Well, it’s that time of year again!

So, it’s been a few years since I came up to Columbus for the origins game show. Honestly, it is probably been since covid. However this year, the stars have aligned, and my schedule is free to come up and see what is going on. This is the big annual show run by GAMA, 

Getting to the Columbus Convention Center was the usual fun experience due to morning rush hour traffic and a fair bit of construction around the downtown area. 

Check in for most convention goers was possibly streamlined with self serve desks. You scan your QR code, and the printer spits out a badge for you.  The media badge table was unfortunately out of media badges, so I did get a bit of a wait for my chance to enter the show. 

Interestingly, the badges this year are nameless. This is said to be for privacy reasons, and I get that, but also it was super helpful to have names on badges when introducing yourself to strangers while playing a game with them. For me, it might have been easier to allow privacy concerned patrons to use a sticker or ribbon to cover their names. 

Also interesting is the decision to change the badge size. The new streamlined shape is honestly appreciated but Origins is a show that has been built around ribbon collecting. Accomplished gamers would get more and more ribbons until they went down below the belt line. 

The new portrait oriented badges require you to stick the ribbons on the side. 

There is also a new app to help you get around the show. A nice improvement in my eyes from the super thick newsprint book from the past. 

While waiting in line, I did get a little breakfast treat from an old friend. 

(I hope that Freddy from Germany gets a chance to try these too!) 

Started off the day with two nice presentations on games that involve The Great Outdoors. First is 14ers, a game based on climbing mountains. It is a tableau building game that looks quite interesting. 

 The other is Pocket Parks a set collection game based on exploring the different parks in the National Park system with photos taken by the game designer himself at every National park. 

I did take a demo of a new worker placement game called Estate which looks quite interesting. I’m definitely looking forward to taking my copy home and playing it and I will have a review soon. 

I have always been a big sucker for narrative puzzle hunt games, and PostCurious is here with all of their new things. Really looking forward to trying Emerald Echoes which is the follow-up to Emerald flame. Supposed to take about 3 to 5 hours, split up into four chapters, so we will probably enjoy this over the course of a month with us doing one chapter at each game session. 

Okay, let me take a break here from the games and mention that the dealer Hall is actually nicely packed with both convention-goers as well as booths. Maybe I am showing my age, but I am a little frustrated by the layout, the origins folks have nice we given all the booth numbers so it should be easy to find things, but then they also have plenty of booths that span columns so that you can’t simply walk up and down the aisles you’re constantly dodging these bigger booths or walking right through them. It’s making it a little difficult to make sure that I see everything. 

What do you think. Is this Bezier Bucket Hat for me? 

Lunch at north market. Love me the chicken meatball thing. One of the highlights of each Origins trip is lunch at North Market. 

The Asmodee event happened as a sneak peek at upcoming releases. This is one of the highlights of my Origins calendar.   Great times were had with old friends.  

K pop demon hunters is a neat love letter style game with the twist that it’s team based.  It’s quite easy to play, though the reference card is a must as the cards can get a little complex.  My team won in two rounds – which according to the designer was a very rare occurence.

Azul kids is a quick playing 20 minute simplified version of Azul. This is the third game in the kids line (also Dixit Kids and Splendor Kids). The rules are dead simple. Choose pieces of one color from one of the mancala bins and then place them all into one shape on your board. The unchosen bits go into the center. When the bins are empty, refill everything. Do this 3 times. Score stars for your completed shapes

Then Melodies from Next Move. A cooperative game where the team tries to construct songs by playing cards. Each player plays a single, run or set. At the end of each trick, the most prevalent card is moved to the song, and the numbers have to follow the pattern on the sheet music. Each player has a special ability, and there are ten scenario packs on the box.   One nice twist that is players cannot change to position of cards in their hand (ala Scout or dnup), so you do have to work a bit with card/hand management.

And with that, my first day at Origins is over.

Lots of fun was had – looking forward to more!

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor