We’re kindred spirits, aren’t we? You’re here again today looking for the second half of the list of games debuting for sale at Origins Game Fair because you’re just as fanatical as we are about games. When we started putting together the list of games yesterday, we should have known there would be too many to fit into one article. Just so many great options! Of course, this is a list of games for people who will be attending the convention, but it also should serve as a heads-up for anyone who isn’t. In other words, check out the list now so when you start to see these board games on Amazon or they hit shelves at the game store, you’ll already have budget set aside to grab your copy!

Pegasus Spiele

(booth #901)

Nobjects

Players may only draw pictures with their fingers on the table. A simple, clever twist makes Nobjects an originell drawing game that requires neither pen nor paper. Drawing “invisibly” makes for unexpected challenges, and players who have to guess need to stay on their toes all the time to not miss any drawn line.

UNDO: Blood in the Gutter

Time heals all wounds, they say, but the sudden death of a loved one sometimes shakes those who are left behind so much that their faith wavers. To prevent this, the gods send fate weavers to change the past and prevent death. In the game series Undo, players slip into the role of these destiny weavers and do everything in their power to undo sudden deaths — whether murder or suicide. Not only do they travel minutes or hours back in time, but sometimes thousands of years to change events that have laid the foundation for the later stroke of fate. Sometimes a leap into the future can also provide important information.

The Undo series combines the theme of time travel with emotional, extraordinary stories that players must assemble piece by piece. Each time jump gives them another choice in how they can change the past — and not every change is a turn for the better!

Undo: Blut im Rinnstein (“Blood in the Gutter”) is one of the first three Undo titles.

UNDO: Cherry Blossom Festival

Undo: Das Kirschblütenfest (“The Cherry Blossom Festival”), one of the first three Undo titles, is set in Okayama, Japan in March 2000. A man in his sixties lies lifelessly on the floor of his living room, a broken wine glass and the photo of a young woman in a wheelchair next to him. The deceased wears an old-fashioned blue suit and has no visible injuries aside from a barely perceptible scar above the eye. In his jacket a telephone rings with the melody of “Moonlight Sonata” and on the table lie cherry blossom branches…

This title isn’t about solving a crime or catching a murderer. Instead, players must embrace their role as disembodied destiny weavers to go through the past of this man’s travel to prevent his death. Everyone who leaps through time carries a momentous decision that in the end will determine whether he lives or dies?

UNDO: Curse From the Past

Time heals all wounds, they say, but the sudden death of a loved one sometimes shakes those who are left behind so much that their faith wavers. To prevent this, the gods send fate weavers to change the past and prevent death. In the game series Undo, players slip into the role of these destiny weavers and do everything in their power to undo sudden deaths — whether murder or suicide. Not only do they travel minutes or hours back in time, but sometimes thousands of years to change events that have laid the foundation for the later stroke of fate. Sometimes a leap into the future can also provide important information.

The Undo series combines the theme of time travel with emotional, extraordinary stories that players must assemble piece by piece. Each time jump gives them another choice in how they can change the past — and not every change is a turn for the better!

Undo: Fluch aus der Vergangenheit (“Curse from the Past”) is one of the first three Undo titles.

Phalanx

UBOOT

U-BOOT: The Board Game is a fully cooperative, real-time tabletop game of WW2 submarine warfare, designed by Iron Wolf Studio. It allows 1 to 4 players to assume the roles of the Captain, the First Officer, the Navigator, and the Chief Engineer on board of a type VIIC U-boat. The game is driven by a companion app, allowing for an unprecedented level of realism, as well as a challenging enemy A.I. which will push your skills to the limit. The action unfolds both on the strategic and the tactical scale, always demanding teamwork, efficient crew management, and quick situation assessment.

Plan B

(booth #727)

Century – A New World

Century: A New World is the third and final installment of the Century series from designer Emerson Matsuuchi.

Century: A New World sends players to the Americas at the dawn of the 16th century. Braving the wilderness, players are forced to explore new lands, trade with local inhabitants, journal their findings, and hunt/gather to survive! The game integrates the compelling and incredibly fun resource trading mechanisms found in the Century series with a worker placement mechanism with a twist!

Queen Games

(booth #A405)

Copenhagen

The Danish city of Copenhagen is traversed by canals and harbors, and part of it — “Nyhavn” (New Harbor) — is famous for the colorful gabled houses along the water.

In the game Copenhagen, players must design new façades for these houses so that they fit seamlessly into this beautiful harbor setting. By using the cards on displays, players receive the corresponding façade polyomino tiles, with which they beautify their houses. Overbuilding certain spaces and floors gives them additional skills for the rest of the game. Floors that consist of a pure window front are particularly rewarding and bring the players many points.

Shoot Again Games

(booth #1147)

Born to Serve

You are a superhero, virtuous, respected and dare we say loved by millions, well ok maybe not millions, but by more than a few people in the little town you and your super group have been tasked with protecting. Unfortunately, the government has cut your group’s funding and that means you all are going to need jobs to support your superhero lifestyle. Sadly, there is but one job to be had in town, at the local restaurant. The restaurant owner has decided to let you all try out for the job and whoever has the most tips by the end of the day gets it.

Born to Serve is a board game competition between two to five jobless superheroes for the last job in town….at the local restaurant….waiting tables. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

A bonus staff character tile not available in the retail version when purchased at Origins.

Smirk & Dagger Games

(booth #423)

Wooly Whammoth

To feed your prehistoric clan, your tribespeople must force Mammoths over the side of a cliff. Just be careful that you don’t sink into a tarpit, get stomped by a Mammoth — or run right off the cliff yourself in the process. This “Guts-style” game has you trying to outthink your opponents and maneuver them into harm’s way…until “WHAMM!”, one tribe emerges victorious.

