Boardgamecafe.net Forum: BGC Portal

BGC is helping to raise fun for CARIF (Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation) in conjuction of Terry Fox Run 2012.
You can support the cause by getting yourself or your loved ones the Terry Fox Run t-shirt through us. Each t-shirt is sold at RM30.

Blog write-ups on year 2011 and year 2010 Terry Fox Run event by BGC.



T-shirt sizes (inches)
2 (child) - 22''
4 (child) - 24''
3XS (child) - 28''
2XS - 32''
XS - 34''
S - 36''
M - 40''
L - 42''
XL - 44''
2XL - 46''
3XL - 48''

Just add your name and t-shirt size here. If you are going to get more than one, please list them down in separate lines with their sizes.

Thank you!

• Yee Lin (M) - paid
• Yee Lin 2 (XS) - paid
• Ho H.D. (3XL)
• Ho H.D. 2 (L)
• Sinbad (L) - paid
• Heng (M) - paid
• Heng 2 (S) - paid
• Allen (L) - paid
• Allen 2 (S) - paid
• Allen 3 (4) - paid
• Allen 4 (2) - paid
• Zatika (S) - paid
  
• Zatika 2 (M) - paid
  
• Zatika 3 (2XS) - paid
  
• Zatika 4 (3XS) - paid
  
• Tan T.H. (L) - paid
• YC (M) - paid
  
• YC 2 (XS) - paid
  
• YC 3 (L) - paid
  
• YC 4 (L) - paid
  
• Chak Meng (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 2 (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 3 (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 4 (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 5 (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 6 (S) - paid
• Chak Meng 7 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 8 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 9 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 10 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 11 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 12 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 13 (M) - paid
• Chak Meng 14 (L) - paid
• Chak Meng 15 (L) - paid
• Aspeir (S) - paid
• Jeff (M) - paid
• Wai Yan (S) - paid
• Lai Wah (M) - paid
• Lai Wah 2 (M) - paid
• Lai Wah 3 (M) - paid
• Lai Wah 4 (XS) - paid
• Caleb (L) - paid
• Silvia (XXS) - paid
• Ainul (M) - paid

Note: Order closed and thank you for your support. Will inform all about the t-shirt collection when they are ready for pick up.

Boardgamecafe.net Christmas Caption Contest!
We'd just concluded our Catan 2011 tournament at MAGACON last Saturday and while I'm still trying to catch up with the sessreps, one of the pictures of MAGACON uploaded to the KDU University College Facebook page caught my eye!



Picture © 2011 courtesy of KDU University College. Used with permission.

It's the perfect freeze frame!

Henry (white tee) and Richard (red tee) pointing their fingers at poor Jonathan (blue BGC Retreat 2011 tee, yay!) while Kean Chong (gray tee) sniggered. Looking on's CK Au in the orange BGC Catan Msia 2011 tee.

I thought running a contest to see who can come up with the most witty and funniest caption for this picture would be awesome thing to do! It's not always you get such interesting freeze frame for a caption run....

I posted a teaser to the BGC Facebook page to see if anyone's game, with possibly a new game as the prize. Within minutes, I actually have received an email from aycee with a very very good hilarious caption! Obviously I can't reveal what he has came up with but it's good - and for now, that's the caption you've to beat.

I'll scan thru the new arrivals (which are due at OTK tomorrow) and see which of the new arrivals we can sponsor as the prize for this Caption Contest. Will announce the prize game tomorrow but it'll definitely be one of our new arrivals. Here's the simple T&C for this contest. J

1. You may submit as many entries as you wish but ONLY THE LATEST entry counts as your submission.
2. No entry fee to join. Just be creative and send your caption to events@boardgamecafe.net with the subject line "BGC Christmas Caption Contest 2011" or just click on this link.
3. You may send your entry in simple text form or you can do one up with text bubbles. Hint: aycee's caption is well illustrated.
4. Pls keep your caption text "friendly" and avoid the usual offensive, blah blah blah.
5. The "actors" in the picture may also submit their entries (except for CK Au la - or any of the BGC peeps)
6. The panel of judges would comprise of CK, aanemesis, waiyan and some Inner Circle members (obviously only those members not taking part in this contest would be picked as judges). Decision of this panel is final.

