Dale Yu: One More View On Origins

Like many other weekly columnists, I too have just returned from the Origins Convention in Columbus, Ohio.  Valerie and Scott have already given you a feel for what the show was like – I’ll try to comment on some of the other things that I saw while at the show. (And Kris Hall will seriously be left with the dregs by the time that he gets a chance to write about Origins!)

Exhibit Hall

I will admit that the main Exhibit Hall was a bit sparse this year.  I know that not every gamer is going to interested in every booth – but usually I can get lost for a few hours just looking at the new games (and ignoring all the booths festooned with CCG cards, LARP weapons, corsetry, miniatures, war games, RPG books, etc.).  Each pass through the hall took only about 45 minutes or so—and that’s even going around with a wargaming friend.  From the euro-gaming perspective, there were still some highlights:

Z-Man Games

Zev and his crew were prominently located near the front door of the exhibit hall.  The main attraction to their booth was their new two-player Euro/wargame hybrid, Duel in the Dark.  The game replicates the nighttime bombing of World War II.  The game itself is played over a series of nights, each of which takes maybe 30 minutes to play.  The game at its basic level is quite enjoyable to play, but there were a number of advanced rules which would appeal to the wargamer also.  I also enjoyed the new release Stack Market (the game previously known as Gra Gra Company).  This is a delightful light game involving dexterity and a little bit of luck.  There always seemed to be a buzz of activity around the Z-Man booth and was often revisited during the weekend

FRED Distribution

The booth from FRED was tucked away in the corner, and they had a few new games for offer at Origins.  Amongst them were Phoenicia, Age of Empires III and Space Dealer.  Age of Empires III is the new release from Glenn Drover.  I admittedly approached the game with a bit of trepidation given my previous track record with Glenn’s games (Attack! and Age of Mythology), and I’m happy to report that AoE:III is a fantastic game.  It has an oversized board (a Drover hallmark) with plenty of nice plastic bits representing the different types of characters you play in the game.

Rio Grande Games

Rio Grande was there in full force.  Jay had the full complement of the Spiel de Jahres nominees, and they were in constant play.  The new Jenseits von Theben looks excellent with five very nice looking cloth bags to contain the new expedition tiles.  I also had a chance to play If Wishes Were Fishes.  It’s a fairly simple family game, and it should do well in that market.  Personally, I wouldn’t go out of my way to play it, but I wouldn’t necessarily turn it down either.  The game is as heavy as a typical filler, but lasts a bit too long (30-45 minutes). 

Board Room

Kudos to the Columbus Area Gaming Society for running the Board Room—the area for open game playing at Origins.  This room was the best run open gaming room at any convention I’ve ever been to.  For me, the people, atmosphere and games in this room were the highlight of the show.

That’s it for this week—the other columnists pretty much covered everything else about the show!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2007 Dale Yu

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