nPips
Tactics in every turn, strategy in every choice
What is your name and day job?
I’m Trixie, an entrepreneur.
What is your boardgame company/brand?
Rojak Culture is founded by my husband Stephen and I in 2015. We developed and launched The Lepak Game in 2016. The Lepak Game is a subjective, prompt-and-response conversation game that highlights and celebrates all things Malaysian culture.
How long have you been gaming and what got you into boardgaming?
I played the typical games most of us did during childhood. Nowadays I find myself playing more boardgames because of my kids.
Trixie and Stephen with The Lepak Game
Trixie and Stephen with their game
How did you get into game design?
I was inspired by Apples to Apples, an old American card game designed in the late 90s. I had the chance to play it with a group of Americans, and that was where I learned so much about American culture, humour, and nuances. I felt challenged, I could never win the game because I couldn’t grasp their mindset, so I bought a copy to learn more.
From then on, we brought it out at every home party or gathering. All the Malaysians around me would say they wished there was a Malaysian version of the game. It a great ice-breaker, especially when there were people from different nationalities or ethnic backgrounds.
What games have you designed and published?
Multiple print runs of Lepak Game (base), an expansion pack and a mini version. The 3rd edition of Lepak Game will be coming soon later this year.
What were your guiding principles in game design for Lepak Game?
Rojak Culture’s vision is to foster cultural empathy and curiosity amongst multicultural Malaysians. The Lepak Game is essentially about gathering people over conversations that celebrates our Malaysian identity, deepening our sense of belonging. Whether fun, silly, meaningful or controversial, no topic is out of bounds.
While designing that game, a lot of my time is spent sifting through content – which topics would serve best as conversation prompts and responses? What would spark story-telling, conversations that are fun/ humorous/ meaningful / significant? What would bring out the uniqueness of our different backgrounds – eg. different ethnicities, states, and generation? What would spark different viewpoints, funny disagreements, a reminiscing of shared experience, inside jokes, etc.?
Achieving a balance of content that is both fun but also significant, connecting but also thought-provoking. I hope the cards pave way to conversations that reminds us that we have much in common, we lament over many similar issues, yet we have a lot to celebrate as Malaysians. We also have a lot to learn from each other. And disagreements are part of life, and mining for it can serve as opportunities to expand our viewpoints.
Rojak Culture Crew
When did you decide to publish your games and start your own brand?
Almost 10 years ago now. Back then, Stephen and I kept coming across news articles that highlighted the myriad of ethnic tensions we faced in Malaysia. Instead of passively waiting for the issue to be solved by our leaders, why not develop a tool that could allow the grassroots to ‘dialogue’ as well? Avoidance of issues doesn’t make it go away. We could mine for conflict in a playful way. We see play and celebration of our Malaysian identity as one of the ways forward.
What challenges did you face publishing Lepak Game?
There were quite a number of challenges, but one disaster turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A manufacturing issue forced us to delay our launch to September 16th, Malaysia Day. Because of the timing, we ended up getting quite a lot of press attention, and it really boosted our sales.
It was a printing disaster that happened. Our manufacturer produced our games but did not have a system of sorting them. We ended up with almost 1,000 games, each containing 600 cards, with duplicates in each one. Along with the founders of All Aboard Café, we spent numerous hours labouring at a factory, sorting the cards into boxes by hand. Thanks to the help we got, we manage to salvage about 60% of the games.
The Lepak Game launch
What was the most negative comment you have received for one of your games?
It’s boring haha. I think they were expecting it to be Cards-against-humanity. Sorry, it’s not.
What was the most positive comment you have received for one of your games?
While promoting the game an event at a mall, a group of friends came up to me and told me that playing the Lepak Game has brought them all so much closer. And they didn’t initially start out that way.
Another memorable moment was when an older woman shared that the game brought three generations to the table during her family’s Chinese New Year gathering.
The Lepak Game
What is Rojak Culture’s next step forward?
Get the 3rd edition out, and continue our multicultural community building journey. My husband Stephen will be conducting multicultural intelligence workshops.
1 advice you would like to give a game designer who is going to design a conversational game.
Be diligent, join communities of like-minded people and learn from them.
Why did you accept this interview session and something you would like to tell me and yourself.
I accepted the interview because we are like-minded people from the same community, and we share the goal of building a culture of play. All the best, and thank you for supporting and nurturing the designer ecosystem.
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