My ORIGINS Experience 2026 (and GBET Conference!) | Games Haul

0:00 All right, everybody. Kimberly here, and I am really excited to share with you my haul from Origins 2026 this year, but also talk about my experience there because it was pretty unique. Now, I haven't been to Origins in a couple years, but it is a favorite. I love the roots of just tabletop playing. You go to cabs, you essentially go to the library, and you can check out any game. They just require your license. But anyway, you check out any game, play in the big hall, meet a bunch of people, and essentially just demo a bunch of things. And so, it's just it's lovely. I love Columbus. Again, haven't been in a while, and just had a really great time. And the weather was perfect. So, it was not too swampy, not too, you know, a little bit Midwest for me. It was a little I'm I'm not used to the humidity.

0:53 As you know, I'm up in Idaho. So, for me, yikes. But it was great. So, one of the reasons I went to the primary reason I went was because I was giving a talk at the GBET, which is game-based education and therapy conference that they held concurrently as Origins. So, essentially, on Friday and Saturday from 10:00 to 6:00, and pretty much the same thing on Sunday, it was 10:00 to 3:00. I was in sessions with other educators and therapists and practitioners in the field who use games-based learning. And that is something I do. As you probably know, I'm an instructor at a local college here in Idaho, and I use games-based learning. So, for me, my session was a really nice kind of test and and dry run of a session I want to do with my students this coming fall.

1:47 And the tabletop role-playing game I use, because I want to get into tabletop role-playing games more, is called Epitaph. And uh this went over really well, and I thought the people who came to my talk had great applications of how they would use this game in their um work in well with their clients, with their students, with their um customers. I mean, I had someone who was essentially uh in charge of museum event planning and had a really great application for this. So, I wanted to kind of talk this up. There's a couple tabletop role-playing games I've purchased in the past years and Epitaph was one of them that is a nice short session that is celebratory and really, really fun. So, this was the one I used.

2:32 This is what my session was about. Um and while I was there, I got my Gaming the System educational um collaborative. I have all these bags. I'm so excited. So, I got my bags. I got my Asmodee bag. Yes, of course. I got my Play Z. Hung out and played some games with Zev, which is always fun uh and nice. And I got Last Night Games. This one's a canvas bag. I mean, this one is real sturdy. So, I'm going to toss my bags aside, but that's actually one of the nicest things about um going to these kinds of places is grabbing these really nice totes. Okay, so, that gone. Um and this over here. Now, I did get some free games. So, I got Horrified: A Scream Come True, World of Monsters. I have four Horrifieds I have gotten on my channel and I've also ranked. Uh I have not played this yet, but I'm really excited to. Definitely a fan of Horrified, a cooperative kind of monster uh monster attacking uh game where you have to puzzle out and figure out how to essentially take down particular monsters in certain combinations and you're working together on a really, really cool map. Unmatched: The Witcher Steel and Silver, which I got this one specifically cuz I'm a big Witcher fan.

3:46 And if you've seen me do uh The Witcher: The Old World on my channel, you know I love it and I've seen the show. No, I haven't read the book series, uh which I know I should have, but I got this one cuz there were a couple choices of Unmatched, and I was like, "Give me Geralt or Gerald." I I Is it Geralt? It's Geralt of Rivia. Okay. So, that's it. This was my free Unmatched. Then, we got the Vibe, and I had actually demoed the Vibe in the hall on Thursday. I showed up early so I could go to the exhibitor hall and do whatever I wanted on day one before I got into my conference. And so, I got three copies of this, and I'm going to be using this in my humanities retreat for my entire division at my college as our kind of breakout session at the beginning of our retreat, which is all day. And I cannot wait to do this with my group, with my friends, with my colleagues.

4:41 Um it is a really dynamite game. So, what I'm going to do is have a special video dedicated to the Vibe so that you understand how it works, you understand how cool it is, and just how easy it is to get into, but endless play. So, definitely be on the lookout for that. Um the other thing we got to, which I don't have at the house, I already took to my school, to my office, are my copies of Things in Rings. And so, now I have plenty of copies of Things in Rings, which I already have used in the classroom, and many people were introduced to. It is an all play game about categorization. Really really solid. So, these games aside, I'm going to pull them away. They're kind of covering up some of the other games I brought or I brought back with me. Um okay, so I'm going to put these guys over here. Yes, okay, fantastic.

