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by Devin Skelton

Now we're on to the back half of the weekend! Saturday and Sunday offered their own memorable experiences, and after we go over that, we'll talk a bit about some of the booths we checked out!

As a reminder, we've broken our wrap-up into three parts:
Part One covers Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Part Two covers Saturday, Sunday, and games we checked out at their booths over the weekend.
Part Three covers all the stuff we brought home with us and all the games we took pictures of but didn't have time to learn about.

Origins Day 4 - Saturday
The Origins Virtual Flea Market
K+D
The Origins Virtual Flea Market is a lovely thing run by the ever-patient Sean Turner. It's a herculean undertaking, and we're very grateful he's been organizing this every year. Long before Origins weekend, Sean creates a list on BGG where users can list items they want to sell. Other users can comment on the listings, haggle, coordinate meetups, and so on. Everyone is responsible for directly communicating with who they have transactions with as the convention nears, but Sean sets up and manages a centralized meeting time and location at Origins. The VFM is generally a great place to find deals on games, as most of us are just trying to clear space for new stuff! This year, we sold so many games that we found ourselves posted up outside of the main room, which was pretty cool (and much easier on us). However, we didn't really account for the logistics of getting all of these games from our hotel room to the meeting place, so Devin ended up making a few hurried trips back and forth carrying bins full of games. If nothing else, it was a good workout! We found this sticker in one of the games we bought from someone else, and it gave us a good laugh!


Lightning Train
K+D
After the VFM (and a quick nap), we made our way back to the Train Gamers Association to play in a Lightning Train tournament. The night before, we saw that there were six total people registered, which was much less than what was available. We were hoping that there would be a lot of walk-up attendees, but when we finally hit the start time, there were even less players than registered! It ended up just being a single four-player game of Lightning Train instead of a multi-round tournament, but that's okay. We were just happy to have the chance to play it at all! Lightning Train is a rock solid train game that, at first blush, shares a lot of elements with other train titles (build routes to connect producer cities to demand cities, make deliveries that award points based on how much of your route was used, etc.), but it has its own unique twist. Lightning Train is a "bag-builder," so the main way you interact with its core elements is by drawing chits from your own bag that provide you with your available actions each turn. Over the course of the game, you'll buy new chips that improve the quality of actions you take when you draw them. It's a nifty game, but we haven't had many chances to play it. In fact, this was our first time playing with four players! We know the turnout wasn't great this year, but we're hoping TGA will host another Lightning Train event again next year!


A More Perfect Union
Dev
I'm not going to lie: I signed up for this because I thought it was a completely different game by Fort Circle Games. It turns out Catastrophe Games and Fort Circle Games BOTH have a title in the works under this name, and it's now my understanding that Fort Circle plans to change the name of their game prior to publishing. While I ended up playing something unexpected, I still had a good time. A More Perfect Union is a classic card driven historical "wargame" that isn't a wargame, much like Twilight Struggle, 1960: The Making of the President, and others. Players take on the role of either Federalists or Anti-Federalists, and they try to win influence in each state before they go into session to ratify the constitution. AMPU features some clever card play and timing mechanisms, and I quite enjoyed my time playing it. I would definitely be interested in playing it again, but I'm not certain I need to own it right now. Maybe once I get tired of some of our other, similar games, I would look into picking this one up. However, I really did have fun with it, and I'd encourage folks to give it a try if they have the chance!


National Security Decision-Making Game (NSDM)
Dev
Every year, NSDM hosts a bunch of really cool large-group live action roleplaying game sessions based heavily on politics of the past, present, and future. Every year, I sign up and have an amazing time. This year, I figured that we're coming up on America 250, so I should give the American Revolution scenario a try. Considering the timing, I expected a lot of sign-ups, but we ended up with only about 12 people playing. Still, it was a very entertaining session, and I learned a lot. Honestly, that is one of my favorite parts of playing the NSDM games (and a lot of the historical board games we've been trying). I personally don't know a lot about much of anything at all. So, when I go into these convention games with folks that have a huge interest in the subject matter, I end up learning a ton just from talking to them! It's an enlightening experience, and I don't think there will ever be a year I don't play an NSDM game. I just wish I had the confidence to REALLY throw myself into it like some of the other players, but I'll get there eventually! Pictured here are my role in the game and the "Choose Your Own Declaration" that we all had the chance to sign!




