From Digital Marketing to Designing Usolli: Ahmad’s Bold Leap into Board Games

How did a Malaysian designer turn a personal mission into a board game about Salah-the five daily prayers central to Islamic faith? In this interview, Ahmad shares the story behind Usolli—a heartfelt blend of faith, family, and modern game design created to spark meaningful conversations and preserve Islamic heritage in a joyful way.

Q: Please give the readers a short introduction about yourself and your game: Usolli. What is your “origin” story, and how did you come about creating games?

Hi! My name is Ahmad and I’m a full-time board game designer based in Perth, Australia.

In Dec 2022, I quit my job as the General Manager of a local digital marketing agency with 60+ team members. After some soul searching, I decided to go into a new industry (that I had no clue about) for a few reasons: I wanted less screen time, a desire to create a meaningful and lasting legacy, and a way to engage with my kids.

So why the board games industry in particular?

Like most boys, I grew up playing games. And like most hobby board gamers, I started tinkering with creating my own games. In fact, when I was much younger, I had created some board games (similar to Risk) and even a 2D video game (like Street Fighter) with my brothers.

I have 3 young boys now and I recognise that gaming - when used correctly - can be a medium to positively engage and interact with them. Before I quit my job, I had already discovered modern board games and eventually amassed a small but diverse collection of board games to play with my wife and kids.

So board games felt like it ticked all the right boxes, and I took the plunge! I honestly didn’t know if it would work out, but I had my wife’s full support to give it a go.

In my first year (in 2023), I did 30+ designs. One was selected for the PAX Aus convention and I also started pitching my games to publishers. However, I realised I had to consider self-publishing if I wanted a reliable income stream sooner. So in my second year (in 2024), I started working on potential prototypes for self-publishing. I ended up working on 15+ designs, and Usolli was the one that rose above the rest.

Q: What inspires the ideas behind your game Usolli? Why did the team choose to make this type of game?

There are countless board games out there, and thousands more are published each year. To stand out, you need something truly different.

As a publisher, I decided that my goal was to create games that create a positive impact and create reflection opportunities for the player, all while being extremely fun to play. Actually, these are very difficult things to fit into a game. For starters, such games tend to be labeled as educational and imply the game aspect is superficial. But I wanted to create something that is first and foremost fun to play, with those learning moments hidden away and uncovered as you play.

Usolli is a religious-themed game - it’s about Islamic prayers - but it isn’t a religious game because you don’t need to be Muslim or know anything about Islam to play the game. Incidentally, the latter two points are part of the key design pillars of the game.

I chose this theme because it’s part of my identity, and it’s a lot easier to create something emotionally impactful when you are personally linked to the subject matter as you can call upon personal experiences to create relatable moments.

Growing up, my parents did buy us Islamic-themed games. On reflection, three common issues cropped up.

First, they were almost always trivia or knowledge-based, meaning that if you didn’t know the subject matter beforehand, you’re toast.

Second, they’re aimed at kids so they tend to be very simple and typically weren’t novel beyond the first playthrough.

Third, the game aspects were barebones which meant they weren’t really fun.

So I flipped these around to become the last three parts of my key design pillars: no trivia or prior knowledge required, make it strategic, and it absolutely must be a blast to play.

These five key design pillars were critical in guiding me toward creating a game that, in my humble opinion, truly does something different.

Q: Congratulations on funding your game. Before you launch the campaign, what are the challenges of doing a campaign on Kickstarter? Which one is your biggest challenge while planning for the campaign?

I think the biggest challenge of doing any crowdfunding campaign - whether on Kickstarter or not - is making sure you have a clear plan. You need to prepare for the campaign, continue promoting during the campaign, and finally fulfill and handle any potential issues post-campaign.

Just like a train, it’s hard to stop once you gain momentum, and it’s very easy to get tunnel vision, become overwhelmed, or even burned out because there’s just so much to do. If you have a plan, it becomes a bit more manageable.

Q: You went through a lot of prototyping and game concepts before Usolli came to fruition. What’s something you learnt during that time? What advice would you have for people who want to make their own board game?

You need to believe in every prototype you make but at the same time you need to be prepared to walk away from it. It's paradoxical, but I think this mindset separates good designers from great ones.

First, no one will be more passionate about your game than you, or more accurately, the vision and potential of what your game could be. If you don’t believe in it, why should anyone else?

Second, while that vision provides direction and momentum, sometimes there can be deep design problems that seem impossible to solve. So you need to be able to take a break from it - maybe for a short while or perhaps indefinitely. This gives you time to take a creative break from it before you attack the problem again, or you might gain inspiration from working on other designs.

This is actually what happened to Usolli! I worked on various Usolli prototypes but wasn’t satisfied with any of them. I found inspiration from a different game prototype I worked on and ported that system into Usolli. That system is the grid and set collection mechanic in Usolli. This system perfectly combines the theme and mechanics toward the vision I wanted.