5:27 This is something that I went to a session for. So, at my Games um Based Education Therapy, um this is published by Central Michigan University Press, and the guy who designed this was our uh speaker. And we did a short mini session of setting things up, and what I really like about this is it takes thousand-year-old vampire, which I have um a copy of. It's my husband's, but I've used it and I've played it. It takes this and it just makes it more research-based, and it really does essentially shift the focus to an educational setting. And I really, really like that there's this possibility of playing 500-year-old vampire with all those fantastic features of thousand-year-old vampire, but with the research. And I think that's something that I'm going to be able to in the next year develop and work into my curriculum somehow um for my students. So, I got this copy um post going to the conference, and I'm just thrilled to get it uh on the table. So, I'm going to figure out I'm going to do what I want to do, and I'm just going to have a great time with it. So, this is going to end essentially my G bets, my conference.

6:36 And then you see all these other games. So, I left with over 20 games, and I had to essentially check my bag. It was like way too much stuff. So, I want to talk about the games that I purchased, and then I'll get to the games that I was given. And some of the other games that were real standouts to me at the conference or at the convention. So, Confusing Lands is a second game. This is called Icebound Isles, and I have the first version, just the plain Confusing Lands. It is a two-player game, but by getting this game, which is a two-player game, you can actually combine them and make it up to a four-player game. Um and I think this is a dynamite game. You go and check out my channel, look up Confusing Lands, you'll see me explain the game and play the original. This is just more of the best more of more good stuff. Um I actually had Zach Icebug write to me and say, "Hey, do you want to check out my game?"

7:23 I was like, "Yeah, I do." And now I'm like a massive, massive fan. So, I had to get this guy. That was a That was a for sure. Um another for sure is that I saw two expansions to Panda Royale. These are games that my husband We love Panda Royale. We have shared that with people. We have bought games of that for people, my sister and her family in particular. So, this is the expansion set and you get three new panda clans. Um you have new strategy, new experience, you've got to re-roll a die, you can mimic other colors, and you have an ultimate pity die. I love the pity die. That's like the best feature of this game. And you also have mayhem expansion set. Um so, I haven't played with these guys, but I'm very excited to get them into my bag, my giant bag of dice. Um you've got expansions, um mix and match expansions from this set, this set, the main one. Ooh, you've got a mischief panda, which makes other people re-roll their die. Cannon panda gives you a huge one-time roll, and mercenary pandas become more uh worth more as you progress.

8:22 Had to get pandas. Had to get panda uh ex- panda panda express.

8:28 Maybe I'm hungry. Um the expansion sets for uh Panda Royale. I also am a huge fan, speaking of, All Play, so I grabbed these guys. I had a run-through of The Witches, uh played with two of the employees there at the uh booth. And then I also had someone uh run through La Chocolat with me. This is a two-player, and this is specifically a three-player. And I picked this up so I could play with my husband, and I picked this one up so I could play with our friend who comes over every single week, and we do a lot of three-player games together. So, I'm probably going to have like a little double uh double header with these two uh review coming up soon. Um another one, I had a fantastic uh conversation with the woman who introduced Town Builder Coeur d'Alene with me. Um she really, really loved my T-shirt, and I thought that was super fun. Um so,

9:18 we played this game through, I had a great time, picked up a copy. It's a nice little town builder, but the cards are multi-function, and I think that's really, really cool. And I would love to see if I could get this maybe with another one, uh more specifically on the channel so you can see how it works, because it's really, really straightforward, and I I this is going to be one that my husband really, really likes. Um Wizard Community College, uh really, really enjoyed stopping at their booth and playing this game with some folks there. This is a game that again, I want to use in my classroom. So, this is all about storytelling and the really fun thing about Wizard Community College is you are all kind of like trainee uh wizards and things don't go right. And so, everything that you do is some way of like adapting and rolling with the punches and just kind of like addressing the fails and moving forward, which is the kind of um like climate I want to set up for my students is like to destigmatize failure and to just roll with the punches and to make the best of what you've got, because that's where creativity is fostered. That's where like just they learn all those lovely durable or soft skills um that this game really exercises, but with a whole bunch of fun. So, I'm excited to get this in my in my classroom and uh hopefully with a little bit more uh of a video with that one soon. And then lastly, this one's at Play to Z.

10:39 This is one that Zeb recommended cuz I said I'm really looking for XYZ and then Soothsayers did it. I had a demo of it. This is Capture the Tarot. Um this is fun. It's kind of like a I always call things like a race. It's not necessarily like a car race or horse race feature, but it is a race to get the most of the kind of victory condition that the win points. And in this case, it's a little variable cuz players can essentially move them around based on how many cards you have of a particular type, but you are just upgrading your cards and the cool feature about this is that you get to play on other people's turns. So, one player goes, they activate a particular card type and then everybody else gets to do that card type as well. So, it is always action. You are always playing, you're always thinking and um it's just really cool. I think the artwork here and I think that the gameplay is just really fun. This is a 30-to-60-minute game, so it's between half hour to an hour. Um two to five players, nice size.