Once we've selected the winner, we'll post up some of the better captions we received so you may yet get your 15-min of fame. If we get really good runners-up, we may throw in additional prizes.

If you've any question, pls post them here.

Let your creative juice run wild! And feel free to share this with your friends!!

Closing date: 31 Dec 2011.

P/s Come on, let's give aycee a run for his money!

Source: http://blog.boardgam...aption-contest/

let's vote for the best date to fit everyone before I lock it down with the venue/plans. there are basically two dates we can opt for

1. The Fri nite ie DEC 23 lasting into Sat morning

2. Or the Sat Xmas Eve DEC 24, lasting into Xmas Day itself.

If both these two dates are good, then we can settle for it as I would like to leave the following week's Dec 31st Sat for some happenings at OTK!

Let's vote... and feel free to post your comment/input/suggestion as reply.

Hi everyone, I've pondered much about actually having one of these locally. I've had many great experiences doing so on BGG with people I have not had the pleasure of even knowing.

So this is what I am suggesting. A locally run Secret Santa BG gift exchange with the blessings of BGC.net of course.

So how will this work? Below are some guidelines I've borrowed and improvised to suite our needs. Feel free to comment on how we can improve this guidelines further.

The Guidelines

1. This is a Malaysian-only Secret Santa (must be in Malaysia ya), created to accommodate those who would like to participate in multiple Secret Santa events, or those who are unable to participate in the International Secret Santa. Everyone with an address in Malaysia is welcome to join.

2. I will be using an online randomizer to pair the MY Secret Santa. Please sign up by providing your name and e-mail address (one you check regularly please) in a reply to this thread. Entries will be accepted until Sunday, November 6th 2011.

3. Update your wishlist (NOT your want list) on BGG. If you do not have a BGG account, please e-mail a list to me. It will be posted in a similar thread on these forums. Please have at least ten currently available games locally on your list, and make sure at least some of them fall within a reasonable price range (we shall use Ticket to Ride as the standard, approx. RM179). If you have only high priced, hard-to-find games on your list, don't be surprised when you get something you didn't ask for.

4. Once entries are closed, everyone signed up will have a random name and address sent to them. Please contact me should you not receive this e-mail.

5. Once you receive a name and e-mail address (I'm still testing to see if this works) , check out your recipient's wishlist and select a gift that they've indicated they would like. Make sure you wrap em up.

6. Secret Santa is all about the giving, not the getting. Do NOT join the Secret Santa unless you plan to gift a gift; this isn't a "get a free game for nothing" club.

7. Personalising the gifts you gift makes the experience more fun for all. Taunting is also encouraged. This can be accomplished secretly via the Santa e-mail account which will be set up. Just log in and send your target recipient clever poems, codes to crack, or a simple message that unfortunately, you weren't able to secure Alien Frontiers, but their all-coal, homemade version of Draughts is on its way.

8. Please join if you can, be as generous as you can, and in general, participate in the spirit of giving that we usually adopt for all our brothers and sisters during the holiday season.

Most importantly, have fun!

Emil

Signed up
1. Ronnie (DWolve)
2. Jacelyn (Jacelyn)
3. Junyet (Junyetwong)
4. Heng (ayheng)
5. Darryl Tan (shadow_bind)
6. Allen Sam (blownfreaks)
7. Nurul Jannah (laydeh)
8. Afif Ter (afifter)

Alright, here's the arrangement if everybody is okay:

Car 1: BK Woo (woobk2002@yahoo.com)
1. BK Woo
2. Jonathan
3. Lester (Lester, you're quite out of the way but nearer to BK. Can you please contact him and make arrangements?)

Car 2: Kareem (012-6226455)
1. Kareem
2. Emil
3. Daren (Daren, please sms me your number so I can make arrangements with you)

Please share petrol and toll costs. Happy traveling and see you all on Saturday!

Rite.. while June 4 looks like weeks away but time flies pretty fast. Let us start discussing this here; all are welcome to post, ask questions, provide suggestions etc.

