Kris Hall: My Origins 2008

Once again I went along with game designer Ted Cheatham for a one-day trip to Origins.  I somehow didn’t have high hopes for this year’s con; I had contacted several designers hoping that they would be at Origins with prototype copies of their games, but most of them said they could not make it.  But the con surprised me.  I found lots of new games to try, and not enough time to try them.

Here is what I played:

Tinner’s Trail.  Larry Levy’s recent post about this fine new Martin Wallace game nicely summed up everything I have to say about it.  I’m just glad that I got to try it, and that I managed to tie Travis Reynolds for the victory on my very first game.  That doesn’t happen often.

Roll Through the Ages and other Eagle Games news.  Keith Blume of Eagle Games was kind enough to let me play a prototype of Matt Leacock’s Roll Through the Ages, a dice game which truly merits that over-used phrase: Civ lite.  In Roll Though the Ages, players roll dice and use the resulting symbols (food, workers, trade goods) to feed their people, build new cities and monuments, and create wealth which can be used to buy scientific and cultural developments.  Players try to avoid rolling skull symbols which create victory-point-sucking disasters.  Creating cities lets players roll extra dice, building monuments generates victory points, and buying developments gives players special abilities, such as immunity from certain disasters. 

In my game, I bought developments which warded off disaster, and food which kept my people happy.  I failed to see that it might be better to take workers instead of food early in the game; an extra city generates a vital extra die to roll.

I’m not a big fan of dice games, but Roll Through the Ages is smart and fast-paced.  If you want a Civ game that can be played in under an hour, then watch for Roll Through the Ages.

Keith Blume also told me that the Railroad Tycoon series is going to be renamed the Rails of the World series, and that the original Railroad Tycoon will eventually be reprinted as Rails of the Eastern U.S.  Rails of the Eastern U.S. will be given a makeover to incorporate some of the popular tweaks that appeared in the recent Rails of Europe expansion.  Rails of the Eastern US may also be designed so that it can be mated with other US expansions to create even bigger railroad games. 

PQ-17.  The one designer I queried who did show up with a prototype was Chris Janiec who brought a copy of his World War II arctic convoy game.  I didn’t get to play the game, but I got a copy of the rules and I watched Mr. Janiec guide two players through their first game. 

PQ-17 has a rulebook that is twenty pages long, and that doesn’t include scenarios.  So this is definitely a game for real wargamers.  The game simulates everything from wolf-pack attacks and anti-submarine warfare to mine damage, the perils of arctic pack ice, and the effects of excessive fuel consumption faced by Allied convoys that speed away from the enemy once too often.  There is even a rule for the lone Axis spy that was landed in Iceland by a U-boat.

PQ-17 is a block game that uses the limited intelligence of the block system to model the hide-and-seek aspect of World War II naval warfare.  Although the German player gets to do most of the searching, the Allied player has plenty of air units, and both players will probably get to attack sometime in most scenarios.

In spite of the game’s complexity, Mr. Janiec says that many scenarios can be completed in under four hours.  PQ-17 is a detailed wargame on a subject that has not been overly-explored by other games.

Ming Dynastie.  Ming Dynastie is a game that I will damn with faint praise.  When I first downloaded the rules and read them a month or two ago, I felt that the game was probably going to be a fairly generic area-majority game with minimal Chinese flavor.  Now that I’ve played the game (albeit briefly) I feel that there is a real game here—but the Chinese theme is still thinner than rice paper.  I’m going to save my yuans for a game that either has more original mechanics or a more substantial theme. 

A More Perfect Union.  I got to play two games of this prototype from Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard, the designers of 1960: the Making of the President.  Their new game deals with the Constitutional Convention that led to the creation of the American government. 

When I first heard that was the subject of their game, I was intrigued but dubious.  I could imagine a line of copy under the title: The Game of Committee Meetings!  Could these guys actually turn debate over a document into a captivating game?

Actually, they can.  If anything, A More Perfect Union (which may or may not be the final title) is a lighter and faster-playing game than 1960.  Each player gets a hand of four delegate cards.  Each delegate card states the delegate’s position on one issue (big state/small state, Federalist/anti-Federalist), the state he is from, and his one unique special ability.  Each round, a different issue dealing with the Constitution is up for a vote.  Players take turns playing their delegates on either the yea or nay side (but the delegates can’t vote in opposition to their one position on their personal card), or using their delegates for their special abilities.  After using a delegate card, players draw another.  When the issue is finally decided, players who have delegates on the winning side of the issue get victory points.  The losers get to place tokens in the Committee Room which will eventually reward them victory points on an area-majority basis. 

Players should be able to change the length of the game simply by adding or removing some of the issues that get voted on.  The first game I played had five issues up for a vote, but I believe that the final game may have eight issues in all, including the provision to treat every slave in the nation as 3/5ths of a person for representation purposes.  I could see A More Perfect Union becoming a game that is often played in high school American history classes as a way to make history come alive.

I can’t predict if A More Perfect Union will be as popular as 1960: the Making of the President, but I believe it will be a game that will be readily accessible to more than just history buffs.  A More Perfect Union will be published by Jolly Roger Games.

Regrets.  Yes, I have a few.  Even skipping dinner, one day is too short a time to spend at Origins.  I saw that a copy of Tribune was available to be played at the Fantasy Flight booth, but I never had time to try it.  And the CABS game library had a copy of Galactic Emperor, but I didn’t get an opportunity to try that either.  Maybe next year I will go for more than one day.  Sigh.

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