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 Chinese classic Journey to the West, Edwin is going for a Chinese brush stroke style. The box front being in the style of a traditional Chinese string-bound book is pleasing and evocative, but I was a little concerned that I would not be able to put much information on it. Then Edwin explained that he doesn’t intend the final box to be that blank. That’s just the general concept. There will be more stuff on the front, like designer name and brand logo. Something more like this example below. 

 

 

I’m certainly excited to see the rest of the art! 

 

I went to one of the Casual Friday gaming sessions organised by BoardGameCafe.net to do a cold test for Pilgrim Poker. That means asking a group of players who have never played the game before to read the rules by themselves and learn to play, without me offering any guidance. This is an important test for how clear the rulebook is, and also whether the visual design of the game components helps the players learn the game. Now I must admit I was pretty confident in how well written my game rules were. After all, I have already done this several times, and I have received comments about how clear and concise my rules are. As I observed the players, I found there were several elements in the rulebook I could improve. That was a humbling experience. I know the game so well that it’s hard for me to look at the rules from a fresh perspective. I am grateful I forced myself to do this cold test. 

 

 

 

Here are some of the improvements I made after this cold test session: 

1. I added the card distribution to the game components section of the rulebook. I did have a component list section, but I did not mention that the cards went from 1 to 13, and that each number appeared twice. This was something the group asked when they played, and this information wasn’t in the rules. They would have to check the actual cards. 
2. I was not clear enough about the maximum bet amount for a round being $10. In the section for Raising, I wrote that the maximum bet amount was $10. That was misinterpreted as when you Raise, you can raise the bet amount by as much as $10. The correct rule is you can raise the bet amount to at most $10. 
3. Naming the action Side Bet caused a misinterpretation by one of the players, that you can only issue a Side Bet to one of your immediate neighbours. I hadn’t considered this possible misinterpretation. However this was quickly clarified by the other players. So eventually I just stuck with the same term. 
4. In one part of the rules, I used the phrase “you determine who wins the Side Bet at the end of the round”. That caused some confusion because the word “determine” was misunderstood as meaning “decide”, as opposed to meaning “check”. The players were puzzled why the person issuing the Side Bet could decide who won. I rephrased this to “you resolve the Side Bet at the end of the round”. I must minimise the risk of misunderstanding. 
5. I did not explicitly say that you should not tell other players what their cards are. In Pilgrim Poker, everyone holds up their cards facing forward, so that you don’t know your own card but you can see everyone else’s cards. In the game that was played, no one specifically told anyone else what their cards were, but there were a few times the table talk almost or effectively gave away this information. I realised I should mention this explicitly, because if players openly tell one another their cards, the play experience would be destroyed.