Plan is tentatively to drop in to location morning of June 4 (Sat) which is our Agong's B'day so will be a public holiday for everyone. We aim to start the Day One gaming around 9-10 am and do a full day till 6pm. Break for dinner, then it's the start of the famous After-8 Gaming session where you get to sample games like 18xx, Dune, Diplomacy maybe even TI3?

Sunday we start again at 9 am (after breakfast) and game till 2-3pm. that'll conclude our one-and-half day of Retreat Gaming. Prizes will be there of course!

p/s I'm still way overdue with last year's event report. Hope to squeeze time in-between those Power Grid eventreps and OTK sessreps to get this completed so that those who did not attend last year's event have an idea of how it went.

You may want to start with reading Heng's recap of the 2010 Retreat
http://blog.boardgam...0-hengs-report/




And there's also this 2006 report of the one we did at Awana Genting.
http://blog.boardgam...report-1-71006/

Ready for more Power Grid qualifiers?
April 8th, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards

Well what do you know, time really flies when you’re having fun. Or knee-deep in work.

The games have to go on, no matter how busy school or work is right? (Hey it’s all about balance – take it from this old man!)

On to the really fun and slightly competitive stuff: the ongoing Power Grid boardgame competition is heating up, as the fifth qualifier is set to happen tomorrow, 2pm, in Mage Cafe, Damansara Jaya.

This month-plus-long competition is organized by the good folks of Boardgamecafe.net, who is led by CK Au. They take a keen interest in a variety of boardgames, as they convene pretty much every week (mostly Friday evenings) to play.

It’s the second last one by the way, and happens to be the only one that will be held on a Saturday (the rest all happen on Sundays).

Power Grid, as the name suggests, is a game where players aim to build the best power network. It’s a typical Euro-style boardgame, where placement of tiles matter than actual movements.

Want to find out how the first qualifiers went? Check out their blog at http://blog.boardgamecafe.net/ – it’s got tons of pictures, and pretty much play-by-play descriptions of all the games that took place.

Interested to find about other games? The blog has links and match reports of all these other cool boardgames as well, plus great-looking pictures to unleash the inner gamer in you!

If you’re keen to find out more, why not check out their Facebook page here, http://www.facebook....ardgamecafe.net for the lowdown. They’ve got loads of other activities lined up as well, so check back often for updates!

Do tweet me at www.twitter.com/arcturus_mengsk or leave me feedback below!


Source

More Power Grid qualifiers this weekend
March 23rd, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards

A couple of weeks back, Cards & Boards ran a story on how a bunch of boardgame enthusiasts have started up a casual and fun competition, for a little Euro boardgame, Power Grid.

Well, the qualifiers for the finals, are well and under way, with two rounds done!

C. K. Au and his friends have started up a whole boardgames community, Boardgamecafe.net, which pretty much gathers and plays boardgames virtually every week.





The group recently started its first competition, which is being held in a bunch of different games cafes and locations around the Klang Valley.

The qualifiers, which are ongoing, will enable the finalists in a winner-takes-all type of “grand finals.” Yeah, show ‘em who’s the Power Grid boss!

The game has players scrambling to be the most efficient and best power producer, in specific countries and settings. Who says boardgames has to be all about money or war?

This weekend, the action moves to Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, as Family Boardgame Station hosts qualifier number three. Free up your Sunday (March 27) as the power battles resume then!

Wondered how the first sessions went? Well, look no further than Boardgamecafe.net’s blog here, http://blog.boardgamecafe.net/2011/03/20/bgc-power-grid-msia-2011-qualifier-1/, for a darn detailed and action-packed account on what transpired. Gripping stuff!

For more information, check out Boardgamecafe.net’s Facebook page, here, http://www.facebook.com/boardgamecafe.net.

Do tweet me at www.twitter.com/arcturus_mengsk or leave me feedback below!

Source

Harnessing the virtual world
March 9th, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are hugely popular, but blogs still have their place.

The Nielsen Company estimates that there are over 156 million blogs, so the blog universe is huge.

