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Mary Prasad
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Note: Since this report comes several months after Origins, I've updated the game information to be as current as possible. As mentioned in Part 1, the dates for Origins are changing in 2012; check the end of this article for details. (Editor's note: My apologies to Mary for not posting this report weeks ago when she submitted it. Holidays! —WEM)
Exhibit Hall
In the exhibit hall, which sold out for the second year in a row, a section was reserved for the Library, which allowed Origins' guest authors a place to interact with attendees: selling books, signing autographs, and socializing. Another space (at the top of the stairs in the Seminar Hall) was reserved as a reading room, with authors such as Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Walter Hunt, and Jean Rabe conducting readings from about 6-9 p.m.
Mayfair custom hotel key card
Mayfair Games
Mayfair really expanded its presence at Origins, with custom hotel key cards for some nearby hotels as well as custom street signs in the Exhibit hall. (You can see one in the photo below in the upper-left, but the light caught one face, so it is pretty blown out.)
Some of the beautiful custom tables for Catan games
I sat down with Mayfair Games representative Robert Carty, Jr., and he shared everything going on in the world of Mayfair.
New items are planned for the "My Catan" line, including a messenger bag, etched dice towers, specialized dice, a hardened (heavy duty) storage case, and other stuff for personalizing your Settlers of Catan games, including pewter sets. The pewter sets, sold through RAFM, will be single player sets with about forty variations. For example, the Chinese set will include 15 Great Wall roads, five little villages (each with a river and small bridge) for settlements, four Chinese cities (complete with pagoda), and one Chinese brigand (aka, robber). The sets may also include six inks for coloring and possibly antiquing. Other themes include Viking, Bavarian, Egyptian, Japanese Fishing Village, Roman, Greek, N. American Indian, and S. American Indian. Mayfair plans to release three sets at a time in the future, those being pieces for Seafarers, Cities & Knights, and the base set.
The custom Catan tables come in different woods, including oak, birch, and a multicolor stained birch. The tables may be used with other games by placing the universal top on the table (secured with flush magnets).
A close up of the custom Catan table with the Chinese pewter set at the bottom left
To continue with Catan happenings, Mayfair released a Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition in limited production (MSRP $150, for 3 to 6 players).
Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition
If you haven't seen the "Bob & Angus Show," you may want to take a look. "Newsrams" (i.e. puppet sheep) Angus Lorenc McPeters and Robert "Bob" Spotswood MacWordell bring you the latest news from Mayfair Games in a cute, funny, and somewhat furry way. The pilot show was released May 5, 2011. Click "View Archive" to see the full listing.
Mayfair has also been continuing its White Glove movie demos. Games are literally demoed by a white glove through the magic of video.
The classic 18XX game, 1830: Railways & Robber Barons from 1986, was just released in a second edition. It contains the original rules as well as rules for a faster-playing basic game and rules for new variants from some of the world's best railroad game developers. The two-sided board shows the northeast U.S. map with different art.
Steam: Map Expansion #1, released in July 2011, includes three maps – Belgium & Luxembourg (2 players), Brussels Metro (3 players), and Mid-Atlantic (3-6 players) which may be linked with the northeast U.S. map – and one extra Steam tile sheet. Steam: Map Expansion #2, due out January 2012, includes another extra Steam tile sheet, a four-panel map board of Great Britain (3-4 players), and two two-panel boards, California (3 players) and China (2-4 players).
Age of Industry Expansion #1, which Mayfair distributes for Treefrog Games, contains a double-sided board with Japan (designed by Lawrence Whalen Jr.) on one side and Minnesota (designed by Kevin Beckey) on the other. Both games feature small changes from the original system, making them feel slightly different.
Martin Wallace's Test of Fire: First Bull Run 1861 was released in July 2011. It is a limited control, introductory war game with a Civil War theme. According to Carty, it gives you a taste of the frustrations of war – command and control – without the saddle sores or bad food.
I'm actually quite excited about the recently released new edition of Nippon Rails from Larry Roznai and the Empire Builder design team, which comes in a box instead of a tube! Mayfair revised the map to make it geographically accurate, restructured cards to make them more balanced, and added new crayons that are washable.
