More Origins Coverage with Dice Hate Me Games

We spent a considerable amount of time with the folks from Dice Hate Me at Origins this year. You've already seen our visit with Heartland Hauling designer Jason Kotarski, today we bring you, not one, not two, but THREE videos from the Dice Hate Me stable of designers, including a chat with Mr. Dice Hate Me himself, Chris Kirkman.

The buzz around the Dice Hate Me booth was real, and palpable, so much so, that  we had a few audio issues while shooting our chats. Hang in there they are only momentary and getting a look at these great titles and the folks who brought them to market is worth the interruption!

Chris Kirkman - We chatted with Chris about the convention experience this year and how it differed from last year's experience at Origins, as well as a quick look at the future of Dice Hate Me for 2013.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PvZMq4JbWY]

TC Petty III - TC shared Viva Java the Coffee Game, and an advanced look at Viva Java the Coffee Game the Dice Game! (And in the middle of it all you'll hear Jason Kotarski start to explain how to play Lucky Dice as he chases down a passer by)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWkrM3zi3kg]

Darrell Louder - We chatted a few months ago with Darrell about his game Compounded, today we get to see some prototypes of the very soon to be released title!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7tqxImyNTc]

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TOG Visual—An Origins Interview With Kevin Sorbo

Lately we've had a couple of awesome opportunities to reach out beyond the board gaming community and talk to some geeky cultural icons about their faith. Kevin Sorbo, who has been a major player in the science-fiction/fantasy genre in pop culture, was at Origins this year, and he was kind enough to take some time and have a chat with Jeremiah. Our discussion was about faith, Hollywood, and Sean Penn.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_axX39Yfc]

We're excited to bring you this visual coverage of Origins, and hope you're enjoying it! We'd love it if you subscribed to the blog and our YouTube Channel!

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You can find Kevin Sorbo on Twitter @KSorbs

TOG Visual—An Origins Interview With Jason Kotarski

We're very excited to bring you an interview with the designer of The Great Heartland Hauling Co., Jason Kotarski. Jeremiah had a chance to sit down with him at Origins Game Fair in Columbus this past weekend and he gave us a look at 2 new games he's developing, and chatted about his church plant in Flint, MI.

Jason gave us a look at a barber shop themed trick taking game he's working on, as well as a game called Fidelitas he's designing with Philip duBarry! Both are in an early developmental stage, but have the foundations of a couple of interesting and fun games.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHTfwQpYFc8]

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Origins Awards Winners

You might remember we had some real issues with some of the choices for the Origins Awards nominees—we even had the illustrious Tom Vasel chime in on the article. Well, despite our issues, the Origins Game Fair announced the winners of the 39th Annual Origins Awards. (We've included all categories, for ease and completeness.Best Board Game Lords of Waterdeep – Wizards of the Coast

Best Family, Party or Children's Game Quarriors! Dice Building Game – WizKids

Best Collectible Card Games Legend of the 5 Rings: Embers of War – AEG

Best Traditional Card Game Doctor Who the Card Game – Cubicle 7 Entertainment/Treefrog Games

Best Gaming Accessory Metal Steampunk Dice Set – Q Workshop

Best Miniatures Rules The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Campaign Starter Set – WizKids

Best Historical Miniature Figure/Line Ancient Greeks - Victrix Ltd

Best Historical Board Games Samurai Battles – Zvezda

Best Historical Miniature Rules Supplement Flames of War: Nuts – Battlefront Miniatures

Best Historical Miniature Rules Flames of War: Open Fire! – Battlefront Miniatures

Best Miniature Figure Line Marvel HeroClix: Galactic Guardians – WizKids

Best Game-Related Publication Battletech: Weapons Free – Catalyst Game Labs

Best Roleplaying Game Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Games – Margaret Weis Productions

Best Roleplaying Supplement Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Civil War Essentials Edition Event Book – Margaret Weis Productions

Hall of Fame Game Inductees Munchkin – Steve Jackson Games Dominion – Rio Grande Games

Hall of Fame Inductees Lisa Stevens, Paizo Publishing Loren Coleman, Catalyst Game Labs

Thanks for reading! And stay tuned for more coverage of Jeremiah's trip to Origins. And don't forget to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instragram.