Journey to Skyhaven
Kim
Last year I demoed Canals of Windcrest, and I really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to trying out their next new game. Journey to Skyhaven is still in the development stage (as you can see from the prototype components), and it turns out I'm going to be listed as a playtester, which I thought was really neat. Journey to Skyhaven is a simultaneous tableau builder where you try to meet your personal objectives and play cards in your tableau to get you the most points, while maintainingg your stamina and getting your herd to Skyhaven. Journey to Skyhaven is definitely a lighter game, but I had a lot of fun playing it and I look forward to checking it out when it's finished.


Nippon: Zaibatsu
Kim
My last scheduled event wrapped up at 6pm Saturday night, and Devin was playing NSDM until 10pm. I could have gone back to the hotel by myself like I did one of the previous nights (huge perk of being right across the street), but the night was still young and I wanted to get some more gaming in. I did a lap around the game library and saw a "players wanted" sign at a table with two guys who had out Nippon: Zaibatsu and I decided why not hop in? I really like it and had just played it the week before, so I was ready. It turns out that it was their first time playing it, so I ended up doing a little bit of teaching (there was only one small rule that I had been previously led astray by Devin, but besides that everything went very smoothly). It was my first time doing a pick up game like that with all new people since I usually stick to my scheduled events. I had a really good time, and I look forward to doing more pick up games in the open gaming area again in the future. Side note: right now, Nippon: Zaibatsu is definitely in my top 10.


Origins Day 5 - Sunday
Subversion RPG
Dev
After much consideration, I've decided this was my favorite event of this year's Origins. Subversion is a fantasy cyberpunk RPG from major Shadowrun contributor "Opti" who struck out on his own to make a game with a more hopeful tone and a focus on community aid, or at least that's my understanding of how it came about. I picked the book up last year and flipped through it, but like so many RPGs we have, it just lives on the shelf. This convention session was my chance to give the system a try, and I was completely blown away. Mechanically, Subversion manages to perfectly thread the needle between rules density and narrative focus. There are enough game mechanics and numbers to make your characters really feel distinct from one another and provide some true depth to your decisions, but the act of play is very straightforward so you never get bogged down looking for buried dice roll modifiers. The other players at the table were at just the right vibe so we were really working together to make a fun story, and the GM knocked it out of the park in all regards. The cherry on top was that I am indeed a sucker for fantasy cyberpunk settings, so I was hooked from the moment I made my first dice roll. The GM mentioned that Fragging Unicorns wants to get continuous play going in the sense that we're encouraged to play the same characters every year to have them grow and change with every convention scenario. I'm absolutely saving my character sheet to sign up for Subversion next year, though it sure would be nice if I could play sooner than that!


Further Adventure RPG from Limitless Adventures
Dev
My last RPG of the convention was this playtest from Limitless Adventures. LA has a robust catalog of gaming supplements, most of which are based on D&D 5e. However, my first taste of what they had to offer was their solo game book, Lost in the Dark. It, too, is mechanically based on 5e, but it's an adventure book with decisions, e.g., "If you want to try climbing the rope, make an Athletics check and read entry X on the next page," with that entry providing further instruction based on your success or failure. I'm having a ball with that, and I pre-ordered their next solo game book when they announced it!

All of that to say when LA announced they were going to make their own RPG system, I was very curious to see what they came up with. I quite honestly figured it would be yet another fantasy d20 game, but I was pleasantly surprised to see something vastly different! In Further Adventure, or at least this playtest version of it, characters have three main attributes, and a column of skills associated with each attribute. Each attribute's quality is represented by a type of die. For example, someone may have a Mind of D10, a Body of D8, and a Spirit of D6. When you want to do something that falls under one of those attributes (usually easy to figure out by glancing at the skill list in the matching column), you pick up the associated attribute die and roll it, generally hoping for a 5 or greater as the default difficulty. However, if you are proficient in a relevant skill (e.g., the skill is bubbled in), you can "step up" the die. So if I have a Body of D8 and proficiency in Stealth, and I'm trying to sneak by someone by crawling around in the shadows, I would instead roll a D10.

Further Adventure also features a sort of meta currency in Luck that can be spent on re-rolling dice, though it sounds like there are plans to tie it into other base mechanics to make spending it feel like a weighty choice. Thankfully, the magic system is very straightforward. Each spell has a target number you must reach when you roll to cast it, but if you fall short, you can "save" what you rolled and add it to what you roll in the next round. In this way, you can always cast your spells, but some of them may take longer to cast based on their difficulty. There was also talk of plans for simple "spell shaping" mechanics, where you can say you want to alter the effects of the spell (e.g., have it affect more targets) and step down the casting die as appropriate, but they haven't completely nailed that down yet.