Klaus Teuber's Rivals for Catan: Age of Darkness was recently released. This expansion to Rivals for Catan (the reimplementation of Catan Card Game) includes three separate themed sets that can be used with the base game: The Era of Intrigue, The Era of Merchant Princes, and The Era of Barbarians. Each expansion includes 30 cards.
Dave Heberer's Giza: the Great Pyramid, due out in January 2012, comes with a nine-piece plastic pyramid (four lower levels, four middle, and one capstone) that players must build to complete the game. There are multiple paths to victory, for example, assigning people to different jobs such as painting/decorating, pushing blocks, and fishing & farming.
Martin Wallace's Discworld: Ankh-Morpork was recently released. The game is set in the fictional city Ankh-Morpork from the highly popular Discworld series created by best selling author Terry Pratchet.
James Spurny's Rocket Jockey is due out in February 2012. As the name implies, this card game is set in space, with players not just trying to deliver cargo, but to deliver it with finesse. Players compete to see who can complete the fanciest maneuvers, transport the most important cargo, and visit the most planets (as longer chains of cards will be more profitable).
Frederic Moyersoen's White Water, also due out in February 2012, is a white water rafting race with shared boats and resources.
Andreas Steding's Five Points – set in 19th century New York complete with tenement houses, mob extortion, corrupt politicians, dance halls, drunkenness, and gambling – is slated for a 2012 release. Players represent members of factions trying to control the polls through "cube violence".
Simone Luciani's Urbania is also due out in 2012. Players work to renew an inner city, creating parks, rebuilding buildings, balancing progress/profit/power, and earning revenue through actions.
Once again, Mayfair held its "Great Ribbon Quest" with participants needing to play five games and collect or trade for a set of five quest ribbons (wood, brick, ore, wool, grain) to become a Knight of Catan; those who completed the Knight program were awarded a special item, discount coupon, and raffle ticket. Participants could then play in three more games, collecting paper, coin, and cloth ribbons to earn the title "Defender of Catan" and another special item. In 2011 Mayfair added new Catanimals (the robber trio, based on the sculpture by Klaus Teuber) plus two new maps in the Catan Geographies line: Austria and Penn-Jersey.
Mayfair also runs a separate area with games and tournaments, including roughly twenty giant games such as Settlers of Catan, Gangster, Tigris & Euphrates, Pompeii, Seafarers, Test of Fire, White Water, Alchemist, Atlantis, Candamir, Elasund, Patrician, Struggle for Rome, Ablaze, and Wacky Wacky West.
FRED Distribution: Eagle Games and Gryphon Games
Two wild and crazy guys: Sean Brown (L) and Keith Blume (R), FRED Distribution
Eagle Games
New England Railways is a market-based economic and stock market train game with a pick-up-and-deliver mechanism. Set in 1800s New England, it is for advanced gamers who enjoy games with a high level of strategy.
The Railways of the World: Event Deck from James Eastham and Steve Ellis is an expansion for the board game Railways of the World that contains 54 cards (34 unique). The event deck adds another level of play. Players may build their own custom decks, anywhere from a vicious deck filled with negative events to a prosperous deck filled with positive events, or some mix thereof. The deck may be tweaked for each of the different expansion maps, and it includes four blank cards for customization.
Railways of the World: The Card Game Expansion, also from Eastham and Ellis, comes with 55 playing cards. It includes ten tunnels to connect to existing cities, ten switches to allow track color to change during building, five gray cities to provide additional goods for deliveries, and eleven barons to provide additional bonus scoring options.
Recently released, Richard Launius' Dragon Rampage is a competitive, strategic fantasy game with elements of area control, dice rolling, card drafting, and variable player powers.
Gryphon Games
Bryce and Scott Porter's Reverse Charades was released at the end of 2011. It is a twist on the classic game of Charades where the entire team acts out the word while a single team member guesses. Reverse Charades, Junior Edition was also recently released.
Sean D. MacDonald's Pastiche is a beautifully produced game of art production. Players "mix" colors through clever tile placement, recreating the palette of colors used by master artists in their works. The second edition, released in December 2011, comes with new commission cards as well as eight easels to hold players' commission cards.
Designed by Rick Soued, Brett Kitani, Christopher DeFrisco, and Nick Medinger and released in 2011, Number Please! is a collection of seven different fast-paced math games. The basic idea is to roll the colored dice (five D6) and form an equation that equals the number on the twelve-sided black die. Great for the classroom and families alike.
