Last month, I flew to Columbus, Ohio, to attend Origins Game Fair for the first time! It’s by far the biggest convention I’ve gone to – at almost 20,000 attendees – but even though it was large, the convention was easy to navigate and get around in.

I stayed across the street from the south entrance of the Columbus Convention Center, so all I had to do was cross the street to enter the building. And that was totally convenient, as it was hot and humid during my time there, something this desert dweller was not at all used to. 

Wednesday

I flew out from Phoenix and arrived in Columbus on Wednesday late afternoon and immediately hit the open gaming room after getting my badge. The convention center had plenty of space to game, whether in the ginormous open gaming space, which had both open tables and tables for scheduled games, or just all the little tables and nooks found around the convention center. I never had any trouble finding a place to sit, game or charge my phone.

I met up with Amanda Panda, and we saw this giant gummy bear in the open gaming area, and I had to take a photo with it. (Please excuse my frizzy hair from the humidity.)

The booth was selling Rummy Gummies, a little card game where you’re trying to make a Rummy-style set of matching color gummy bears. But there are also gummy worms in the deck, which activate if too many are discarded, making you do things like trade hands or go in the other direction. 

The next game I played was Rebel Princess, the first game of many played during this con. It was such a hit with every single I busted this game out! Rebel Princess is a trick taking game where you’re a princess trying to avoid proposals from princes and a frog, who is the absolute worst. The game goes on for five rounds, with rules that slightly change each round, and you play this like a normal trick-taking game but you don’t want to collect any of the prince suited cards or the frog, as they will give you point — and you don’t want any points. Unless you’re gunning to be the Rebel of the Ball, then you want all them, and it will subtract to your total points. 

We then borrowed Panda Panda from the convention library. The goal of the game is to collect a very specific combination of cards, which are lettered from A to G, with the A’s having 10 cards in the deck all the way to the G having one card in the deck. On your turn, you can play a card or discard a card, which may trigger the passing of a card to an opponent. You win if you start your turn with a completed set. I ended up buying the game in the vendor hall when it opened on Thursday. 

Next up was Fork, a very adorable trick-taking game where you simultaneously play cards in a trick, and, depending on the hierarchy of the animals, you may be able to win cards for scoring. The hierarchy order is is Foxes, Owls, Rabbits and Kale. On your turn, you pick a suit to be played, and then everyone plays their cards. The player who then played a fox can score an owl or rabbit. If an owl survives, it can score on a rabbit, and so forth. Any leftover kale also scores points if it doesn’t get eaten by the rabbit. 

I hung out with these cool people that Amanda Panda introduced me to on Wednesday as we played all the previously mentioned card games. And Jamie Daggers hung out with us and painted at the table!

Thursday

At the crack of dawn on Thursday (OK, 7:30 a.m.), I met up with Tim Fowler and Patrick Hillier for coffee and 3P cribbage out on a patio at the convention center.

I am very rusty at the scoring for cribbage, most especially in the morning hours when my brain hadn’t quite woken up yet to math, but I was able to hold my own in the end as white! The scores were so close! 

I then met up with Corey (idontknowrules), an old friend who had used to live in Arizona but had moved away to Ohio about four years ago. We miss you, Corey! That morning, Corey, his friend Jon and I had all signed up to play Fort Circle’s First Monday in October, a game about the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. I got a chance to take a tour of the Supreme Court in March during Circle DC, but did not get a chance to play with the designer then, so I’m so glad I got a chance to play it here! First Monday in October was among the many scheduled games offered by Armchair Dragoons in the open gaming area. I spent half my time time there during the con learning historical games.

The game recreates SCOTUS history from 1789 to present day, and players are advocating for the court cases they want to win and shaping the philosophy of the court, which are represented by four tracks: commerce clause, equality and liberty, free speech, and executive power. Players take three actions per turn, and actions include placing their clerks on cases on the docket track, encouraging justices to retire, supporting judicial nominees or moving up the robing room, which offers benefits during your actions. I really enjoyed learning about the history and made agonizing decisions between furthering my philosophical goals versus the court cases coming through. We all enjoyed the constant push and pull of the court, and bringing down the hammer when you were the last person to take a turn in the round!

