‘Bansan’ captures the Malaysian market experience in board game form

BASKL, 26 August 2023

Board games are always an enjoyable way to spend an evening with friends. In recent years, many Malaysians have also created board games of their own that reflect local culture and aesthetics. Recently, Arts-ED has published Bansan, a board game inspired by Malaysian wet markets. Bansan is a Hokkien word for market commonly used in Penang and other Northern states. It literally translates to tens of thousands of mountains filled with goods.

In this gorgeous game designed by Goh Choon Ean, players take up the roles of market vendors, juggling wholesalers, customers, fellow vendors and even the municipal council as they work to get ingredients and sell their goods. “Players also kind of double up as hawker food stall owners,” Goh says. “They have shopping lists with ingredients that will help them make different hawker foods and fulfil orders at their stalls. When they do that, they generate waste and there’s that whole waste mechanic in the game where there are things going into the waste area and you have to empty it.”

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