The object of Jacob Davenport's Mirror, Mirror is to deliver your love letter to the princess while trying to discover where your opponent's love letter is located. The board is a 6x8 grid. Each player has nine letters, eight of which are decoys, and three types of pieces: Knights (which move like knights in Chess), Masters (which move like a chess king), and Ladies (which may only jump other pieces orthogonally or diagonally, one at a time but as many times as you like in a row). The game is unique in that it uses mirrors on the backs of the pieces to see which color letter seals your opponent's pieces are carrying. Landing on a piece gives you the opportunity to capture it, but only if you know the correct color of its seal; an incorrect guess costs you your piece. Only the true love letter has a red sea;, the decoys have yellow or blue. The game has elements of Chess (board design, capture, and movement) as well as Stratego (deducing which piece is carrying the letter sealed in red).
A new edition of Sid Sackson's Can't Stop was released in 2011 by Gryphon Games. If you don't have a copy of this classic game, check it out! New editions of Sackson's Buy Word and Bazaar were also released in 2011 by Gryphon.
Kevin G. Nunn's Zong Shi should be out soon. Set in a medieval town of China, the game features a special blend of worker placement, resource management, project completion, and special actions. Players decide how and where to concentrate their talents, e.g. mastery over a specific material, enlarging their workshop, or building a large number of small projects vs. building a small number of greater works.
Hills Wholesale Gaming booth
Chimera Hobby Shop and Hills Wholesale Gaming
Every year I just have to stop by two of my favorite shops for CCGs: Chimera Hobby Shop and Hills Wholesale Gaming. I've found some of the best deals on out-of-print CCGs at these two shops, including online. Even though I look forward to my annual visit, my husband isn't so enthused; he says I have enough cards – as if there were such a thing! Check out the Exhibit Hall video for a complete round trip of Hills Wholesale Gaming booth. They sell much more than just CCGs.
Asmodee
Jean-Louis Roubira's Dixit: Odyssey, a standalone game featuring new art by Pierô, was released at the end of July. Odyssey allows up to twelve players compared to six for the original game, with rules for team play, new voting cards with peg holes numbered 1-12, and a new game board scoring track. The box is large enough to hold all cards released to date.
Michael Schacht's Felinia was released through Asmodee just before Origins. It's the third release in his "Gold Trilogy", after Valdora (valley explored) and The Golden City (city explored). In this very "Euro-style" game, the island of Felinia is explored via the city of Katzburg. The box art is a little creepy (cats doing commerce) but I rather like the game, and the bits are pretty awesome (especially the boats with interchangeable decks).
Double Agent and Expédition Altiplano released from Asmodee a week before Origins; both are part of the Duo Collection (two-player games) from Editions du Matagot.
Asmodee booth; Stefan Brunelle (R) demos the new release of Evo
Arcane Tinmen
The Spoils from Dylan Mayo and Josh Lytle is a collectible card game (CCG) that plays a bit like Magic: The Gathering but rather elegantly solves the "mana shortage" problem as a player may place a card from her hand face down as a generic resource. Here is an introductory tutorial.
The Spoils was originally released in 2006 by Tenacious Games; in January 2009, Arcane Tinmen purchased the rights, and it soon plans to release The Spoils: Seed-3 set. (Arcane Tinmen also makes Dragon Shield sleeve protectors.)
Chessex
If you like dice – they don't have to like you back, and I'm proof of that – the Chessex dice booth is for you! So many pretties! You can get bulk dice by the mugful for a great price. I just like to run my hands through the bin of dice – well, at least until the owner tells me to go away.
Lots of Chessex dice
Clever Mojo Games
The second printing of Tory Niemann's Alien Frontiers was available at Origins with a few clarifications on the board itself, added rules clarifications and examples, and a cutout on the bottom box to make it easier to get the board out. The game is now on its third printing.
And now for what Clever Mojo has planned for 2012:
• Sunrise City – a role selection, tile-laying, city-building game from Isaias Vallejo. It met its goal on Kickstarter in October 2011.
• Princes of the Dragon Throne from W. David MacKenzie and Fred MacKenzie is a card-driven area control and resource management game with some deck-building.
• Swinging Jivecat Voodoo Lounge from Seth Roback is a game for adults set in 1950s-era cocktail lounges. Players make connections to hipsters and jivecats to get points. Cards have voodoo spells to help players during the game. The flavor text has actual drink recipes.
• An Alien Frontiers expansion called Factions, due out early 2012, adds ship and colony tokens for a fifth player, factions that provide variable player powers on mini boards, agenda cards (hidden objectives that allow players to score additional victory points depending on their territory control of the board at the end of the game), eight new alien tech cards, and an additional orbital facility available to all players. Alien Frontiers: Factions also met its Kickstarter goal in October 2011.
Out of the Box booth
Out of the Box Publishing
New releases from Out of the Box include Shake 'N Take, Faux•Cabulary, and Bug Out. Keith Meyers' Shake 'N Take is a fast-paced game in which pictures that match the symbol on a die must be circled with an erasable marker on one player's game board. This must be done before another player rolls an alien on another die and takes the marker from your hand. The first player to circle all their aliens wins. The age limit may be lowered to 6 on the next print run.
In Matthew Nuccio's Faux•Cabulary players create new words by using letter combinations on dice they draw at random in order to meet some definition read to them at the start of the round. Two expansions, each including new word cubes and cards, are planned for 2012.
Bug Out, which was released at Gen Con, is a fast-playing pattern recognition game with players trying to cover bugs with the matching leaf cards.
Mayday Games
Mayday Games released David Haslam and Sandeep Kharkar's King's Vineyard as well as its new Premium Crokinole board.
Mayday demoed Max Holliday's Eaten by Zombies, which was released in mid-2011. The first printing sold out, and a second printing is due any day now.
Will Niebling, lonely in the ElfinWerks booth (before the Exhibit Hall opened)
ElfinWerks
The recently released 011 from Marco Valtriani was created in conjunction with Italian game studio Scribabs. 011 is a steampunk-themed board game set in an alternate 19th century city of Turin. Players must collect the pages of a long-lost musical score and perform it in order to stop the prophesized end of the world. The game uses a new "mechanical" action selection system. It also offers players a paradox; players must work together to stop the end of the world but only one player may win the game. 011 features members of the Swedish symphonic metal band Therion as characters in the game.
Bryan Pope's Mage Wars is a simultaneous selection, area control game with some twists. Each player has her own spellbook. The spellbook contains all the spell cards for that player. Thus, unlike many CCGs or other games with a similar feel, the randomness of drawing and selecting from a small set of cards has been removed. A point system controls which spells the players may cast each turn. Players get to choose from different types of spell books, with spells representing different schools of magic. For example, the Beastmaster will try to overwhelm his opponents with hoards of animals while wearing them down with his nature enchantments.
Cambridge Games Factory
Thomas Colthurst's Barons was released June 2011, sold out, and was reprinted later in 2011. The goal is to be the first player to build a cathedral. It has an engine building mechanism by placing cards around a castle card with four basic starting lands (four colors). There's no hand limit but there are cards that "tax" opponents (targeted) or all players that result in discarding. Knights can be sent to opponents' baronies to attack properties and slow down their progress.
The Wattsalpoag Crew; is that the Vulcan salute, or some other strange gesture?
Wattsalpoag
At Origins, Wattsalpoag released Distant Lands, the first expansion for owner Kris Gould's Jet Set. This expansion is actually a set of expansions, including the previously released Jet Set: Investor & Business Expansion. Here's a summary of what's included: 50 additional short flight cards, 40 additional long flight cards, 40 business cards that give players different ways to do special actions during the game, investors (8 cards) that inject money into the game when vacation cards come up, hubs (plastic markers for cities) that give you extra income or victory points when a player flies through them, and distant lands, which includes more flight cards and two new boards with faraway locations like Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro; they are expensive but they give big bonuses to income and victory points.
Wattsalpoag also had the first U.S. release of Gould's Last Call: the Bartender Game, which debuted in Europe at Spiel 2010. During the game, players move bottles between bartenders to create the right mix for their drink cards. Players must make the drinks with fewer leftover bottles to get fewer ice cubes. The player who has the fewest ice cubes at the end wins. The game bits (especially the ice cubes) are really cool.
Jonathan Franklin's A Fistful of Penguins, the first title not designed in-house, released (and sold out!) at Spiel 2011. This is a fast and engaging game where players roll animal dice to place animals in their zoos for cash revenue. Players may spend penguin tokens for rerolls or to buy more dice. Each animal rolled scores differently, with special synergies between animals. At the end of the game, the player whose zoo has earned him the most money wins.