A Look Back on Origins—Part 1

- by Jeremiah, with contributions from A.J. and Sepos. Last Friday we made our way down to Columbus and the Origins Game Fair, to cover the con as best we could for the blog—in just one day.

The con featured everything you'd expect from an event of this caliber: tons of seminars, officially supported tournaments and game play, an Unpub gathering, and of course, the exhibit hall featuring hundreds of vendors, publishers, and more.

We made our way through, and shot nearly two hours of video content, featuring interviews with Paul Peterson, Jason Tagmire, Kevin Sorbo, and many more!

The Games

As you would expect at a large-scale gaming convention there were a ton of great games, as far as the eye could see; we'll highlight some of the games we thought were of note over the next couple days.

The Duke—An Origins-released game, convention-goers were among the first to demo and purchase The Duke from Catalyst Game Labs. The Duke is a tile placement/tile moving, chess-like strategy game for 2 players. Each tile represents a different troop defending your Duke: Move a tile and flip it to show the different movement now available to that tile. The game plays fast but has massive replay value as it is tough to master, and different every time!

Council of Verona—Crash Games is currently Kickstarting this title as the flagship to their Pub Series of games. Council of Verona is a card-based strategy game with a very strong bluffing component. The Pub Series is a catalog of games that are compact enough to play anywhere, but still offer great depth in their gameplay. You can get in on the Kickstarter until July 3rd, and it's only $12 to get a copy delivered to your door!

Dice Hate Me lineup—Last year Dice Hate Me Games had a booth that pretty much consisted of one game: Carnival. This year they're celebrating a successful release of The Great Heartland Hauling Co., as well as VivaJava, and they're looking forward to the upcoming release of Compounded, VivaJava Dice, and Belle of the Ball. Chris Kirkman has been putting together a great lineup of titles using a stable of unknown/first-time designers to bring great and well-designed/developed games to market. We're excited to see what's coming from them next!

Dungeon Heroes—This exciting game brings you the full experience of a dungeon crawl in a quick-play style. This vs. game pits your heroes against a dungeon player who will try and thwart your efforts to collect hidden treasures. The game board is grid-based with miniature meeples as your characters, who move, attack, and defend based on character abilities. Most importantly, the game can be played in 15 to 30 minutes, giving a busy gamer an opportunity to participate in a fast-paced dungeon crawl. The game is completely expandable and will hopefully offer a multi-player aspect to the game as well as larger game boards. This game looks fantastic and has done great on Kickstarter. We'll be keeping an eye on its future.

We'll be sharing more about Origins over the next few days, not too mention all of our awesome video coverage! For more about Origins, and some good old fashioned social-media fun, look for TOG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Thanks for reading!

Origins: Going Again. For the First Time.

- by Jeremiah

As I wrote last week, Theology Of Games will be covering Origins Game Fair this week. But this certainly isn't the first time I've made the 2-hour pilgrimage to the Con. This year will in fact be my fifth time attending Origins, but it is my first time covering the con as a "reporter."

In the past I've only gone for a single day, and usually not even a full day at that. We (we being whichever friend[s] happened to come along that year) usually would head down, buy a day pass at the door, and drool over the cool stuff in the exhibit hall, before making our way to the demo hall to learn even more about the newest and hottest titles. Just making a few rounds in the exhibit hall is worth the trip: tons of new games, demos, and of course a trip down memory lane with some old dead collectible games for sale.

Last year, we (this time "we" being Firestone and I) were working in the background to launch TOG, but we didn't go live until July 1. I kept a keen eye on things, took a few pictures, and of course learned a handful of new games, but aside from that it was "just" another trip to Origins.