Smirk & Laughter Games

(booth #423)

We Need to Talk

A Party Game of Staging Ridiculous Interventions about Nonsensical Problems.
Caring friends and family have all gathered “because they LOVE you”. That’s when you suddenly realize there’s a problem – and it’s YOU. You’re shocked and clueless, which is why your loved ones have taken it upon themselves to carefully broach the subject. Naturally, no one wants to just come right out and say it. So they keep hinting at it, hoping you’ll catch on eventually. But will you? Or will this Intervention fail?

Social Sloth Games

(booth #907)

Feelinks

Feelinks is a family friendly game of emotions and empathy from the designer of Dixit. Game play is as simple as picking how you feel about a given situation and guessing how someone else feels about that same situation.

Gem Hens

In Gem Hens, players each control a hen capable of laying jeweled eggs. Specially bred by a crafty farmer who combined jewels and grain into a appetizing feed, your hens race into the barnyard for the tastiest (and most valuable) grain gems. Players compete to see whose prized chicken can lay the most marvelous egg – a wonder suitable for a Tsar.

Spontaneously Combustible Games

(booth #413)

Welterweights

Welterweights is a card programming game for two players. Outwit, out maneuver, and feint your way to victory. Dodge opponent’s punches and land your own in order to deliver the knockout or win by points.

Stronghold Games

(booth #527/A305)

Brikks

Each player has three bombs they can spend to blow up a block instead of placing it, but by doing so you give up endgame points.

As soon as you can no longer place a quadromino in your grid, your game is over. Once everyone has filled their grid to the top, tally your points. In addition to the extra points bar and any bombs unused, you score 1-5 points for each horizontal line that contains 8-10 Xs, with these line points doubling, or even quadrupling, as you go higher in the grid. Whoever scores the most points wins!

Fine Sand

You are at the beach during your vacation. Everything is peaceful and in harmony. Out of a pure love of life, you start to build a sand castle. Wait…what are your neighbors doing? Everywhere, sand castles rise up, but it was you who wanted to build the best, highest, biggest sand castle. Suddenly, everybody is in the middle of a competition.

Everybody builds by themself with the materials on hand. Who will deplete all their materials and win the sand castle competition? Every player for themself, and all against each other, that’s what’s going on here. Frequently, you can “off-load” on your neighbors some unwelcome materials, but ultimately you are your own builders and only the player who uses their options best wins!

Deck-building is over; Fine Sand is deck deconstruction!

Second Chance

In Second Chance, each player starts with a 9×9 grid that they want to fill as completely as possible. To begin the game, everyone receives a different card with a starting tile and marks off its spaces on their grid.

Every turn, two puzzle tile cards are revealed, and each player chooses one of them, then marks off squares on their personal grid that match the shape of the image shown on their chosen card. Multiple players can choose the same card. If a player cannot fit either revealed shape into their grid, they get a second chance and reveal one card from the deck just for them. If they can fit this shape in their grid, they do continue normally next round; otherwise they are eliminated from play.

The game ends when all players have been eliminated, the deck of puzzle cards has run out, or a player has completely filled their grid. If someone has filled their grid, they win. If all players have been eliminated or the deck ran out of cards, then whoever has the fewest empty spaces wins.

Subtext

In Subtext, players try to communicate with one another by drawing hints about the word on their card. Drawing well is not required — just being clever in selecting your hints.

Each round, one person is the dealer. This player looks at their word, then shuffles the card into the cards for the other players and distributes them randomly. By doing this, one player will have the same word as the dealer, but nobody — not even the dealer — knows who it is. The dealer then draws a picture, and you want to hint at your word so that ideally only the person who has the same word will understand what you’re depicting. In the subsequent guessing phase, all players (including the dealer) guess which player got the same word as the dealer. Points are awarded based on the number of incorrect guesses, but the dealer and their partner have to guess correctly to even get points. How vague do you want to be in your drawing efforts to still get your message across without anyone else knowing it?

Twice as Clever

Doppelt so clever follows the model of 2018’s Ganz schön clever. Each turn the active player rolls six dice, chooses one of them to mark off a space on their scoring grid, places any dice with lower numbers on the side, then re-rolls any remaining dice. The white die is a joker and can be used as any one of the other five colors. After the active player chooses at most three dice, then the other players chooses one of the set-aside dice for use on their scoring sheet.

Valparaiso

In 1811, free trade is declared for the harbor city of Valparaíso in Chile. A short time later, Chile proclaims its independence. As an influential citizen of Valparaíso, you want to push the development of your city, so you send merchants into the hinterland to get hold of important export goods and send your ships overseas to gain new achievements there.

To do well in Valparaíso, you must plan well ahead, keep an eye on your opponents, and react to their actions at short notice. Almost any action influences the other players by changing costs or trading possibilities. Each building of a house must be given a lot of thought, every trade must be well-timed. Whoever wants to change the order of their initial planning during the course of the game must pay a penalty, but if your plans aren’t good enough, time will slip away — in the short run as well as in the long run. You all plan simultaneously, and the end of the game may come sooner than you’ve hoped!

USAopoly (TheOP)

(booth #1107)

Astro Trash

In Astro Trash, each player must get rid of all the trash on their playmat at the expense of the players to their left and right. Players simultaneously roll three dice and rapidly move the “trash” according to the direction, quantity, and color indicated on the dice.

Victory Point Games

(booth #854)

Dawn of the Zeds

Dawn of the Zeds returns in its third edition, along with three new expansions to discover new heroes, events, and more!

Now that you’ve seen a full list of what we think is worth grabbing at Origins Game Fair, you’re ready to start planning where to go when the exhibit hall opens! If you happen to see us floating around, be sure to say hello! 

Which game are you most excited to find?