I follow and like a number of boardgames and TCG accounts on Twitter and Facebook respectively, but also keep up with a bunch of blogs.

It’s truly a wonderful thing to have virtual conversation with the like-minded (and sometimes detractors) on your favorite topics.

Hiew Chok Sien loves boardgaming, and he’s the author of a home-grown boardgames blog, hiewandboardgames.blogspot.com, as well. He also has a Chinese language blog (hiewchoksien.blogspot.com), which he started late last year.

Starting by curating


Hiew started blogging about boardgames, all because he wanted to share his game sessions with his friends.

“By the middle of 2007, I had been playing boardgames for about three years, and had accumulated a fair number of photos taken during game sessions.

“A blog seemed like a convenient way to post photos somewhere so that I could share with my friends and also keep record,” said Hiew, who is in his early 30s.

He believes that keeping track of the sessions played – which he calls “keeping record” – is a common trait for hardcore and enthusiastic boardgamers.

“In the beginning, I did write a little bit about my own boardgaming experiences. I had expected the blog to eventually become just an online scrapbook, but it turned out to be quite an enjoyable experience. The blog has now grown to become a bit of a forum for my friends and boardgame fans alike, to discuss everything and anything about boardgames,” he said.

Locking themselves up to game

Hiew started blogging to spread the news about his new hobby.

“I got hooked on boardgames during a work assignment in Taiwan a few years back, where I got to know of a boardgame café called Witch House (www.witchhouse.org). People played plenty of German or Euro-style boardgames there.

“I came back and spread the interest to my colleagues and we sometimes locked ourselves up in an unoccupied office space to play over lunch time,” shared Hiew.

He loves boardgames due to “the intellectual challenge and stimulation” it provides, and the face-to-face interaction with like-minded friends.

His favorite games include Race for the Galaxy (a quick but complex card game about empire-building set in space), Agricola (a game about farming in the Middle Ages), and Through the Ages, a civilization-building game that allows you to reenact the history of mankind in one sitting.

The most important thing


Hiew does not think his blog is too different from the other blogs.

“It’s pretty much just one gamer sharing his personal journey, impressions of games played, and photos. I try to write in a way that new gamers won’t find difficult to follow. At the same time, I break my game reviews into sections so that the veterans can choose to skip to the conclusion,” he said.

“I don’t really blog all that often, about one or two posts per week. I try to blog only when I have something to say and not because I have to say something,” said Hiew, who spends two to three hours a week blogging, depending on his schedule.

Aside from focusing on his blog, he also makes it a point to contribute to the gaming community at large, by contributing tips and resources to the likes of Boardgamegeek.com.

“I do reference sheets for games that I own or want to play. They started as a handy tool for myself to remember rules details, and they also help me teach games by summarising the game rules in a structured way. So far, I have done about 170 reference sheets,” said Hiew.

They’re available for download at bit.ly/idMiMQ.

Hiew is also a part of local boardgames club, Boardgamecafe.net. He occasionally joins them on their usual Friday night sessions at Old Town Kopitiam in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur, to teach and play boardgames.

*CHEE YIH YANG will unbox his copy of Rice Wars, someday. In the meantime, he needs to make sure his own blog gets updated regularly.

E-mail the esoteric gaming nut at yihyang@gmail.com if you have comments, questions, hot gaming news and tips, and trading lists and deck ideas, for both Magic and World of Warcraft.

Follow him on Twitter @arcturus_mengsk

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ARE YOU THE POWER GRID CHAMPION?



March 9th, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards

Plenty of us play boardgames for fun, so imagine what would happen if there was some prize tagged on to the liberating and intellectually stimulating pursuit?

Well, wonder no more as the Power Grid boardgame competition is now officially here!

Do you have what it takes to be the uber gamer champ, for Power Grid at least?

The competition, the first of its kind in Malaysia, will be held beginning March 13 (that’s this Sunday), in the newly-opened boardgames store, Boardgame Depot, in Bangsar, and will continue all the way till mid-April.

The tournament will be played in a series of six qualifiers, spread across different boardgame cafes and shops as well as regular kopitiams.

