Ket Set Go! Designer Diary 2- Mini Ket-Set-Go! Boothing at Table Conquest 2025

A very belated post after finally clearing a torrential three weeks of work and life responsibilities.

It was a real blast running demos of Mini Ket Set Go! At Table Conquest 2025, and being able to share a part of what I have been developing with interested passers-by at the con. Here are some reflections, and an update on what’s next for Ket Set Go! :  

My Experience at Table Conquest 2025

Mini Ket Set Go! was basically a pared down version of a currently in-development ruleset of my TTRPG titled Ket Set Go! I designed two different playable character sheets as foldable namecards, and I also scripted a short story that I could run for up to two interested players for about 20 mins, teaching them the rules as we went along. 

This is my little set up at Table Conquest! The dice trays I got from AliExpress definitely piqued the interest of anyone who plays RPGs, and also helped keep the set up organised with no missing dice!

I wanted to keep the interactions short yet impactful., and so sought to convey the game as succinctly as possible with some illustrations and designs of the characters, Kets and the race zones. I also made sure players had all the dice, stationery, and visual aids they needed so we could just focus on playing the game.

My boothing partner Messlia also came up with a great idea to offer a 10 percent discount at her store to anyone who sat to try the demo. It was also a collab that made sense because she was selling D&D inspired merchandise, and those who stopped by to inspect her wares were also familiar with TTRPGs and could get into the demo quicker, with D&D jargon and concepts as shorthand.

Running a demo of Mini KSG for a passer-by. 

I learnt that by keeping things simple –  teaching pared down rules, having key visual aids, leaning on a prewritten story, and having something for players to take home, –  I could maximise my delivery by allowing people to process KSG in small bites, rather than handing them a large steak and expecting them to chew. 

All in all, I had a great experience boothing KSG for the first time. I was very warmed by the reception as people passing by left positive words and compliments on the game’s core premise or on other aspects like the illustrations and mechanics. Even more uplifting was the conversations I had with the public who enjoyed the demo, and were so kind to ask questions after, provide feedback, share what they were up to themselves, and express interest in future playtests. I managed to collect a good number of email addresses for the new Owl Ghoul Games mailing list, and I’m hoping to keep anyone interested updated on KSG or just the Owl Ghoul Games channels in general.

If you are one of the persons who stopped by the booth during that Table Conquest and found my blog through the card or the email, thanks for taking a chance at my booth, and making the weekend memorable. I had a really great time and it means a lot that you spent some time engaging with me and what I’ve designed.

One thing that I learnt while walking Table Conquest 2025 with my visiting friends and partner is that there’s an inspiring community of  game designers here in Singapore and the greater South East Asian region as well!  I had a chance to speak with some who were generous to share some tips and inroads to their communities, some of which are regional or even transnational.. There’s so many great opportunities to collaborate and build one another up, and I’m looking to feature some local and SEA games in future blog posts and videos when I get the chance to try these games out!

I'm hoping to do more boothing in the future, but until then there's more designing and writing and getting out a complete game!

Thanks to @itsmesslia for sharing the booth space with me (check her illustrations out on insta!). And also thanks to all my friends who came by the con to support my boothing as well :)

What’s Next for Ket Set Go?

After running the playtests for Mini KSG, I found some aspects of the core mechanics to be unsatisfying, and so I would have to do some major rejigging and playtesting with my friends before I feel comfortable releasing any material to the public.

I’ll be taking the rest of the year (Oct- Dec 2025) to rethink, redesign and playtest the game. I think I might need a buffer and so I hope to finish the core rules development latest by the end of Jan 2026. 

From Feb- Apr 2026, I hope to write a playtest packet, which would basically allow interested GMs run a game for players, and that would be a free public facing document that will be launched in Apr, and will be continually improved with player feedback. Any plans beyond that would have to depend on how the public takes to the game!

While that’s happening, I’m still going to be talking about my favourite boardgames and TTRPGs on this blog and Youtube, and 2026 is also significant year for me in terms of personal milestones, so I’m declaring this timeline with a certain amount of trepidation that I might not be able to make all the deadlines. But I’ll certainly give it my best shot!

Ket Set Go! Designer Diary 1 - Just Ket-ting Started!

To avoid my bad habit of burying the lead, I’ll start out by declaring that I am designing a tabletop roleplaying game! 

I actually have been since February 2025, and now six months in and a few informal playtests later, I have something that I can tell my friends and the public about without shrivelling up inside from imposter syndrome. 

Ket Set Go! (KSG) is a tabletop roleplaying and racing game where players race on giant cats (known as Kets) across a fictional Ancient Egypt inspired world known as Lux. It was born from the question “Are there any good roleplaying games surrounding racing?”. While of course there are (I’ll explore a list of racing and sports themed games in another post), none of which fully embodied the game and world that I desired to one day run and play in. 

