Everyone has those mechanisms in Board Gaming that they just adore, right?  For instance, I’m a huge sucker for a good Worker Placement mechanic, regardless if it’s the main draw of the game.  Something about that type of play just speaks to me.  But on the flip side, does everyone have mechanics that they just downright loathe?  I don’t mean mechanics that just aren’t as fun to you, but ones that you tremble at the thought of having to endure.  For me, this mechanic would be Trick-Taking and, to a lesser extent, Bidding.  I’m convinced that I might actually like Bidding if I were to ever play a game with enough people to make it work but being that most of my gaming is either at two-player or solo mode, Bidding just doesn’t work all that well.

As for Trick-Taking, the concept just has never been fun for me.  Maybe I just haven’t played enough games with this mechanic?  But as a solo gamer, I’ve only ever seen great things said about For Northwood!  I picked this game up earlier in the year and it’s just really “meh” to me.  I’ll bring it out every now and then and try some of the scenarios in the little extra book, but it just never sticks with me.  Even with the ability to change things with the four helpers, it just feels like I’m along for the ride and really don’t have that much agency over if I’m going to win or lose based on the cards I’ve been dealt.  These games just don’t click with me.

So, why the hell did I buy Origin Story?  Well for one, I’m a Stonemaier Games geek so I at least take a long look at all products they put out.  Second, the gorgeous artwork by Clementine Campardou is so captivating, it’s hard not to take your eyes from the box.  Lastly, the comic book theme in combination with the lower-complexity (so my 10-year-old might be able to play) and the dedicated solo mode pushed it into the category of “must have”, especially at only $29.99. 

Did I end up enjoying it?  Read on to find out!

Note: This review is going to center around the solo mode as I have not had a chance to play it multiplayer at this time.  I might add to this review at a later date to discuss the multiplayer mode but many of the details found in this review will be informative even if you are not a solo player. 

Much like any purchase from Garphill Games, a Stonemaier Games purchase is going to ensure the players have a rulebook full of clear examples, descriptive illustrations, and tips for the user to get the most out of their latest game.  Origin Story is no different but I do want to commend the creators on a really nice design choice: how the standard rulebook and solo rulebook interact with each other.

If you’ve played any game with a built-in solo mode, you’ll know that most of them come with a dedicated rulebook for the solo play, as many of these modes nowadays can become fairly in-depth and warrant more than just an extra paragraph or two at the end of the standard rulebook.  In most of these cases, players are having to jump between the two rulebooks, especially when learning the game for the first time.  

Origin Story takes a slightly different approach, in that it has you use the standard rulebook, but alerts you when you need to skip a section, and where to find the applicable solo section in the other rulebook.  Once you’ve followed those directions, the solo rulebook has you continue reading in the standard book until the next time it has you deviate from the standard rules.  Sure, you are still flipping back and forth across two books, but I found the experience to be much more streamlined when learning the solo game, before I had even tried the standard version.  I didn’t feel that I needed to read through the full standard book, only to then pick up the solo book and “re-learn” half the game to fit it into the solo version.  Kudos to whoever had the foresight on this!

With Origin Story being a Trick-Taking game, players’ main components are going to be the cards, though there are a few other neat pieces they’ll find stashed away in the box.  But being that the cards are going to be the most used component, let’s look at the different varieties contained within.  First, you’ll have 52 Playing Cards, containing four suits of 13 cards each.  The suits are represented by four attributes your hero will be using to craft their origin story… or so the box says.  I mean, really, these could be spades and hearts and the like, but I guess I like that they attempted to put a thematic spin on it.  The suits include Brains (green), Speed (blue), Strength (red), and the trump suit Love (yellow).  Each of the suits runs from a value of one to a value of 13.  The illustration on the cards is pretty simple and I think this was a nice choice so that it’s quick and easy to recognize the suits being played.  For those of you who prefer a little more detail, the illustrations do slightly change as the values increase, giving the 13 of a suit a much more “super” feeling compared to the one value card of the same suit.

Next up, we have a deck of 64 Story Cards and a deck of 10 Superhero Cards, both sporting superb drawings, with touches of water-painting for emphasis.  I don’t want to get into how these cards are used just yet, but the Story Cards include Gadgets, Backstories, Allies, Archenemies, and Abilities that will help augment the taking of tricks.  The Superhero Cards are slightly different, in that they contain 10 different secret identities, representing the hero each player is destined to come.  On the backside of the Superhero Cards is a nice Reference Card to help remind players how a round advances.