We then had lunch at North Market, a cool indoor market with food vendor stalls, that was across the street from the convention center. Lots of yummy options! I ended up getting a Philly chicken steak from Marlow’s Cheesesteaks. The sandwich was so ginormous that I ate it over two meals!

After lunch, we hit the vendor hall, which had board game companies selling games as well as all the cool nerd-adjacent gear such as dice, shirts, puzzles and artwork. The local bookstores even had booths there! I always love people watching, seeing all the different stalls and shopping, of course! I visited the Molly House booth and took this awesome photo with a local drag queen who was at the booth! 

That evening, I finally got a chance to play Hot Streak. Omg, this game is such a riot! It’s a racing game about school mascots who run down a field, and the players make bets on who they think will win, place or get knocked down. The game also involves seeding a deck of cards that will provide actions for specific mascots. It’s chaotic fun — we all laughed so hard! It’s hard not to when you’re rooting for a hot dog! 

I then got a chance to learn Weather Machine from my favorite game designer Vital Lacerda. This was such a beast to learn! You are scientists who are tampering with the weather by collecting research data, conducting experiments, publishing papers and developing prototype machines to eliminate extreme weather. Like with any Lacerda game, it’s an intricate and complicated series of small steps to be able to finally do one grand action, and hope it scores points or an objective. My brain just about melted— and we probably should not have started learning it at 8 p.m. — but I enjoyed the brain burn and would definitely play Weather Machine again. 

To end Thursday night, we did a quick game of Mountain Goats, a quick push-your-luck game where you’re trying to get your goat to the top of the mountain by rolling a group of dice. You can divide your dice however you want so that an exact total of one or more dice will move your goat up its matching path. The goat meeples were too cute, but I think at 3P, the game felt a little long for what it was.  

Friday

Friday morning, I signed up to learn Littoral Commander: The Baltic, which was being taught in the Armchair Dragoons area. The Baltic game pits Russia against the U.S., and we played the short scenario that included 3 actions per side for 3 turns. It was my first time playing a game in the Littoral Commander system, and there were so many decisions for those few turns, such as outfitting our ships with various technologies and managing resources for battle. Since we only had 3 turns in our game, we didn’t have to worry about using our powerful guns too early in the game, but ultimately, the dice failed the U.S. and we lost to Russia. 

Next up was Power Grid: Outpost, which is a version of one of my favorite games, Power Grid, but this time in space! If you know the base game, this will be easy to pick up because it is similar with a few interesting twists! First up, you have a player board where future power plants and worker shelters sit. Secondly, there is no resource market, but instead just a market for workers. You need workers to power your plants, and if you’re later in turn order, those workers can get very pricey because you’re hiring them each round, unless you have a shelter that can house them in space.

Each planet functions like a city in the regular game except it can additionally house one shelter or one plant. These wooden pieces are removed from your player board and placed on the main game board, so that you can put a plant or shelter card that you won during bidding onto your player board. If you cannot put a wooden piece onto the main board, you do not have room to build a power plant, and thus cannot power cities. 

We then played two more games of Rebel Princess, one at 3P and the next one at 4P. Each game has been so different based on the round cards and the variety of princess powers. At this point, I had purchased its expansion at the vendor hall, which included even more princess and round cards, as well as some special promos they had including the Carmenisa tile, which has a shiny metallic mirror on it. 

Friday night, I met friends at Land-Grant Brewing Company, a beer-garden type place that had food trucks and great beer. I had the watermelon ale, and it was so refreshing! Good times hanging out in the fresh air with friends!

Saturday

I started Saturday teaching two games, the first of which was Dune: Imperium. This game is such a solid deck-builder combination and worker placement game, and I am always down to teach it. We didn’t play with any expansions as there was one new person playing it but the game was still a hit!