11:40 So, for me, I was like, "Got to take home Soothsayers." I got a nice John Company train game. This is Prussian Rails, because I went to the library and checked out a game, and uh Rio Grande gave everybody a game if you uh one time if you went to the library and checked out a game. So, I got me a nice train game. I love a good train game. I mean, this is great. There's like hexes on the back. This is like classic train game stuff, man. This looks like when I played uh like with rails on my computer. I I love it. I love it so much. Okay. So, that aside, the the games that are left are part of the swag bag I got from Asmodee. Now, I played some of their upcoming games, and I want to tell you what some of those games are, but I also want to show you what I got here. Now, these are to come. So, again, going to get on my channel as soon as I can, as soon as I can play them. Um but this guy, Phil Walker-Harding, we all know Phil Walker-Harding. Um but this is all in predictions. So, this is one I got this guy here, First Giants.

12:43 Artwork looks amazing, honestly. It looks so so good. Um Carnuda, I mean, this one looks really really cool. You're making your combining ingredients, essentially. Um a druid um druidic ritual. Uh and then this guy, this is called Ghost Galore. Um so, this guy says quick gameplay, interesting puzzle, highly replayable, two to five players, 20 minutes. So, again, these guys I haven't uh necessarily played yet. I never played, but I've got these copies, and I'm going to get them played. But the one thing I do want to focus on is that I played some brand new games coming up from Asmodee, and I wanted to highlight those. Oh my goodness. Okay, here we go.

13:29 I want to bring out my notes cuz I don't want to I don't want to miss anything. Okay, my number one game that I demoed at the media event for Asmodee is called The Happiest Cat in the World. I think The Happiest Cat in the World is fun. You're building tiles in front of you and activating your tiles based on the particular type of tile and you're essentially building this beautiful little terrain for your cat with cat bowls and climbing things and all kinds of stuff. It's really, really cool and smart. There's also some tile drafting where you get to purchase tiles, but you're also doing like a tile builder. It's like a deck builder but with tiles, but then you're spending them. And so there's a chance you could dwindle down to a really low amount of cards having to build your deck back up again. Way, way cool. Two to four players, half an hour to play. That was a standout. And another standout is the brand new Love Letter.

14:25 So it's called K-Pop Demon Hunters Love Letter and I got to learn the game from the designer himself and had so much fun. Now the cool thing about this one is you're in two different factions. You're essentially playing either Huntrix, which are the girls, or you're playing Masaja Boys, which are the boys who do soda pop.

14:45 So there's just so much fun theme and flavor, but you're actually playing team versus team and you can even do it with an odd number and it's very, very clever. And so you're playing Love Letter, but you're also working with a teammate not knowing what they have and not knowing what their plans are. And so you're trying to work together, but you just don't know and it's just around the table. You have no idea. So you know who your partner is, but you don't necessarily know beforehand where they're going to be sitting and you don't know what their cards are. Oh. Just so, so cool. Now I want to mention one more of the games that I played there that I that I played, that I didn't get to play, that I really really wanted to play. It's called Citadels Duel. I am into all the duels. I want to try all the duels for every game that they have out there, or duets, or whatever, or duos. I want to play them.

15:36 But, I also want to play this Citadels version cuz I have OG Citadels, Bruno Faidutti, uh Faidutti's. I want I want to play the duel. I want to play it. It looks great. Um I heard fantastic things from people who were playing it. But, there were so many tables in there, and we only have a certain amount of time to uh essentially spend doing things. So, those were my tops. Those were my highlights of going to that Asmodee Media event, and the things that I'm looking forward to. Those are the three games that I would buy, that I would play, that I would share. So, that's going to be it for my Origins. I had a fantastic time. I had a delicious time. Um I ate at the Markets. Too bad for that construction going on. I also ate at a really delicious vegan restaurant that was like four blocks away.

16:27 So so good. Anyway, that's it. I got home with all my 20-plus games safe and sound, and I still have to play them all. Obviously, like way too little time to play all these fantastic games. So, happy gaming out there. If I saw you, thank you for saying something. Um if you're a fan of the channel, it was really good to see you in person, and just to be at a convention. I love the mood. I love the energy. I love the games. I love the people. I love gamers. I love gamers so much. Okay, so that's going to be it for me. I'll see you later, folks. Bye-bye.