The last set of cards is either 18 Event Cards (for multiplayer games) or 16 Vancardian Cards (used for solo play).  The Event Cards come with some really cool illustrations and its sort of sad that they aren’t used in the solo play as the Vancardian Cards include the needed solo Events, but without any awesome illustrations. 

So, where do players keep all these cards I’ve described?  The answer to that, my friends, are the five Player Mats that really steal the show.  These mats are styled like comic books, with a different character on the cover of each.  Opening the mat, players will find six comic book panels, showing the transformation of a mild-mannered human into a superhero.  There are no dialogue bubbles spread throughout, allowing the gorgeous artwork to speak for itself.  But these mats aren’t just here for the looks, each panel is going to house a different Story Card and helps players keep track of which round number they are on.  It’s a really clever way of incorporating the theme of the game into a player component that could have just been a piece of cardboard with a few rectangle outlines printed on it.

Lastly, you’ll get five two-sided Alignment/Victory Point Dials and 36 pink Stamina Tokens shaped like speech bubbles.  The dials are a nice touch as I have recently expressed in a few reviews that I would really like to see them used more widely.  Funny enough, I came to this conclusion after re-visiting Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, another Stonemaier production.  The tokens serve their purpose and the whole package comes together to create a beautiful package that feels much different from anything else I’ve played in recent years.  But the play, especially the dreaded Trick-Taking mechanic, is what really matters so let’s get on with it! 

Gameplay

One thing that Origin Story does is bake a few gameplay points into the setup for each round so whereas I usually talk setup separately, we’re going to view setup and gameplay together.  The other thing to note, for you non-solo gamers, is that while the solo game is quite different, much of the player’s turn is going to be identical to what you will be doing in a multiplayer game so this section of the review can still be helpful.  Before even the first round starts, the player needs to choose their Player Mat, lay out three Alignment Dials in a vertical line (all set to 0), shuffle all of the Story Cards, shuffle all of the Playing Cards, and choose two Superhero Cards at random.  You will also put together a deck of five Vancardian Cards based on what difficulty you want to play on.  Lastly, place one Stamina Token on your mat to start with.

To setup a round, the player will first deal themselves eight Playing Cards faceup next to the bottom Alignment Dial.  Next, add an extra Stamina Token to your pool so you should have two now if it is the first round of the game.  Draw three Story Cards from the top of the deck and choose one to keep, discarding the others.  This Story Card will be placed over the comic panel marked with the number of whichever round you are currently playing.  Next, the player will use their available Stamina Tokens to charge their Story Cards.  Let’s take a break to look at this piece of the game a little more in detail.

Players will find that each Story Card has a Stamina cost in the top left corner of the card.  This value will tell the player how many Stamina Tokens they’ll need to use on that card to charge it for the current round. These cards come with a few different types of costs.  There are the more standard cards that have a single value in the corner, meaning that once the card is charged with that number of tokens, its ability is active. Then there are others that have a red circle with a white subtraction sign emblazoned on it. For these, the player will charge the card and then to use the ability, they must discard the allotted tokens.  Many of these cards have a cost of 2 Stamina but split into two separate costs of 1 each. In this way, the player can choose to allot only a single token instead of two. This would mean the player could only use this card once, instead of twice of they had allotted 2 Stamina there. Lastly, some cards have a Bullhorn-type icon, meaning that once charged, they will only trigger when certain requirements are met.

As far as the Story Cards’ abilities themselves, there is a large variety that will make every game feel unique. For instance, the Skeletal Augmentation card gives the player extra Victory Points anytime they win a trick where thr printed values on all the cards is 10 or less. Another example is the Dexterity card, allowing a player to steal a trick anytime an opponent would win because of playing a 13 whereas the player only played a 1 of any suit.

You’ll find that the combination of choosing one Story Card out of three while also never really having enough Stamina to charge all cards in a round brings a lot of tactical decision making to Origin Story. And getting to do all this after seeing the Playing Cards you’ve been dealt this round really helps the player to feel that they have a lot of agency in how a round might play out.