This quick and easy dice resolution system lets the game run at a brisk pace, and it makes it easy to assess the party's proficiency at different tasks at a glance. Combat itself is run using the exact same mechanics, and it never once felt like it was dragging. I'm a sucker for games with "die type as attribute," so I was very happy to see it used here. The designer told us their intent with this system was to make something that was easy for a GM to run while still being an interesting game with satisfying gameplay and progression. They wanted all of the "math" to happen in between sessions, so you can focus on just having a good time once everyone is together. The designer also mentioned that the intent is for the system to be setting agnostic, and that really ramped up my interest. I had a lot of fun at this session, and I'm looking forward to watching it develop!


Sip & Savor
Kim
Sip & Savor ended up being my only event on Sunday since my first event that morning was cancelled. With it being Sunday, I'm guessing the other people that signed up for this event were too tired out because it ended up just being me, but that means I got to play the game with the designer. Sip & Savor is a very accessible set collection game where you do one of two things on your turn: pick up Wine cards from the face up row or match a Wine card in your hand with a Dish card that it pairs with. Each player also has their own extra scoring with the Sommelier card they were dealt. This was a super quick and fun game that I can seeing being good for intro gamers or even with family who might just like wine.



Booth Demos
Oath Hammer RPG
Dev
I stopped by Broken Blade for a very brief chat about Oath Hammer. I had intended to look more into it some night at the hotel room, but I never got around to it. What struck me most was the top quality cover art, which is supplemented by even more jaw-dropping pieces throughout the book. It's easy to see that a lot of love went into Oath Hammer. The designer mentioned that there is a very robust rules preview / quick start available for free online so I could investigate the system more fully. I know it's a d6 system, but that's the extent of my knowledge. I would like to look into this more, because even the layout and print quality make it stand out as a top-notch book. Maybe I'll see if anyone is running a session next year!



Kotam: Conquest
Dev
While we were making our way through the vendor hall, the table presence of Kotam: Conquest caught our attention, so we stopped to learn a bit about it. It's a pure area control game (but it's playable with only two people), and its rules are simple enough to get a session up and running pretty quickly. It features a card play mechanism reminiscent of Ticket to Ride (on your turn, you draw color cards OR play sets of color cards to conquer a city), but instead of building routes, you're taking control of interconnected spots, sometimes from other players. It has a "war" theme, but it offers a more approachable experience than it might imply. Kotam: Conquest looks like it has good bones and a lot of thought put into its design, so we'll keep an eye on it and see where it goes!


Caster Chronicles as revived by Speedrobo Games
Dev
I swung by the Speedrobo booth like I do every year just to see what they have going on. They're an awesome indie game company with a wide variety of published titles, and this year they told me about their recent acquisition of the Caster Chronicles license. They are huge fans of the original game, so they went digging to find the old license holders and bought it from them. Now, they're bringing the game back into print! We're not really TCG folks, but it's a neat-lookin' game, and the folks at Speedrobo are very passionate about it so you can be sure they'll put care into managing the game.


Dragon Shogun from TCG Co.
Dev
After talking to Speedrobo, they suggested I check out TCG Co.'s booth next door. They had this boxed game called Dragon Shogun set up to demo, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It plays like a traditional card-battling TCG, but it has a few unique twists on its mechanics to help it stand out. One of the major draws for me is that, out of the box, it's designed to be a complete 2-player dueling game that still tries to emulate the excitement of participating in the TCG hobby. The cards are separated into "packs" that each player receives and opens like a booster. Players use their packs to put together a deck, and once the game is over, all of the cards are shuffled and randomized back into packs for a fresh game next time!


Kung Fu Zoo as revived by BrownCastle Games
Kim
As always, we had to stop by BrownCastle Games' booth and Kung Fu Zoo caught our eye so we did a quick demo. Kung Fu Zoo is a dice-flicking dexterity game where everyone takes control of a set of dice that represent different animals with asymmetric powers. The main goal is to flick your opponents' dice through the holes while yours stay on the board. We of course have a Crokinole board, we even picked up Jam Sumo from BrownCastle last year that is also a dice-flicking game. Just like Jam Sumo, BrownCastle's version of Kung Fu Zoo features an awesome board with a built in storage solution for the dice. This seems like a super fun game if you're into dexterity games. I also just want to mention that I got Devin's dice off the board in record time.




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by Rachel Carpenter

Yay! Blown fuse replaced, full functionality restored! I'm now fully caught up on June SGOYT and have started in on reading July :geek_grin:. I also got ALL of the photos edited and uploaded for Elder Sign (7 plays, 14-ish reports and change), Pandemic, and Disney Sidekicks. Whew. Tomorrow: writing and Friday!

Happy Thursday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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