Wattsalpoag may add a second Jet Set expansion soon. Games currently in development include: Switchin' Tracks, a train game where you switch the junctions to guide your train to the cities you need to visit; I Got It!, a word/party game where you give clues to a word based on the five senses (looks like dirt, tastes like a motorcycle); Murder Mansion, a game where you wander a mansion, pick up weapons, find and kill your three victims before the police come, then try to deduce who killed each of the other victims; and finally Echidna Traffic Jam, a kid's game using echidnas (New Zealand hedgehog/anteater type animals). Race the echidnas around the forest picking up your flowers and putting them in the matching flowerpots.
Twilight Creations booth
Twilight Creations, Inc.
Deadlands: Invasion of Slaughter Gulch from TCI's Todd and Kerry Breitenstein was released at Origins. This is the expansion to Deadlands: Battle for Slaughter Gulch that adds new elements to that board game including new monster event cards, new encounter cards, new items, new expanded rules, and a new card type: Hired Guns.
Zombies!!! X: Feeding the Addiction was shown at Origins, then released at Gen Con; it includes 15 new map tiles, 30 new event cards, and six copies of the new "Addiction" cards.
Little Dead Riding Hood, which released at Spiel 2011 is a racing game with each player assuming the role of one of the Riding Hood sisters trying desperately to get supplies to their beloved grandmother. Simple really, except for those pesky zombie wolves.
Moosetache Games
Rowboat, designed by John Montague, Cristina Ramos, and David Schiller, is a bidding trick-taking card game first released in 2010; it was improved in the second edition, which premiered at Origins. Changes include a more concise rulebook, enlarged symbols on the cards to make them easier to see, a fixed misprint, improved card coating, an order of power (summary) card added to the deck, and a change to the color of the backs of the specialty cards (since they don't get shuffled).
Hike, by the same designers as Rowboat, premiered at Origins. A rather chaotic family card game with elements of Uno and Fluxx, Hike is a hand management game where players try to play as many cards as possible during the round, but if a player cannot play, she is eliminated. As you might have guessed by its name, it has a nature theme.
Moosetache Games plans to release a party game board game sometime in early 2012.
Gorilla Games
Jeff Siadek's Hunting Party, released in mid-2011, is a card game with a safari theme. Players gain points for bagging trophies and accomplishing their secret goals. They lose points for dying. The goal is to get the most points in the game, but if you run out cards, you are out.
Siadek's recently released World Conquerers is sort of a "quick Risk" war type game. In your hand, you have world conquerors with special powers for the turn. You get a bonus for accomplishing their specific goals by the end of the turn. The game ends in four turns or when someone conquers the world. It is like Diplomacy in the way you count the regions to determine how many dice are rolled for battles.
Tartan Grizzly Productions
James M. Ward's My Precious Presents, released in May 2011, is a family card driven game (draw a card/play a card, five card hand) where the goal is to acquire three big silver presents to win. Players must manage and protect their presents while sabotaging other players' efforts. There are 120 cards in the deck, with a variety of actions (e.g. picking presents, stealing presents from opponents). Players must pay close attention to the other players' presents as once the victory conditions are met the game is over. Players may exchange presents as a free action: 3 small of one color upgrades to medium present of the same color, 2 medium of the same color upgrades to a silver.
In Pamplona: Viva San Fermín!, co-published with Ghenos Games and released in April 2011, the object is to get the most victory points by goring or trampling opponents or by being a brave runner over four race track segments.
Stronghold booth; Stephen Buonocore demos Survive: Escape from Atlantis!
Stronghold Games
Robert Abbott's Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War pre-released at Origins and is now available. In this deduction game, you determine how to move/manipulate your spy pieces to capture the top-secret briefcase in the center of the board and deliver it to your opponent's side of the board, with the trick being that your opponent knows how your pieces can move and you must deduce those movement values by trial-and-error – all while not being duped by a double agent on your team that moves in any way the opponent desires.