Q: We noted that you posted daily updates on the Kickstarter page all throughout the funding campaign. How did these updates contribute to gathering attention from backers? Do you think it should be a common practice for Kickstarter creators?

No one will be more passionate about your game than you, and the only way to transfer that passion is to tell people about it! Daily updates increase the likelihood of interest, visibility, and engagement. That content should be posted on your social media channels too - it’s not just for Kickstarter.

As for whether this should be common practice, I think it depends. In order to sustainably post daily updates, you need to plan ahead and actually prepare most of that content. So there’s a lot of effort involved there. If you’ve already hit your funding goal and you’re happy with the campaign, then there’s likely no need to keep pushing for it.

But if you haven’t hit your funding goal or you’ve already smashed your campaign and would love to reach higher funding amounts, daily updates would be a good way to go about it.

At the end of the day, consider your overall goal for the project and how much time and effort you can actually spend on it during the campaign period.

Q: Do you have a manufacturer lined up for the production? Do share with the community how did you go about sourcing the manufacturer and what are some of your criteria while looking for a manufacturer.

This campaign is a bit unique because I ended up printing a thousand copies in advance. The reason is that Raya (or Eid) was at the end of March, and I felt the game would make a great and meaningful gift for Muslim backers in time for the festivities. Production actually started in November 2024 and finished in January 2025, so it was ready just in time.

In terms of sourcing for a manufacturer, I worked with my business partner, TAKVA. They’re actually a Singapore-based company specializing in Muslim lifestyle products. They’ve done around a dozen physical product launches so I leaned on their expertise in this area.

That being said, I didn’t really know what I wanted in a manufacturer and discovered these preferences along the way. I would recommend https://boardgamemanufacturers.info/ as a great reference to consider manufacturers that specialize in board games.

My game is quite simple in terms of production as there were no custom components or molding. Just standard cards, meeple pawns, a drawstring bag, and some cubes. Because it was my first physical production, I knew in advance that I didn’t want any custom components to keep it as simple as possible and lower production risks.

Q: The US government is imposing tariffs on Chinese-made games. What is your plan for the US backers if the tariffs continue to increase over time (If your game is to be made in China)?

Although I already had some stock in the US prior to the tariff announcements, at the moment I’ve paused shipping anything there because the tariffs are very volatile. Fortunately, I’m not dealing with thousands of US orders, so this is not an existential issue for me yet. The US is the biggest board game consumer market in the world so it can’t just be ignored. I will be increasing the shipping price to the US to cover this if the tariffs continue as they are.

Q: With Usolli being your first entry into the board game industry, what is something that you would want to see more in the community spaces for tabletop gaming?

Deeply thematic games that aren’t clunky!

In a time where there are so many board games out there, I think having a unique theme that translates to memorable mechanics will naturally help your game to stand out more. This makes it far more interesting than being ‘just’ another board game. But there’s a lot of careful balancing, because having a thematic game naturally means more complexity (ie clunkiness) as you simulate elements of that theme into the game.

If you’re able to do this well, I think it also makes your game reach a wider market.

I’d like to think Usolli managed to do this. The theme immediately stands out on its own and the mechanics are thematically consistent while being easy to grasp, especially for gamers.

Q: How does the game design culture differ between Malaysia and Australia? Are there any unique trends or practices you have noticed?

I think Malaysian designers tend to design games with local flavor - such as the Nasi Lemak game (a popular local dish), Drama Pukul 7 (“Drama at 7PM”), or Kuih Muih (“snacks and deserts”). There are a lot of Malaysian themes that can be pulled from especially because of the multi-racial communities.

I think this is less common in Australia since a lot of the locally designed games I see are not Australian-themed. While Australia is also multi-racial, this is largely from migrant communities, so it would take longer before parts of their culture are absorbed in the societal fabric to be considered “Australian”. This isn't to say there is no local Aussie culture of course. Perhaps there is less interest from Aussie designers themselves in designing Aussie-themed games and I'm also more familiar with Malaysian culture.

Malaysian designers also appear to design more games that are lighter and party-oriented, likely because the general public in Malaysia aren’t familiar with board games yet.

In Australia, card and board games are very common. Many local libraries have sizable board game collections that you can borrow from, and some local supermarkets even sell board games!

This means there are probably more Aussie gamers who enjoy heavier board games compared to Malaysian gamers, but it doesn’t mean the Australian market for party and light games are any less.

Q: Now that your Kickstarter is over, where can we find out more about your game and where can we purchase it?

You can check out Usolli’s gameplay via our Kickstarter campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ahmadster/usolli-the-strategic-board-game-about-salah

Meanwhile, you can purchase the game from our webstore at:https://cardboardquokka.com/