My most memorable trip, though, was the first. This was because my wife and two boys went with me. That's right. My incredible wife spent the day at a gaming convention, with our kids (our youngest wasn't even 1 at the time!) wandering around the exhibit hall while her geeky husband drooled over games, bought a bunch of old collectible card games, and nearly peed himself when he met Peter Mayhew. That's right, Peter Mayhew. For those who aren't aware, Mr. Mayhew is known for his portrayal of Chewbacca in the Star Wars films. He had a booth and was selling his autographed photos. He was however gracious enough to take a couple pictures with me and the boys.

So this year I'm heading down to actually cover the con for the blog. We've got press passes and everything. Over the past 11 months we've grown our little blog to over 5,000 followers, but more importantly we've connected with gaming industry folks, who are great people, and who also like games as much as we do (if not more!). I'm looking forward to connecting with them, hearing their stories, seeing the product of their passion, and shaking their hands.

Firestone and I have big dreams for the blog, and you readers are key to those dreams. Thanks so much for subscribing, reading, sharing, retweeting, and all those other "ing" things you do to support our efforts! And stick around for our first ever con coverage of Origins Game Fair!

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Origins: A Week in Preview

Well, next week the Origins Game Fair will descend upon the greater Columbus area, along with thousands of gamers of all types: tabletop, RPGers, and yes, even the LARPers will be there in force, providing many great photo opportunities.

Scott lives 2 time zones away and is unable to make the journey, so I (Jeremiah) will be heading down with a few friends who are going to help me cover the vast expanses of the convention...in one day.

This is our first large con that we will be covering and we're pretty excited about the opportunity. And I've been lining up meetings with designers, and publishers this week.

Here's a few items we'll be covering:

New Games—We'll be scouring the con for new and exciting (and yet-to-be-discovered) titles, both in the exhibit hall and at the Unpub events.

Video Interviews and Demos—If all goes as planned, you'll see my smiling face alongside those of the people who bring you the games we love—and, they'll be teaching you about their newest/most-popular titles!

Tons of Social Media Entries—If I'm excited about something, I'll burn it up with Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook action. It will be like you're ACTUALLY there!

Plus more. We're still working on what we'll be able to cover, but we'd love to hear from you about what you'd like to see. Is there something you're excited about, or sad that you'll be missing out on? I'll try my best to cover as much as I can! Thanks so much for reading, and be sure to subscribe to our email list on the right.

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New Expansions for Age Of Steam, Seasons, and the DC-Comics Deckbuilding Game

By Firestone

As we lead up to Origins in a few weeks, companies are announcing new games and expansions. First, over on Boardgamegeek, designer Alban Viard announced that he's designing a new pair of expansions for Age Of Steam. It sounds like he's going to use the actual game box as a part of the game. From the announcement: "The box might be a mountain and we will have tunnels to cross the mountain under the box! The network will be cut by the mountain and the players might arrange the different maps around the mountain."

Asmodee Games announced on Facebook that their popular card game Seasons is getting an expansion called Enchanted Kingdom. It adds "40 Power cards; 10 Enchantment cards; 12 Special Ability tokens; 16 Energy tokens; 2 'Raven' tokens 1 'First Player' token; 2 'Bespelled Grimoire' energy reserve expansions for individual game boards; 7 'Decreased energy reserve' tokens." And it should be ready by Origins!

Finally, though Cryptozoic Entertainment hasn't announced it yet, a couple of retailers seem to have outed a standalone expansion: Heroes Unite. A description on the site says, "Play as Shazam!, Hawkman, Red Tornado, Nightwing, Black Canary, Batgirl, or Booster Gold in Heroes Unite, the first standalone expansion for the DC Comics Deckbuilding Game! Unlock special abilities, like Force Field or the Helmet of Fate, and unleash devastating card combos against your opponents! Craft your hero deck into a well-oiled machine to take on the most vile villains in the DC Universe in your quest for Victory (Points)! Mix the cards from Heroes Unite with the core DC Comics Deckbuilding Game set to wage the ultimate showdown!"

Check out our Double-Take Review of the DC-Comics Deck-Building Game.

Thanks for reading!