I’ve just attended the first two days of the Origins 2009 Game Fair here in Columbus, Ohio. I’ll be going back in a little while for day three, and wanted to share some quick thoughts and experiences.
While we’re still looking at mid-week attendance (Wednesday and Thursday), it seems to me like attendance is down a little this year. One of the game masters I spoke with last night expressed the same concern. On the other hand, I’ve never noticed the attendance on these two days being especially high, probably because people are working and don’t want to burn too many vacation days. I’m told the exhibit hall felt a little light, too, though I’ve not been in it yet.
I have to vent a little and say that things don’t feel like they’ve been as well run at Origins this year as in years past. About two weeks ago I received a call from GAMA telling me that there was a “payment problem” with my event tickets. Since I placed the order online and provided payment at the time, that seemed odd but the call was legitimate. When I picked up my tickets I was asked to confirm that they were correct. I went through them quickly and they looked right. Later, I found that I had been issued two tickets for the same timeframe but different games. Since I couldn’t be in two places at once, it appears something in the system screwed up. Later, I found that one of the games I had planned to play wasn’t among my tickets. I’m guessing a mistake somewhere caused me to end up getting one ticket instead of another. One of my friends wanted the other ticket, so it wasn’t a total loss. Then, when I went to go to my first game at 1pm Wednesday, a miniatures game named “Border Patrol”, I arrived at the correct table only to find it wasn’t there. I couldn’t find anyone in the hall who knew where it was, so I ended up being unable to play. Not a great start to the con.
Wednesday evening I had the opportunity to play Munchkin Quest by Steve Jackson Games. It was run by the Amorphous Blob group. The GM was excellent, as has been the case with other of their events I attended. Munchkin Quest differs some from the standard Munchkin card game but is similar enough that you’d be comfortable with one if you’ve ever played the other. I was one of three people who “won” the game at midnight and received a copy of “Munchkin Fu” as my prize.
Thursday I attended Michael Stackpole’s “Rules of Writing” instructional session. I honestly don’t know if I’ve read any of his books in the past or not. Regardless, I found the session to be extremely beneficial. He helped me to see fiction writing in a new way, and helped me to resolve several things I have struggled with in the past when attempting to writing fiction.
Thursday afternoon my brother and I played Battlestations Fleet Action with the folks from Gorilla Games. I had wanted to try the game for a while, so I was happy to sit down and have a go at it. Unfortunately, our GM was divided between two groups of players and we were having trouble getting his attention when we needed it. The rules to the game aren’t especially complex but they are significant in determining how things play out. There were no quick reference sheets, so when we got stuck trying to remember what to do next, we were in a holding pattern until we could free the GM’s attention from the other group. The game is probably fun, but to be honest, I just wanted it over with.
Thursday night before coming home, I played Privateer Press’ “Infernal Contraption” with some other attendees, run by Roger Snow of Rogue Judges. As I’ve probably mentioned before, Rogue Judges (like Amorphous Blob and Red Shirt Games) does a great job running their events. You can tell they want people to learn the game, but more importantly they want things to be fun and fair. I’ll share my impressions of the game later, but suffice to say it’s fun, silly, and does require some strategic thinking. It incorporates a number of elements I’ve not seen in a card game before, such as cards you play once and remove from use for the remainder of the game.
Today, the plan is to play the Bootlegger board game and Stargate Silent Scream. I’ll let you know how that all turns out later.
I enjoyed Origins this year. I was also at the seminar by Michael Stackpole and really found it interesting as helpful to my writing. I have been attending Origins since about 1997 and I think this one was one of my favorites.