Here are some considerations and challenges I faced thus far while designing KSG:

Why Fight when You can Run?

Perhaps owing to its roots in wargaming and the trappings of the fantasy genre, many popular TTRPGs spend considerable effort on developing combat subsystems. With that design intention, these games tend towards combat as  the climax point of most gaming sessions. With KSG, I intend to replace the focus on combat with a subsystem that simulates racing, to capture the excitement and drama of fantastical sports media such as A Knight’s Tale, Speed Racer and Real Steel. It might be an additional bonus that the racing mechanics of KSG might eventually be light and modular enough to hack into other existing RPGs that people already prefer to play. 

(Photo Credit: Warner Brothers, and taken from brightwalldarkroom.com)

Speed Racer (2008) is probably not a good movie by any regard and I hesitate rewatching it today as an adult. I was completely enamoured as a 15 year-old that I shelled out money to watch it a second time. Did the Wachowskis know the sheer power that Christina Ricci wielded with her classic bob haircut?!

Roleplaying and not just Playing

To capture the spirit of these sports movies, I didn't want the focus of KSG to just be on satisfying racing mechanics. There are many great boardgames out there that do a fantastic job. I want Ket to be a game that facilitates meaningful roleplaying and storytelling opportunities, to better fulfil the RP portion of the TTRPG.

To push that aspect, I’m currently designing mechanics which have players build their character based on archetypes (Much like playbooks in many Powered by the Apocalypse RPGs), and incentivise them mechanically to participate in situations and stories that flesh out and develop their characters’ journey. That portion of my design is still very much a work in progress, and for now I’m keeping it pretty loose as I test it.

Fostering Healthy Competition

One obstacle I encountered while designing a TTRPG about competitive racing, is that the narrative environment and framing fosters competition, while most TTRPGs rely on a collaborative and cooperative mindset to thrive. I’m also still juggling that in relation to the mechanical design, but for now I tend to remind my playtesters that the intent of the game is to tell a good story, and that winning the race might not always be the only main objective or most satisfying part of playing KSG.

I've read that the Paranoia (1984), originally published by West End Games is a great example of an RPG thats both collaborative and adversarial in nature. Also has great retro futuristic dystopian vibes that I'm all for.  Will have to check it our sometime (Photo Credit: Meeple Mountain) 

Starting with Small Steps 

Earlier in the year, I was inspired by a friend who shared her experience boothing and selling her D&D inspired illustrations and merch at a local convention. I decided to challenge myself and asked if I could share a booth with her for this years Tablecon Quest, a local tabletop convention happening in late August. My goal was to produce a quick rules zine of KSG, that I could sell at the convention. 

I soon learnt that game designing while holding a full time job is a lot more arduous and slower than anticipated. I was less than two months away from the con with only a few paltry pages of written material, and I was about apologise to my booth partner and throw in the towel.

Thankfully my resourceful and ever resolute fiancée advised me to pivot rather than cancel, and suggested for me to run short demonstrations of what I had developed so far. While I wouldn’t be selling anything, I could still gain a lot of experience and have a great time sharing with interested people the fruit of what has been mostly an isolated and  cerebral mental exercise. I gratefully kissed my partner thankful for that paradigm shift, and got to work on covering the essentials. 

My current ruleset for KSG is not finished for a satisfying full session, and so I’ve decided to run a mini version of the game instead, by paring down the rules to its most essential parts, allowing me to be able to run a 15 mins taster! I was also drawn to the idea of keeping things compact, and was inspired by many indie creators on itch.io who design small games that could fit in a wallet. and so I designed two different character sheets that fit on a little folded business card, that visitors could keep after trying out the demo! It was abit of a rush to layout and do some illustrations for the character cards but it turned out well and I’m so proud to be able to pull them out anytime to show them to people who are interested in hearing and trying out the game! 

Presenting Mini Ket Set Go! Featuring two premade character sheets condensed into little foldable cards. Thank you Sushiro for partially inspiring me with your loyalty card (and your pretty decent sushi). 

Im hoping attendees would be interested enough to follow along with my design journey as I continue to build a full and robust ruleset. But for now I’d be so grateful for the privilege of anyone taking 15 mins of their day to consider the most barest bones of the game I've been thinking up. 

Stoked to bring Mini Ket Set Go to players at Tablecon Quest 2025, and regardless of the outcome, I could say I set my inadequacies aside and just got to creating and gaming!

TableCon Quest 2025 is happening 23-24 August 2025 at Suntec Convention Centre Hall 403 (Singapore) . You can find me at Creator Zone booth CA-9.