Origin Story Review
Advert: this game was gifted by Stonemaier Games, this has not affected our opinion.
Heed my warning, if you are bitten by a mutant spider, or have nuclear waste poured over your half-shells, or you get some sort of mutagen intake, you are bound to become a superhero. That is if you believe what you read in comic books, and let’s be honest some of those feel less far-fetched than our newspapers right now! Origin Story is a trick-taking game based around that super hero character development, and here is my review of this latest offering from Stonemaier Games.
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Setup
Cards need to be sorted into their types: story and events, and a general supply of stamina tokens needs to be formed. Each player then gets a random asymmetrical player board, 1 score dial (which will need to be built before your first play), 1 stamina token and two random superhero/reference cards. Can set up get any easier than this? Probably, but it was a rhetorical question anyway.
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Gameplay
Shuffle the story cards and deal eight to each player. If playing with two players, deal an additional eight cards separately to both players to create their sidekick, flipping two for their starting hand.
If you’re not familiar with trick-taking games, then this paragraph will hopefully demystify the term! Basically, one player will lead the trick, playing a card from their hand, then all other players will play a card in turn order, following suit where possible. The highest played card wins the trick. In this game hearts are the trump suit so will beat any other icon.
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At the start of each round, players will get three Story cards and keep one. They will then place stamina tokens on their player board to unlock powers that may grant abilities or additional scoring opportunities.
Then, players will decide whether they will be trying to win tricks or get zero tricks. To do this, players hide their scoring tracker below the table, before simultaneously revealing the Hero or Villain side.
In Origin Story tricks you win are worth one point. If you chose the Villain side you will get 4 victory points if you get zero tricks. However, zero points will be awarded if a Villain does win a trick or tricks.
After eight tricks, the round ends and points are tallied. Stamina might be spent or returned to a player’s supply to use and allocate again.
A new round then begins and the start-up steps are repeated. In round three an event card is drawn that will alter the rules and scoring for that round only. In round five players will look at the two starting superhero cards and choose one to keep.
The two player game utilises a sidekick that just changes the rules and the tactics of the game slightly.
Most victory points wins after five rounds.
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What it’s like
Generally, Origin Story is like most other trick-taking games. Which in turn, are generally like most other trick-taking games. The twist in Origin Story is that you are building up an engine of Story cards to increase your scoring opportunities or help to achieve your scoring goals. Charging abilities can squeak a few more points out of the rounds, and as this is generally a fairly low scoring game each round, that can be important.
The asymmetry of each character has certainly felt balanced in my plays. I have noted that sometimes the three Story cards you are dealt can offer some sub-optimal options, particularly after the first couple of rounds where your character has developed a certain way.
Not many trick-taking games work as well at two, so I was very reserved playing this one at that player count. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked with the sidekick. I’m not sure I would buy this game to only play at two players, but I certainly wouldn’t refuse to play it as a duel either.
There is a nice amount of tension when you are trying to win tricks or not win tricks and that is where the tactics come into play. Rounds are fairly snappy, however, with younger players it is worth trying to remind them if they want to spend stamina during the rounds as that can be easily overlooked.
There is a solo mode but I have completely ignored it, there are better solo gamers to offer an opinion than me.
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Table Presence
There are elements of the design that I absolutely adore. The comic book style player boards that open up to show a character story with slots for your cards is truly magnificent. If you don’t admire the homage to other Stonemaier games on the back of these you probably also need to check for a pulse!
The watercolour style art isn’t quite what I would expect from the comic book theming, but actually it works surprisingly well. What doesn’t work from a playability point of view are the numbers 1 and 7, which in the chosen font are surprisingly difficult to distinguish at a glance when working out the winner of a trick.
The wooden stamina tokens were a win for me, although I might have to paint them blue so that the speech bubbles are in keeping with my brand! As clearly I was the inspiration behind these!
The scoring dials work really well and it makes me smile in wonderment every time I flip from Hero to Villain and my score remains the same on both sides. It’s like a little superhero power in my fingertips!
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Final thoughts on Origin Story
Trick-taking games aren’t for everyone and you probably know whether they are for you or not by now. If you don’t know, then Origin Story probably isn’t the entry level game I would chose to dip my toe into trick-taking waters to find out. In fact, it kinda overcomplicates things. Equally, if you find trick-takers leave you a little cold, and you feel you are just playing the obvious card for the sake of it, again Origin Story won’t be for you. If however, you enjoy a trick taker, then this game offers a fresh tableau-building power-up twist on the genre.
I guess my only reservation is that there has been a huge splurge of excellent trick-taking card games enter the market over the last few years. In uncertain times of shipping and tariffs and suchlike, companies are not risking the big box game quite so readily and are therefore looking for smaller box games to launch. Some recent hits in this genre, have seen these mechanisms be pushed quite heavily. It’s happening with shedding games too. Candidly, I’m not sure how many more we need, or if Origin Story does enough to stand out in the crowd. That said, what it does, it does very well and is engaging to play.
So, if you are not overrun with trick-taking games on your board game shelves than Origin Story is well worth considering. However, if you already feel like you have enough, you probably have!
Overall, I think Origin Story offers a nice take on the genre, but struggles to be as super as the heroes within.
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Key Facts
Number of players: 1 to 5
Board Game Review Recommended Age: 12+
Publisher’s Recommended Age: 14+
Playing Time: 40 minutes
Setting Up and Take Down Time: 2 minutes
Designers: Jamey Stegmaier and Pete Wissinger
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
RRP: £30.00
Summary
Origin Story is a good trick-taking game with an interesting tableau-building twist. The superhero styling is fantastic, but its kryptonite is the current competition in the seemingly saturated genre.
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Artwork and Components
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Complexity
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Instructions
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Interaction
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Value for Money
Overall
Pros
- Two player variant
- Tableau building
- Great styling
- Player boards are ace
Cons
- 1 and 7 too similar
- Overcomplicated for a trick taker
- Stamina tokens don’t match my brand in colour!
Need more games?
If you already own Origin Story and enjoy it, or are looking for other inspiration, you might also like these similar games:
- Trickarus
- Schadenfreude
- Rebel Princess
- The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
Buy Origin Story
If you want to buy Origin Story after reading our review click on one of our affiliate links below (note there has been no affiliate links until this point)
Reviewer’s Note
For clarity: we don’t get paid for our reviews. However, we were kindly gifted this game by Stonemaier Games. We have tried not to let this affect our review in any way.
We may however earn a tincy wincy commission if you buy a game having clicked one of our affiliate links like the one above… this hopefully gives us a bit of pocket money towards hosting costs and new games to review!
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