On the game designing and publishing side of my boardgame hobby, this year I published the fourth game under Cili Padi Games – Pinocchio. This was also the year the Matagot edition of Dancing Queen was released. My first game published under an established international publisher. This is an important milestone for me. I have now exported my games to USA (Portland Games Collective) and Denmark (Games Kobenhavn). I have a second game which has found a publisher. Malaysian Holidays has been licensed to Specky Studio, and it will be released early 2026, in conjunction with Visit Malaysia Year. I thought I wouldn’t be participating in many boardgame and boardgame related events in 2025, because they are tiring and sales aren’t always great, but I still went to quite a few – Sarong Music Run, Dice & Dine, Keretapi Sarong, Asian Board Games Festival in Penang, and Thailand Board Game Show. There was a boardgame event at my hometown of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it. My friends who were there said they did great sales. Looks like Sabahans are hungry for boardgames! I hope there will be a similar event in 2026, and I will do my best to be there. It’s my hometown! 

Keretapi Sarong event

Asian Board Games Festival in Penang

Thailand Board Game Show 2025

I have been participating less in game design competitions. This year I’ve only participated in the one organised by STTOS, designing a game for Sabah tourism. However this year I became one of the judges of the Design & Play (DNP) game design competition organised under Malaysian Boardgame Design (MBD). There were six judges, all Malaysian game designers who have published games. It was an interesting experience, seeing a game design competition from the other perspective. We hope Malaysian boardgame design continues to grow and we see more and more good games from local designers. 

Haireey, Buddhima, Chee Kong, Logan, Jon and I 

This year I did a seminar at Connaught Chinese Primary School on boardgames and parenting. I’m doing a little part in creating awareness of boardgames. When I visited Hong Kong on a personal trip, I met up with and interviewed Charles Yan, a Hong Kong publisher. It was fun to learn about the boardgame industry in Hong Kong, and to some extent China and Taiwan too. 

At SJK(C) Taman Connaught with my friends who helped run games with the attendees.

Charles and I in Hong Kong

I am running out of space at home for boardgames, and did a small purge this year, giving away some games to friends, and selling some. Now that I have some space on my game shelves, I hope I don’t use it up too quickly. 

This year I participated in the annual BGC (BoardGameCafe.net) Boardgame Retreat for the first time. I’ve known Jeff and Wai Yan for years and they have been my main game supplier (drug dealer) for a long time. Now I’m selling my own games through them. I had a blast at the retreat. It was great to have a few days of being away from everything else and simply enjoying my hobby. 

Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful 2026 ahead, and many more happy gaming moments!