So, you’ve chosen your new Story Card and charged your abilities, let’s get back to round setup. Next, the player will have to choose their Alignment by flipping their Alignment Dial to the proper side. The red side is the Hero Side and will give the player a single Victory Point for each trick won at the end of a round.  For those more adventurous spirits, they can pick the purple and green Villain Side, altering their objective to be to lose all tricks. If successful, the player scores four Victory Pointd at round end.  For the Vancardians (the automa bots) play, they will always choose the Hero Alignment though they will modify their decision tree if you choose to be a Villain.

Once Alignment is chosen, the player will deal eight Playing Cards to the bots, placing them face-up, moving left to right, next to the other two Alignment Dials. Lastly, a Vancardian Card is flipped and if there is an Effect listed next to the current round number, that Effect is resolved. These usually have the player discarding low cards from the Vancardians or moving trump suit cards further to the left in their rows.

Now, time to play an actual round. The player, or bot, clockwise from the dealer is the leader of the Round, and will play a single card to be the Lead Card.  If one of the bots leads, they will always play their highest valued card, regardless of which of the four suits it is.  In clockwise fashion, all other players and bots will take their turns playing a card.

When the player follows, if they have cards of the same suit as the Lead Card, they must choose one of these. If they don’t have any of the Lead Card’s suit, they can play an off-suit card. When a bot follows, the player will first draw two cards from the deck. For either one of these that is in a suit that matches a suit that the bot already holds, they will replace the right-most cards in their rows. If they do not hold that suit, the card is discarded. This way, once a bot runs out of a suit, they cant magically draw another card of that suit.  But this drawing of cards does allow the bot to alter the values of the suits they already hold, keeping the player on their toes.

After the two cards have either been put into the row, or discarded, the player will scan the bot’s row for a card matching the Lead Card’s suit.  If it has one, the player will choose the lowest valued card that is still the highest of the cards played.  If none of their cards are higher, they will simply play the lowest card of that suit.  Alternatively, if they do not have a matching suit, they will play the lowest off-suit card present in their row.

Once three cards have been played, the winner of the trick is decided. This is typically going to be whoever played the highest valued card of the Lead Card’s suit though it is possible that one of the Yellow Hearts, the Trump Suit, could have been played and that will beat everyone. If multiple Yellow Hearts were played, the player with the highest valued one wins the trick.

Play will continue like this until all hands of eight have been depleted.  While the playing of cards is fairly standard for a Trick-Taking game, it’s the Story Cards that really turn this game on its head. Making a choice to charge certain Story Cards and then landing in the perfect conditions to activate it and turn the tide, is a pretty awesome feeling.

The game consists of five rounds that play out similarly except for two twists thrown in for fun.  In round three, the Vancardian Card will have an Event printed on it that must be resolved.  These Events vary in how they impact the round but sometimes they can help you while other times they benefit the Vancardians more. In the fifth, and last round, the player does not get another Stamina Token, nor do they draw more Story Cards. Instead, they will choose one of the two Superhero Cards they drew at the very beginning of the game. This card reveals which hero they will become, along with (usually) rewarding a large amount of Victory Points or some type of “ultra” ability.  One of my favorites is Metamorph, a hero who reveals their hand and chooses a suit. The player is given VP equal to the lowest valued card of this suit in their hand, but for the round, this chosen suit is a Trump Suit along with the Yellow Hearts. These cards can really swing a match, so the player should never feel out of a game. While the Vancardians don’t have a Superhero Card of their own to play, the last round Effects that must be resolved for them typically grant them quite a few points to help offset your newfound powers.

Honestly, if Origin Story had different art and was created by a different designer, I probably would have never picked it up, based solely on the Trick-Taking aspect. Fortunately, I didn’t skip it because it brought a lot of fun that I was not expecting, especially in a solo package.  I am looking forward to trying multiplayer soon and seeing how our superhero battles play out over the dining room table.

Ratings are based on 5 main criteria: rulebook, setup, components, art & graphic design, and gameplay.  The first 4 criteria are rated 1 to 5 and the gameplay is rated 1 to 10.  These scores culminate in an “overall satisfaction” score that is rated from 1 to 10.  If the reviewed game has both a solo and multiplayer mode, I have assigned scores separately to give context to which mode we enjoy more.