While the grand prizes are likely to be cash prizes, the big appeal of this competition has got to be its full-on, competitive angle, a rarity for boardgames, especially in Malaysia!

So what’s the lowdown on the game? Power Grid or Funkenschlag, its original German name) is an Euro boardgame designed by Friedemann Friese in which the gamers play the role of independent power producer, and you get to build power grid networks, bid for the best power plants, acquire raw materials at the lower cost possible, all in order to supply the most cities with electrical power.



The player who can build his power plant empire in the most efficient manner wins the game!

Power Grid first came out in 2004, and quickly became a staple German or Euro-boardgame around the world. It’s playable between two to six players, and has spawned a number of spin-offs and expansions.

Boardgamegeek.com has a full review here, complete with plenty of pictures: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid.

For the full and latest details of the Power Grid competition can be found, click here, http://blog.boardgam...rid-tournament/. Well, here’s to hoping that this will be the first of many local boardgame competitions!

Do tweet me at www.twitter.com/arcturus_mengsk or leave me feedback below!

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Source

BOARDGAMECAFE.NET POWER GRID COMPETITION
This is now certain to happen in Mar/Apr. Plugging this here first and will be updating this with more news/updates as we move along.

Inner circle members, pls go to this forum for the planning discussion.

If you were a member of our old forum, during the migration you may have been moved to the EVERYONE group. To have yourself reassigned to the proper group, just post a reply here and we'll take care of that immediately.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Get your fix of boardgames in Cheras
January 21st, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards

In this month’s print version of Cards & Boards, I’ve spoke to a local boardgame enthusiast that has started his own community in the Cheras area. (http://blog.rage.com.my/all-a-board)

CK Au has its own playing group, that usually congregates in one of the Old Town Kopitiam branches in Cheras, pretty much weekly on Friday nights.

Well do stay tuned to his Facebook page for latest updates, meet-ups, industry news and even where to get your favourite game.

One thing cool about the community is that Au himself is an importer of some of the latest and hottest boardgames, and even some of the not-so-latest but nevertheless cool ones as well.

So if there’s a particular fix you need, he probably has it: check out the page at http://www.facebook.com/boardgamecafe.net for further updates.

Why don’t you head on down to Boardgamegeek.com and see what strikes your fancy? (www.boardgamegeek.com)

With literally hundreds upon hundreds of games available for order, there’s got to be something you like.

If you ask me, even something as simple as Citadels, would be perfect to start people off on their Euro type of boardgame.

Okay strictly speaking, it’s not a boardgame per se, but for the new and uninitiated’s purposes, the card game will do great as an entry level game.

By the way Au has a dual language version of Citadels (both Bahasa Melayu and English) – well, for around RM100, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

I hear that our friends will be pursuing more than the standard weekly Friday evening gaming during the coming Chinese New Year season.

Already over the Thaipusam holiday period (Thursday, January 20), there were two straight days of sessions – the Thursday afternoon followed by the standard Friday evening session.

I’ll certainly be also conversing on the latest news and updates, so feel free to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arcturus_mengsk.

Source: http://blog.rage.com...games-in-cheras

All a-board!
January 12th, 2011 | Published in Cards and Boards |




Back in 2006, Malaysia’s first games convention was held, moulded after the world-famous Essen Spiel global gaming event in Germany. Since then, however, there has not been any significant events organised in that scale. However, 2011 might be the year that things turn around again, if some local boardgame enthusiasts have their way.

Homegrown group
CK Au first started playing Euro-style boardgames in 2005.

“I tried out Puerto Rico and Settlers Of Catan, and started hosting my own group on Meetup.com,” said Au, 44.

Then, Au and his friends would meet and play boardgames in Damansara Jaya, Selangor.

“The majority of gamers then centred around the Damansara area. It was only after 2006 or 2007 that we organised sessions outside of that area,” said Au, adding that he started organising competitions after that.

“Catan was the one game that we organised competitions for and had serious sessions on, as it was the most widely-available and popular boardgames around,” he added.

There was a series of Catan competitions back then, and the winner of one of the first national-level competitions actually participated in the worldwide finals in Essen Spiel several years back.

