We had a chance to explore Origins and play some amazing games this last week and the experience was as always top notch! We got to meet up with some great people and saw friends old and new but today let’s take a look at some games! Randy and Isaac want to highlight the games they played and saw that really stood out the most. Here we go!
Green Team Wins
25th Century Games came out swinging this year with some great new titles but this one is by far my favorite. If you haven’t heard it already Green Team Wins is the party game of the year and quite possibly the best party game I’ve ever played. Rules are simple-join the Green Team by being in the majority of the group with your answer and stay there to keep earning more points.
This is going to be a hit for you no matter how many people you fit around the table. Young and old, new and experienced gamers alike will love this one and keep coming back for more. We played it with so many different groups I lost count! Everyone loved it and I suspect you will as well 🙂
Night of the Ninja
Speaking of party games, we played another really fun one from Brotherwise Games. Night of the Ninja is a hidden role social deduction game where you are trying to make sure you and your teammates survive. It was tense, funny and often led to some fun discussion around the table like any good social deduction game should.
This one plays up to 12 and we enjoyed playing it at 11 for our biggest group. This is definitely on my list to get to the table again with a big group and see how well we can all do being sneaky and stealthy!
Hero Realms Digital
Now before you stop me, this is a game that came out during Origins and the hype was there for it during the Convention. It is also what I have played the most in the last week!
Hero Realms digital is by the same team that brought us the addictive Star Realms digital game, Wise Wizard Games. It is smooth, simple and easy to play online with friends or local on your own. I highly recommend this one for a game to bring the Con right to your phone!
Akropolis
Hachette Games is coming out swinging this year with a stellar game in Akropolis. Gigamic labeled, this line has given us some great two player games but this time we have a wonderful tile layer that I fell I’m love with at first sight. Players layer a village of tiles that will score points based on their frequency but also based on their height in your town.
This was a big hit and sold out quickly at Origins this year. I can’t wait to see what other amazing games are coming our way from Hachette this year!
Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances
This Disney combat game lets you pick a team of three of your favorite characters to fight it out with another team of three on the board. It was a blast learning this and we really enjoyed the mechanics and the way the game flowed.
There was a constant stream of people lining up to learn this one, and I didn’t see anyone walking away Disappointed. I expect that they will introduce more characters and more ways to really flesh this game out as it evolves. It felt very thematic for each character in their abilities and made it a ton of fun to play around with!
Core Connection: Rise of Atlantis
This one has been on my radar since Japanime Games released it in 2020. It’s a 2-4 player deckbuilder where you are building a giant mech to defeat evil alien monsters. Part of this game plays as a traditional deckbuilder where you start with a 10-card deck, draw a 5-card hand, and purchase cards from a community supply. But there’s also a tableau builder quality to the game, playing cards to your mech, making it stronger and increasing its abilities as the game goes on. There is no direct PvP in the typical flow of a turn, but there are cards that allow you to fight other players or steal parts from their mech. So glad I got to demo this one and promptly purchase it. Expect a full review in the future as it hasn’t quite received the attention it deserves.
Cat In The Box
I saw a lot of people excited for this release from Brezier Games and it is definitely unique. It’s a trick-taking game that uses an area control board to impact scoring. There are 4 suites of cards, but they are not printed on the cards themselves. You get to choose what suite your card is as you play it. And you can choose when you are unable to follow suit by abandoning the option to play that suit for the rest of the round. Cat in the Box does well to stand out among other trick taking games by changing things up with its suite feature as well as introducing other board game mechanics.
Natural Chaos
I try to play at least one unpublished game when I go to conventions like this. Seeing designers trying to bring their creation to life is a very punk rock, D.I.Y., grassroots approach I love to support. So, I get excited when I play one of these games that hooks me. That is the case in this unpublished game from Rusty Lumpkin of Three Nail Games. In Natural Chaos you are controlling 2 of the 4 elements that have advantage over each other in a rock, paper, scissors type wheel: fire, water, rock, and plant. It is a 2 or 4 player abstract game where players are simply trying to get 4 of their pieces in a row. The caveat, there are four 4×4 grids, and you must play new pieces to the 4×4 grid where you have the least amount of pieces. There are ways to bump opposing pieces or even swap pieces between different grids. Natural Chaos will be coming to Kickstarter at some point. Keep an eye out for it.
Castles by the Sea
While helping at the Brotherwise Games booth, I had the opportunity to show off a few of their new and upcoming games. The one I got asked about the most was Castles by the Sea. You are a miniature race of beings trying to establish dominance over the beach as you build up your own sandcastles and destroy your opponent’s. The sandcastles are made up of big chunky wooden cubes that you place somewhere on the grid. Depending on the orientation you place them in, you can add an archer, a princess, or other structures such as gates and towers. There are hazards that player can utilize to destroy other players’ structures, such as a giant, a dragon, and more. However, the giant… is just a human toddler. And the dragon is merely a kite being flown by typical beach goers that has a picture of a dragon on it. The theme and art is fun and the board looks fantastic with the blocks making up these sandcastles. As of this writing, it is still available to order and will ship Q1 of 2024.
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