David Ausloos' recently released Panic Station is a paranoia-driven semi-cooperative game in which you control two characters sent by the government to investigate the presence of evil aliens. Players move their androids and troopers through the base, exploring and gathering equipment to help them complete their mission, i.e. to find and destroy the alien parasite hive hidden somewhere below. When a player manages to get her trooper into the hive and play 3 gas can cards to fuel her flamethrower, she wins the game for the humans. However, one player is a host. He must keep his identity secret, infecting as many team members as possible to gain allies and prevent the humans from completing their mission. Only players who carefully watch the behavior of team members and find a good balance between cooperation and paranoia will stand a chance against the infected players and roaming parasites. The game uses a unique exponential traitor-system and combines tactical play with a compelling psychological mind game amongst players.
Looney Labs
Andrew Looney's recently released Star Fluxx is a science-fiction parody riffing off Star Wars, Star Trek, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Who and other familiar titles.
IceDice comes with two rainbow stashes (30 pyramids in five colors: two each in three sizes) plus two custom dice and a bonus game inside (Launchpad 23). IceDice comes in a nice pyramid-shaped zippered pouch. Two expansion pyramid sets (stashes) of 15 pyramids are sold separately; they come in either Rainbow or Xeno for $10 each. The pyramids are high quality game pieces that may be used to play many different games.
Plaid Hat Games
Colby Dauch's Summoner Wars: Master Set was shown at Origins and released at end of July 2011. The set includes six new factions, a game board (not paper) with new graphics, and rule clarifications.
Dungeon Run from Mr. Bistro was shown in prototype at Origins and released in August. The game takes place in the same universe as Summoner Wars. Characters are after a summoning stone. The first player to kill the boss may grab the stone to become a Summoner. The winner is the player who escapes the dungeon with the stone.
New releases at Origins included two new reinforcement packs: Summoner Wars: Goodwin's Blade, featuring new vanguard and fallen kingdom units, and Summoner Wars: Hawk's Strike, featuring new cloaks and jungle elves units.
Le Scorpion Masqué guys show off Québec
Le Scorpion Masqué
Québec, from Philippe Beaudoin and Pierre Poissant-Marquis, was demoed at Origins and released in October 2011. The goal of the game is to score points, in four scoring phases, through building. One unique aspect of the game is the cascading effect during scoring, i.e. the player with a majority in a zone cascades half her workers to the next scoring zone, which may trigger a similar effect if she again gains the majority in the next zone.
Annick Lobet's Trafffic was widely released at the beginning of July. This is a simple, fast paced abstract game where players match traffic patterns on the game board with cards in their hands. The first person to get rid of all of his cards wins. A player must take the green light token to move a car one space. If that space is occupied, he just exchanges the cars. The green light token stays in front of him until another player takes it, thus the player with the green light token cannot exchange cars until the token moves. There is a basic version and an advanced version (two sets of cards).
Jolly Roger Games
Richard Launius' Pirates vs. Dinosaurs is expected to be released 90 days from art completion (which will be at some unknown date at this time). Players use their pirates to search for treasure on a sinking island while avoiding the dinosaurs roaming about. Rarrrrr!
Philip duBarry's Family Vacation is expected to be published early 2012. From the manufacturer: "Players take their family across the country (plans are in the works for places beyond the United States as well – and an extra map may be included in the released version) trying to have the best vacation ever. The catch? Everyone in the family has different interests and making Dad happy may upset Mom and no one wants to travel for too long either."
Ted Torgeson's Free at Last, with help from Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard in production development, has a projected release date of Origins 2012. From the manufacturer: "Free at Last is a card-driven game inspired by Founding Fathers, 1960, and Twilight Struggle concerning the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the game, one person plays the civil rights activists while the other takes on the role of the established southern leadership, intent on maintaining segregation in any way possible. When produced, the game will include a brief history of the modern civil rights movement as well as brief biographies of the men and women who were important (and represented within the game)."
AEG booth
AEG (Alderac Entertainment Group)
Frederic Moyersoen's Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan, released in October 2011, is set in the Legend of Five Rings (L5R) universe. It comes with a game board depicting a castle, 28 miniatures (including Lion Clan figures as guards and Scorpion Clan figures as invaders), 58 cards in 3 decks (ninja, traitor, and guards), 6 mission cards, 4 secret movement pads, and 4 screens. The game features hidden movement and varied strategies that make each game a new experience.
