I recently returned to my hometown of Kota Kinabalu during the Christmas period. It was a great opportunity to catch up with an old friend, and we decided to spend some time playing board games together. We managed to get a four-player game of Brazil Imperial to the table. I had played this title once before, but that was quite some time ago, so I was eager to see how it held up. Visually, it is a very pretty game with excellent artwork and components.

For this session, I selected three specific objectives to work towards. Originally, our plan was to play Clans of Caledonia instead. However, the plan changed because it was a Monday night, and we wanted to play something shorter. We all had work the next day, so we needed to be mindful of the time. I had never imagined that Brazil Imperial would be considered a shorter game compared to Clans of Caledonia. I have played both titles, but I admit I didn’t remember the details of either very clearly. I thought Brazil Imperial was pretty complex, especially since it is classified as a 4X game.

Brazil Imperial was thought to be quick because it functions as a rush game. You need to race to complete your objectives, because if other players beat you to them, you will miss your scoring opportunities. There is definitely a sense of time pressure throughout the gameplay. I thought I performed rather poorly during this session. I didn’t quite remember the rules and mechanics, so I had to learn the game all over again. In the early game, I chose to enhance some specific actions, but I later realized I didn’t utilize them as much as I felt I should have. That was a little wasteful of my resources. To my surprise, I ended the game in second place. It was a distant second, and I was only one point ahead of the third-place player. Still, that was better than I had expected. I played pretty peacefully and didn’t do much warring during the session. There was some fighting in our game, specifically between Nicholas and Chua, but there isn’t much time to fight in this game. Still, the outcome of battles can have a huge impact on the final scores. So you do have to watch out for war, or you want to make use of it if you can.

I played the game in a pretty Euro way – choosing one or two aspects to focus on and maximizing my points related to those aspects. Having played the game twice now, my impression is about the same as last time. It’s okay. It’s a civilization game, and it offers a solid experience for fans of the genre.

My sister and her family were back in Kota Kinabalu too during the holidays. My nephew and niece loved playing mahjong rummy when they were visiting. This is our standard Chinese New Year game, but I guess now it has become a Christmas game as well. It is always nice to have traditions that span different holidays.

I saw this at a supermarket when I was in Kota Kinabalu and decided to buy one. This is the name of my little indie game publishing studio – Cili Padi Games. Coke has been making cans like this for some time in Malaysia. Coke cans often feature common Malaysian nicknames. Cili padi is Malay, and it refers to a type of small chili. People who are small in size but feisty are sometimes given such a nickname. This is also why I chose to use it as my brand name. I want to make games which are small in size but pack a punch.

I played a lot of Take Time with my nephew, niece, and brother-in-law. We really enjoyed this cooperative game. We have only worked through to Level 3 so far. Now that I have played more of this, I have developed some general strategies and best practices. Now that can be a bad thing. If these strategies are so effective that the game becomes too easy, the game will feel solved, and it will feel pointless to keep playing. The tweaks and limitations introduced by the different levels address this problem. Also, your card draws are random. The card draws can create very different challenges from game to game, even for the same level and part.

Sometimes when we finally won a level after many failed attempts, we all stood up and cheered and gave high fives. It was a great feeling of accomplishment after working together to solve the puzzle.

3 Jan 2026 was the first playtesting session for the year. TTGDMY (Tabletop Game Designers of Malaysia) did not organize as many playtesting sessions in 2025 compared to the year before. This first session in 2026 went well, and we had good attendance. I playtested Apa You Cakap, Pilgrim Poker (also known as Bet West or Saikoyu), and Math Dice. I brought Rebels of the Three Kingdoms too but did not have enough time to play it. Many other games were playtested during the session. The session went on for about six hours!