Next up, I taught Arcs, one of my top 10 games of 2024. My two friends had never played Arcs before, and even though it so clearly states in the rule book that you shouldn’t play with the Lore and Leaders cards in your first game, I didn’t listen to it … and I think it created a lot of unnecessary chaos and a little bit of frustration. So listen to Cole, folks! Anyway, there was one point where I had no more ships on the board because they were all on my opponent’s boards and the warlord ambition had not been declared a that round. I eventually got them back, but there was no way to catch up to the person leading by a lot. Everyone still enjoyed the game though, but they definitely said they will try it first without the Leaders and Lore cards next time.

I then met up with Jason Carr to learn Microverse, a card-driven space 4x game that plays in about 60 minutes. Can you believe it? The game is played with a deck of cards, which have one of four actions on them: Build, Colonize, Explore and Mobilize. Players play as different factions, with a home planet on their side of the universe. On a player’s turn, they can play one or more cards to generate resource points to use toward an action. There’s also a Senate phase after each person takes their turn in a round that changes up the rules for that round. I got annihilated when an enemy traveled seven distance and attacked my home planet. I gotta defend my home turf better! Would definitely play this again, and with such a short play time compared to other 4X games, it would not be a problem to get this on table!

The last game on Saturday was Cross Bronx Expressway. I have been trying to learn this game at the past few historical game conventions I’ve been to, so I was so happy to get in on a demo with Jason. First up, look at that cover! Definitely the coolest board game cover I’ve seen on a historical game. The designer, Non-Breaking Space, had a personal connection with the graffiti artist BG183 and was able to use his artwork for the box.

The game follows six decades of south Bronx history from the 1940s-1990s, and how urban development negatively affected the Bronx population. It’s a 3P game where players take on the roles of Private, Public and Community institutions, as they try to save the city from bankruptcy and protect the vulnerable population. At the end of each decade, a census is tallied to determine which factions have achieved their objectives — and at what cost. It is such a rich gaming experience that highlights how quickly people can fall through the cracks and neighborhood problems can compound in the blink of an eye. I cannot say enough great things about this game, and I’m so looking forward to when my copy will arrive. You can still preorder this game on the P500!

Sunday 

Unbeknownst to me, as it was my first time at Origins, the convention also offers all sorts of panels for people to attend. I started my Sunday at the “All About Self-Publishing” writing panel featuring Sarah Hans, Cat Rambo, Aaron Rosenberg and Laura VanArendonk Baugh. I particularly enjoyed how they started the session by collecting questions from the audience in order to know what types of topics to cover. It was a great discussion about some ins and outs of self-publishing. I wish we had more time, actually to talk more!

After the panel, I returned to the open gaming area for the Armchair Dragoons Sunday raffle. You received a raffle ticket every time you played a game that they had set up on the schedule, and there were so many prizes! Alas, I did not win anything in the end, but that’s OK.

I then met up with Nathan Fullerton, who taught us a demo of his game Journey to Skyhaven, which will be published by First Fish Games. 

Journey to Skyhaven is a card-driven cozy herding game where you are hiking across terrain while trying to have the most sparkling, content and plump little creatures when you finish your hike. When you play a card, you move a certain number of spaces while using up stamina. Playing cards in a certain order can combo some victory points or net you some resources to continue your trek.

Lastly, we played one last game of Rebel Princess with three people. It was good to end the convention on a high note with such a fun game!

I went back to my hotel, grabbed my luggage and headed off to the airport. In the beginning, I was a little nervous heading to this con by myself, as my husband had to cancel last minute (and he’s actually been to this convention before), but I was able to easily slip into games and meet up with some friends and make new ones! It was also great seeing people I’ve gamed with at Circle DC and SDHistCon and play historical games with them, and I finally got to meet Armchair Dragoons in person! 

And for those wondering, I did do some shopping at the vendor hall. The Rebel Princess expansion was not the only game I bought! And I totally had to buy the Origins dice set as it had the cute little Origins mascot Crit on them! 

Overall, I played 18 games, including a couple repeats of Rebel Princess, which I do not mind at all. I have since taught my local gaming group the game, and they all enjoyed it. Did any of these games tickle your fancy? Or have you played any of the games I purchased at the convention? I have yet to get Galileo Galilei on table, but hopefully soon! My next convention is coming up! This weekend, in fact, is Consimworld, happening right here in my backyard!