Bryan Reese's War of Honor, released in June 2011, is a Legend of Five Rings (L5R) board game but isn't set in the L5R universe. The game includes four decks: Lion, Phoenix, Dragon, and Scorpion. The base game plays 2-4 but it may be played with more if customized using your own L5R CCG cards. Also included in the game, over 50 hexagonal tiles, used to build the board as you play, as well as tiles for each of the other five Great Clans (Crab, Crane, Mantis, Unicorn, and Spider Clans), making War of Honor fully expandable with an existing L5R card collection.
David Gregg's Nightfall: Martial Law, shown in advance at Origins, is currently available. It is a standalone expansion with new mechanisms and new creatures. One of the new mechanisms is a feed component, i.e. a repeating card effect. (You just pay the cost.)
Z-Man Games
The big news here was the purchase of Z-Man Games by Filosofia Games, based in Québec, Canada, with Z-Man's Zev Shlasinger now being a consultant for titles to be released under the Z-Man Games label.
Brian and Geoff Engelstein's The Ares Project was released at Origins and sold out in only a few hours. The game was inspired by real time strategy video games (e.g. StarCraft), and includes four factions, each with its own deck of cards, tokens (ground forces, armor units, air units, buildings, and power tokens), and a large screen with rules and information printed on it, behind which each player will play cards. Playing one card a turn makes it close to real time.
Hayato Kisaragi's Grimoire pre-released at Origins, with the full release following a week later. While a licensed Japanese game, this version added one more player over the original. Players cast spells from their spell books, recruit characters and find treasure. Characters and treasure (victory points) are represented by cards that are laid out on the table at the beginning of each round. The goal is to gain most victory points. Spells in each player's spell book are listed in ascending order. Higher numbered spells are more powerful but lower numbered spells are played first thus a player casting a weaker spell will be able to select a card before players casting stronger spells.
The following are recent releases:
In Matt Tolman's Undermining, players dig for resources on an alien planet. To win, players locate resources, fulfill contracts, upgrade their vehicles (UMVees), and find alien technologies.
In Dark Minions, from Al Newman, players control evil hordes taking over towns and towers. They use dice to allocate their evil hordes, raise them from the dead, and buy overlords, which give special abilities.
Alan D. Ernstein's Palenque is a Mayan-themed area majority game with a twist; players can move borders to change areas. Same designer as Inca Empire.
Ora & Labora is the fifth "big" game from Uwe Rosenberg. Lots of stuff going on in this one.
Coming soon is Vital Lacerda's Vinhos, an economic game about wine-making in Portugal. During the game players buy vineyards, build wineries, make wine, sell wine, gain prestige, and decide when to present their best wines at the Wine Tasting Fair.
APE Games
Kevin G. Nunn's 1955: The War of Espionage, co-published with Living Worlds Games and released at Gen Con, is a card driven game where players are master spies attempting to take control of countries in 1955. Every card may be used five ways: as a special action, for blocking, or for one of three types of influence attacks. The key to the game lies in hand management and maneuvering your spy between six countries.
Nunn's Rolling Freight debuted at BGG.Con 2011. The Western U.S. map takes about 90-120 minutes to play, the SE U.S. map takes 150-180 minutes. Rolling Freight is a rail game using dice. The game includes five sets of six dice, one for each player (the sets are the same, just in different colors) and eight special improvement dice. Improvements can be purchased with dice during the game, e.g. providing extra dice, more profitable deliveries, or discounts. The goal of the game is to get the most stock shares through completing contracts and delivering cargo across completed routes.
Kill the Overlord! from D. Brad Talton, Jr. was demoed at Origins and is expected out in Q2 2012. The game is basically a hot potato passing game. Each player has a role, which changes from turn to turn. Each round, play continues until the Overlord dies. The players who survived then get to trade up their roles in rank order (high to low). The players who died get to rank up in the order that they died (first to last). The Overlord will always get the Slave (or lowest) role. Players gain gold corresponding to their rank cards. If the Overlord player is the last to survive, he wins. Otherwise if the person who is Overlord has 40 gold at the start of a turn, that player wins. The artwork is really beautiful.
Bandai
Tylar Allinder's Resident Evil Deck Building Game: Alliance is a standalone expansion that may be played with the base Resident Evil game. New characters, weapons, actions, and infected have been added to this set to create even more powerful combinations and dangers. Released in April, 2011.
