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By: Kim and Devin
August 1, 2025
Hi! Devin here! This is part two of our Origins 2025 recap! We're not at Gen Con this year, so we figured this is a good time to post everything we did a month ago!
The Virtual Flea Market Haul
We'll start off with all of the games we got second-hand as part of the Origins virtual flea market. All of these were incredible deals, but we recognize we'll probably be reselling a number of these after playing them. They were just so cheap that we couldn't help but take a chance on them.
Kim is most excited to try Brew Crafters (we love games about making alcohol) and Maglev Metro (a very stylish engine-building, pick-up-and-deliver, tile-laying train game). Devin is most excited to play 1846 (another tile-laying train game, but more in line with traditional 18XX games as it's focused on stocks and investments) and Four Against Darkness (a solo RPG-adventure game book, kind of like the Fighting Fantasy books of yore).
Miscellaneous Stuff!
Next up are all the miscellaneous items we either received from giveaways or purchased ourselves.
The lovely dice and bag were given to us by the folks from The Soldiery Games & Cards. They're a game store that we visit every time we're in Columbus. They have a great selection and they get new stock in often enough to warrant the repeat visits!
The acrylic keychains are from Legends of Shenzhou! This game is coming to crowdfunding soon, so these were being given out as a promo item. They're nifty!
The 3D-printed boars and coffins were given to us for participating in a Buffy Legendary game hosted by Boars Head Games, a gaming club that also hosts events at Origins.
The ornaments are from O Christmas Geek. She's very friendly, and we love seeing her at Gen Con. This was her first Origins, and we hope to see her at future ones!
The dark grey miniatures are from Next Level Miniatures. These low-cost minis have a surprisingly high level of detail. Looking forward to getting these painted and following his future releases!
We also picked up copy of the local-ish gaming magazine, Fables and Tables Magazine! A few of our local shops carry these, and they're always a pleasant read. It was nice to see them have a booth at Origins!
Lastly, we have the three bags from Cavernhold. We bought one of their bags last year and kicked ourselves for not buying more. We didn't make the same mistake this year!
Board Games from the Vendor Hall
Here's everything we picked up in the vendor hall itself. There are a lot of titles in here, but we'll highlight a few of the standouts.
JamSumo is that wooden disc in the bottom left. It's an original game from Browncastle Games, the crokinole folks. We demoed the game last year and thought it was a blast, but they were sold out! We made sure to grab JamSumo first-thing this year!
Biome is a cool-looking game from Lioness Games. It's a nature-themed tableau-building game, but there's more to it than that. We got a nice run through of the core concepts at the booth, and the game itself is pretty to look at!
Marrakesh is a crunchy title from Queen Games. We've been playing their games more and more recently, and they all have a very classic feel to them that we really like, from the mechanics to the visual design.
Molly House is an awesome game with a very unique theme coming out of Wehrlegig Games! We missed the crowdfunding campaign for this one, so we were super excited to see this for sale at the con.
The Last Command, Xenofera (from Puff Duck Games), and PNW: Card Games Inspired by the Pacific Northwest (from GamesWell) are all neat indie games that we were impressed by either when we checked them out at the booths, or when we looked them up online before the convention.
We grabbed a couple of neat micro games from AllPlay: For the Emperor and Slambo! Lastly, we (Devin) spent a little too much at the Dietz Foundation booth, but these games just looked too interesting to pass up!!
RPGs from the Vendor Hall
Last but not least, we've got all the RPGs (and adventure wargames) we picked up.
A chunk of these (Ironsworn: Starforged, Sundered Isles, and Forgotten Ruin) are from the Modiphius booth! Last Origins, they only brought their Fallout miniatures game, but this year they came in full-force with all of their books, too! Woohoo!! Ironsworn (and its expansion, Sundered Isles) are solo RPGs that we've heard a lot of good things about, and Forgotten Ruin is a new solo wargame game using the FiveX system from Nordic Weasel Games.
The Blue Rose and Fantasy AGE RPG books are from Green Ronin Publishing. We haven't actually played the AGE games yet, but Devin is hoping to at least get a little solo game rolling to try the system out and explore the Blue Rose setting. The Fantasy AGE books are compatible with Blue Rose and add some interesting new options and rules, but Blue Rose has an appealing, romantic fantasy setting with a heavy emphasis on relationships.
All those little HOME card packs are expansions for HOME, a narrative, rules-light horror RPG from Wet Ink Games. We've had it sitting on the shelf since last Origins, but Devin finally played it this Origins and fell in love with it. It's a great one-shot RPG with a ton of replayability!
Lost in the Dark (from Limitless-Adventures) is a solo RPG adventure book for D&D 5th Edition, and In the Blink of a Dragon's Eye (from Harbor of Blight) is a solo adventure game that involves switching from reading a novella to playing a game scenario out on a dry erase map.
Stewpot (from Evil Hat purchased at Indie Press Revolution) is an RPG about post-adventuring life running a tavern. It contains a variety of "mini games" that provide different themes, tones, and styles of play that can all be part of the same campaign.
We don't know much about An Altogether Different River or Ashweld, but we ARE happy to have them and look forward to reading them!
And that's everything! Thanks for sticking around and checking things out. We're planning to rev the blog back up and get back into the swing of things soon. How's your big summer con season going? Play anything new lately? Anything that's released this summer that you're looking forward to trying? Or maybe there's just a game you already own and really like that's got it's hooks back into you! Whatever it is, let us know! We're always curious what hobby stuff is on everyone's minds.
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