Valerie Putman:  Prose on Cons—Origins 2007

Origins International Game Expo is a gaming convention in Columbus, OH held this year from July 5 – July 8.  There is an exhibit hall with dealers and game demonstrations, seminars and other scheduled events, and lots of open gaming.  For the second year my local game club is hosting board gamers in the Board Room and war gamers in the War Room where convention attendees (who have purchased the $15 Board Room or War Room ribbon) can check games out from the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS) library—recently swelled by one copy of every in print Rio Grande and Days of Wonder title, play games taught by CABS volunteers, or just relax with a free drink (sponsored by Jay Tummelson from Rio Grande Games).  In fact, the number of people already playing games on Wednesday night in the Board Room (when registration is open but the convention hasn’t officially begun) might have led you to believe that this year Origins might have record numbers!  We had over 100 gamers before the convention had even started!

Sadly, a walk around the exhibit hall the next day quickly demonstrated that while some parts of the convention are thriving, others are not.  There were a lot of empty booth spaces in the dealer room and the crowds were extremely light, even for a Thursday.  But there were some new games to try, lots of friends to see, and plenty of reasons to be glad to be at Origins.  I’ll give a brief review of some new games now, but I still have some more gaming to do (and Scott Tepper and Dale Yu have both whined that I need to leave them something to write about).

Terakh CABS received several advance copies of the game and I actually played this one before the convention.  Players have several pieces that move around a board and attack the other players.  The last man standing wins.  While there are some interesting movement options (with the board itself changing beneath your pieces) and some unique bits, the actual game play left me pleading “Attack me!  Attack me!” I don’t care for elimination games, but in this instance it would have been a relief to walk away early.  (I felt the same way the time I got knocked out early in the Great Space Race.)

If Wishes Were Fishes This new Rio Grande title is a bit light for my taste, but fun and pretty and exactly the kind of game that I might expect to see nominated for a Spiel Des Jahres next year.  On your turn you can collect a fish and put it in your boat, collect a fish but release it and use the wish granted by the fish instead, or sell a fish from your boat.  Players have worms (in the form of fabulous gummy wiggly purple bits) that allow them to pass over more shallow fish for a fish that is deeper in the water, but players can also save up their worms to collect additional money.  The player who has collected the most money at the end of the game wins.  While I wouldn’t play this game often with hardcore gamers, I’d be happy to play it when we’re looking for something lighter.

Tammany Hall One of the new Stratamax games released this year at Origins is a political area control game.  I lost horribly but would be happy to try it again.  I’ll write more about this one after a second playing.

Phoenicia So far, this is my favorite new release at Origins 2007.  (I am not including some amazing new prototypes that I will say very little about in a moment.) The JKLM/Rio Grande title by Tom Lehmann is a solid snowball (or engine building) gamer’s game that reminds me of a shorter version of das Zeptor von Zavindor.  Of course I am wary of rating anything above an 8 after just one play, but this is a game that I plan on playing many more times over the next few months.

Before the Wind I played this new Phalanx/Mayfair game and I liked it.  The start player reveals cards equal to the number of players from three different decks (no more than two from the same deck).  The cards allow players to collect goods, store the goods in their warehouse, or ship cards from their warehouse to collect victory points.  The game uses an interesting mechanism to distribute those cards (or money) to the players and then the cards are resolved.  The first player to earn 50 victory points wins.  While I thoroughly enjoyed my game, I have two main concerns.  First, analysis paralysis could kill the game.  Yes, you could take 10 minutes to try to calculate the value of a card claimed by another player before deciding whether it is worth it to offer them money for their card or to settle for a less appealing card that hasn’t been claimed yet, but during those 10 minutes you will be robbing the other players of any fun they might have been having.  If Medici is a game that you play slowly (as you feel that it isn’t worth playing unless your bids are accurate reflections of the value of the cards), then I can’t recommend Before the Winds to you…for the sake of your friends.  But if you don’t mind “winging it,” there is a lot of fun to be had.  My second concern is that there are moments when you must choose who to hurt or help and they could feel like kingmaking situations.  Overall, the game is nice but maybe only with the right crowd.

Prototypes The best games I played this year were prototypes that I can’t say much about yet.  But I will say that Jay Tummelson has an amazing eye for good game design and he might have some unexpected new offerings in the future that don’t quite fit into the typical Eurogame mold.  One game that I do have permission to mention (though details may change so I won’t describe it yet), is Reiner Knizia’s Ra the Dice Game which will hopefully be available at Essen 2007.  Very fun!

Ok, there are many more games waiting for me.  Look for Scott Tepper and Dale Yu to have more about these games and others from Origins 2007!

I’d rather be gaming!
Valerie Putman

Comments:

< Back Home