This was followed in late 2011 by Allinder's Resident Evil Deck Building Game: Outbreak, which is an expansion (not a standalone) that may be played with the base game or the Alliance expansion . In Outbreak players can potentially turn into a zombie and infect other players. They can gain points or take away points from other players.
Alex Bykov's Star Trek Deck Building Game: The Next Generation was demoed at Origins and released in late 2011. Players take on the roll of captain of a salvaged star ship. They encounter other starships, go on missions, gain allies (e.g. Picard, Data), etc. within the Star Trek universe.
The Dice Tower booth; Tom Vasel is on the right. (He never stops talking!)
The Dice Tower
For 2011 The Dice Tower had a booth in the Exhibit Hall! There was a lot of excitement here as show hosts and contributors gave away ribbons, custom Dice Tower dice, and lots of games over the course of Origins. Hosts and contributors also demoed some of the latest games.
The Jack Vasel Memorial Fund was started with a bang. Gamers generously signed up in support of the memorial. Here is an excerpt from the official letter from Tom Vasel:
Quote: Fellow Members of the Gaming community: As many of you may know, my first son, Jack Reuben Vasel, was born last year. Unfortunately, Jack was born two months premature, and spent his short lifetime in an ICU before passing on. As many of you may also know, the gaming community rallied around me in my hour of need and raised tens of thousands of dollars to help pay for medical and other expenses. I have been in awe of their generosity, and believe in paying these kindnesses forward. To that end, I have formed the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund, a not-for-profit whose goal is to help raise and distribute funds to gamers in their hour of need. One of our primary fundraising means will be auctioning off games and game-related items. More details are at www.jackvasel.org. We'll be launching the Fund formally at Gen Con in August, but I wanted to make those who are here at Origins aware of us. … Happy Gaming! Tom Vasel Host, The Dice Tower Executive Director, Jack Vasel Memorial Fund
The Dice Tower booth, demoing Defenders of the Realm
GAMA and Origins
I attended the GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) annual membership meeting while at Origins, along with some of The Dice Tower crew. We brought up our concerns regarding the date changes. When I first started attending, Origins was held over July 4th weekend but it was changed to the third week in June, probably due to the chaos surrounding the holiday.
Now GAMA wants to move the convention to the end of May, pushing it into the school year for many attendee and exhibitor families as well as for volunteers. Unfortunately the decision had already been made by the time it was announced. One of my biggest complaints, which I and others voiced at the meeting, is that the dates were changed almost immediately, without notice to attendees, triggered by Gen Con's date change for 2015 that moves that convention up two weeks to July 30-August 2. This shows a lack of concern on the part of some of the GAMA representatives about how attendees might feel about the date change, or the impact of placing it into the school year. In fact, when confronted, one GAMA representative actually stated that Origins is basically a fundraiser for GAMA and that Origins is meeting its expectations as said fundraiser. According to its initial analysis, GAMA is not concerned about any financial impact the date change will make.
There was a survey about the date change, but GAMA has since taken it down. (Instead that page features a letter about the future dates for Origins from GAMA's Executive Director John Ward as well as why those dates changed.) I would love to know the results, but I couldn't find them posted anywhere. There is, however, an online petition to have the dates changed.
I shot some video while walking around the Exhibit Hall. Sorry about the blurriness in some of the close ups!
A quick tour of the Exhibit Hall
I would like to give a special thanks to Nathan Morse and Bud Sauer of CABS. I would also like to thank any of you who made it all the way through this marathon article.
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Mayfair custom hotel key card
Some of the beautiful custom tables for Catan games
A close up of the custom Catan table with the Chinese pewter set at the bottom left
Settlers of Catan 15th Anniversary Edition
Two wild and crazy guys: Sean Brown (L) and Keith Blume (R), FRED Distribution
Hills Wholesale Gaming booth
Asmodee booth; Stefan Brunelle (R) demos the new release of Evo
Lots of Chessex dice
Out of the Box booth
Will Niebling, lonely in the ElfinWerks booth (before the Exhibit Hall opened)
The Wattsalpoag Crew; is that the Vulcan salute, or some other strange gesture?
Twilight Creations booth
Stronghold booth; Stephen Buonocore demos Survive: Escape from Atlantis!
Le Scorpion Masqué guys show off Québec
AEG booth
The Dice Tower booth; Tom Vasel is on the right. (He never stops talking!)
The Dice Tower booth, demoing Defenders of the Realm
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