If you missed Origins Game Fair this year no worries. We got a rundown of the hottest new games from the convention booths themselves!
This week I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of a review about a specific game that I played, I’m gonna talk about a boardgame convention; Origins Game Fair.
The main idea of this article is to give you a taste of what awesome games are coming out, as well as some early looks at some I was able to obtain well before they are publicly released. This was how my experience at Origins Game Fair 2019 went.
Full disclosure, I was at Origins as a booth staff exhibitor for Slugfest Games. A majority of my time there was dedicated to teaching people how to play games and promote sells for the company.
Origins Game Fair this year was a blast. There were so many cool games being demoed as well as sold. There was also a lot of awesome non-gaming booth as well. Artwork, clothing, and so much more was on display this year. Personally I still think this is a more laid back convention compared to say, GenCon.
I guess the best place to start would be the booth I worked at. SlugFest Games has a new ally pack for sale. Murgoth the Blessed and Ohava the Grand Cleric. These have proved to be some of my new favorite characters, so much fun to play.
At the Luma Games booth, there was Draftosaurus. In this game, you draft dinosaur meeples instead of cards and put them into your Dino-Park. The Game Museum was also at this booth. You are in charge of a museum where you obtain and display many different artifacts from various cultures. I really enjoyed these two games and can’t wait to write about them specifically.
Asmodee Games had a lot going on. Abomination is a worker placement game with a dark gothic horror theme. Set twenty years after Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. The monster is still around and has tasked you with making him a companion. You must obtain body parts in order to create your own monster. Obscurio looks like a fun one. It’s a cooperative game where you are trying to escape an evil sorcerer by sharing ideas with your teammates. You have to be careful, however, because one of your team is a traitor trying to mislead the team. Quirky Circuits is a cute cooperative programming game where you collectively put in commands for your robot in order to complete a task.
Renegade Games had few cool titles. In Bubble Tea you are running a cafe in Taiwan. You will make various types of bubble tea to score points based on how good it is. Clank! Legacy Acquisitions Inc, brings unique characters with their own custom starter deck. It also comes with cool miniatures that can be used in the normal game.
North Star games was selling a title I had been looking forward to for a while due to the buzz from the Essen convention last year. Quacks of Quedlinburg has you pulling ingredients from a bag to mix into your cauldrons. There is a push your luck element to it because if you pull the wrong ingredients you bust.
At Thunder Works booth I was able to check out the new expansion for Roll Player. This will add familiars and new dice and monsters to fight. It is currently live on Kickstarter.
Plan B Games/Next Move Games had some awesome offerings. The final chapter in the Century series, New World is a worker placement version of the game and can be combined with the other two games in various combinations to make unique games. Tuki is a spacial awareness, dexterity game in which you are building Inukshuks(stone statues) similar to what the Inuit people crafted.
Tasty Minstrel Games had a deluxe version of Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done. You control one of ten Templar Knight orders. This one intrigued me due to its rondel mandala style action system.
Runaway Parade had a really cool little booth showing off Fire Tower. In this game, you try to be the last tower standing by making sure the fire spreads to your opponent’s towers first. Definitely a spin on fire fighting games.
Iello games had a new expansion for Kanagawa as well as a few new games in their children’s age line S.O.S Dino and Tiny Farm.
Capstone Games was doing well with Pipeline. You are competing oil companies laying pipelines more efficiently than your opponents.
Arcane Wonders demoed Smart Phone and had an RWBY themed game for sale.
There were so many games I didn’t mention but these were just some that caught my eye. Origins Game Fair is definitely a fun convention. If you ever have the opportunity to go, travel to Columbus, Ohio and check this event out next year.