It was also shortly after Au’s gaming group expanded that he also started to import boardgames. This was to fulfill the local market’s growing demand for Euro-style boardgames.

But his primary interest remains in growing the local community, more than anything else.

Getting bigger
If it’s one thing that’s noticeable about Au, it’s his earnest passion to get more people to be interested in boardgames.

Together with his friends, he started organising boardgame “retreats” – and like the name suggests, these are pretty much two-to-three-night events devoted to marathon sessions of boardgames held at a local holiday destination.

Based on his years of being a part of a group of devoted gamers, Au says there are a couple of major obstacles to the growth of gaming in Malaysia.

“With games costing around RM100 or more to own, we find that people prefer to try the games out a few times first, either by playing them at cafes that rent them out, or getting their friends to share and then co-own the game together,” said Au.

“But the bigger reason why not many Malaysians would take up games is simply due to the fragmented nature of the gamer communities here. Unlike in many countries where public transport and well-planned suburbs mean that travel time is short, Malaysians, especially in the Klang Valley, tend to only play in areas where they have friends of similar interests.”

Au feels that the learning curve for such games are not that high, but surprisingly, there seems to be more of a language barrier in some places. In a few boardgames cafes in the Klang Valley for instance, the owners there have full translations for the rules of the popular boardgames in a couple of local languages, so that the people can play in a language that they’re more comfortable in.

Even in this area, Au has contributed to the local scene. He helped Sabah-based boardgames café, CarcaSean Café, produce a localised copy of classic Eurogame, Citadels. The Bahasa Malaysia and English language versions are actually printed by China and Taiwan-based Swan, which already republishes a number of Euro-style boardgames in Chinese.

Coming up this year
With his band of boardgames enthusiasts, Au plans to propagate and grow the boardgaming community, via special events.

“While Malaysians are generally more casual and do enjoy playing with their friends and relatives, I hope that more organised events will bring greater awareness to boardgames in general,” he revealed.

Au has already started a Facebook group (www.facebook.com/boardgamecafe.net), from which the regular community updates are posted.

He also feels that this year is set to be filled with new and exciting games. Living card games (LCGs), is one niche that he feels will do well along the year’s more hyped-up releases.

He is looking to further extend the availability of the games, to include bookshops and more cafes.

The annual boardgames retreat will continue, while Au will relook into organising more game sessions to cover more areas.

Well, looks like he’ll be out to make 2011 a memorable one for the local gaming scene. Stay tuned to this space!

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Chee Yih Yang is starting to plan his Chinese New Year gaming sessions. E-mail the esoteric gaming nut atyihyang@gmail.com if you have comments, questions, hot gaming news and tips, and trading lists and deck ideas, for both Magic and World of Warcraft.

Check out his blog at http://blog.rage.com...ards-and-boards, and follow him on Twitter (search for arcturus mengsk).

An Interview with a Vampire... sorry, Lord of Midnite... oops I mean Boardgamecafe.net's CK Au
by jack208

The first prompt was made months back when Hiew (of the popular Hiew's Boardgame Blog) asked if I'm interested to answer some questions he has regarding the online boardgaming business, the local market and about organizing boardgame meetups.

Sure, why not?

Hiew promptly sent over a series of questions. There were over 30 questions, I think.... OMG!

Busy-ness then overwhelmed me.. and I kept having to apologize to Hiew for the delay in sending my answers back to him....

Early November found me some time to look at his questions, and boy, they were really probing - but interesting - questions. Took me some time to compose my thoughts & replies to his questions.

After sending over my reply, we decided to meet over the long Deepavali weekend to go thru my answers and for follow-up questions. We'd also planned to do a session of 1960: The Making of a President but that was shelved as we were too engrossed in our interview/discussion and time just flew.

Those questions were really really good ones, and they allowed me to share some of my insights into the past five years of involvement in the local boardgaming market; as a gamer, as a meetup organizer and as an online distributor/retailer.

Quote

Thanks Hiew for doing this interview!

LINKS
Lord of Midnite - CK's personal blog
An Interview with a Vampire (IMBD)