It’s my goal to write about #Origins2011 every day this week. This is tricky. How much do you want to hear about a convention that already happened, right? Probably not a lot. I played a lot of compelling games, though, and want to share some of what I’ve learned by playing them.
Not counting playtests, I played or ran:
- Ganakagok
- Apocalypse World
- The Dance and the Dawn
- 7 Wonders
- Freemarket
- Bears
I also met lots of delightful people, many of whom I knew from the Internet (in ways great or scant), and finally got to put faces to names I know from Twitter and blogs. I also got to—at last!—play games with people I spend a lot of time talking to about games or the hobby at large. I think I played more games this year than in all previous Origins Game Fairs combined. (Not counting demo events that I’ve run myself.) It was rad.
A few of the games I sat down with were playtests. I got to play mockups of a couple of my own games (codenamed Project: Odyssey and Project: Dark, which I’ve been tweeting about) with designers I heartily admire. It was nerve-rattling in the best way. I got to get notes from cunning and brilliant designers on things that I want to be brilliant and cunning, too. I’m smarter now than I was last Monday.
Jeff and I also presented awards at the 37th Origins of Words Awards ceremony. (Hamlet’s Hit Points didn’t win, but you knew that already.) Then we sat for a minute on a podcast with gaming luminaries Mike Selinker and James Ernest, which you can hear right here. But you knew that already.
So, stay tuned as I talk about games played, thoughts provoked, and forthcoming designs altered all this week. Until then, if you were at #Origins2011, let us know what you thought of the con this year!