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My Trick Taking Origin Story would be me watching my parents, aunts, uncles and their friends play endless hours of Pinochle and Hearts when I was growing up. But in this case, the Trick Taking and Origin Story in question involves the backstory of super heroes, adding game bending powers to a tableau and revealing your heroes final form in a race for points.
When you begin a game of Origin Story you choose a player board that looks just like a comic book and, upon opening it, you'll find a starting power and that the panels of the comic are where you will be building your tableau of Story cards. The art style immediately reminded me of the 1980s The New Mutants, which as a Teenager I recall absolutely disliking it. Art being what art is, you'll likely either love it or hate it. I find myself actually digging the artistic take in Origin Story because it isn't the typical comic bright and bold but organic, flowing watercolors.
Next, you'll draw what is essentially what your Supes final form will look like. You get two to choose from but don't have to commit to one before the final round, so you will put them face down in your tableau. One of the great tricks (ha!) is that they put the player aid on the back of these cards so they are truly multi functional. Some of the final forms are last round exploits and others are “Do this to score a whole batch of Victory points”. You can build a sort of engine over the course of the game to enable the best possible use of them and, in that context, the “Batch of Victory Points” versions are the best. But the Mega “Remember when I took every trick” final round powers still tempt even if you know they might not be the optimal choice.
Every round, you will be adding a new story card to your Tableau by drawing three story cards and placing one. These are activated by putting Stamina tokens on them, which I really like because it's a great way to help players remember they have that power. “I paid for this, I'll remember to use it.” Some powers require that you announce when you are activating them because they impact everyone at the table. Again, this another sharp choice and is denoted with a bullhorn symbol on the cards. But some of the powers that “only” impact one player still impact all players. Like when you are using a power that boosts every Energy Card you play by two in this round. It doesn't require an announcement when you place a Stamina token to use that power but everyone will want to know that you have that power active...or not active.
Origin Story comes with scoring dials so you never have to mess with paper and pen to keep score. They also act in defining what your personal goal is going to be for a round. You secretly select either the Hero or Villain side for each round. When playing as a Hero, you will gain one VP for every one of the eights tricks you take. If you choose to go Villain, your goal is to not take ANY tricks this round and, if you succeed, you score four VP. This acts a a release valve for that inevitable round when you are dealt a weak hand. You'll want to try to combine Villian with Story cards to get even more points, hopefully combining it with a power such as “If you take less than two tricks, score an additional two VP.”
I love chaos in Trick Taking games, which is why I adore games like Tournament at Camelot. During the third round, you will draw more chaos, a event card that will change the fundamental way that round is played or scored. Of course, you end up loving or hating these events depending on how you have constructed your story “engine” and what cards you are dealt in that round. This is in addition to the chaos that comes via the story cards you are constantly adding. This can become a problem when it is the fourth round with five players and you are looking around the table and trying to suss out twenty player powers...and which ones are actually active this particular round. It can be just too much. And on the hero/theme front, it can feel garbled. A Ronin costume paired with a grappling hook and some truth serum somehow adds up to a hero called Himalaya? I would have much preferred character specific story decks that synced with the Player Boards. And, yea, I know I'm designing an entirely different game here but it could mitigate one of my major complaints, which is that you will have story cards that don't synergize. Sure, you draw three story cards per round and play one of them but you can/will get powers that don't work well together or ones that work in direct contrast to one of the powers you already have.
Playing the two player mode involves each player running their own dummy hands...Sorry, Sorry, we are not allowed to call them Dummies anymore after the lawsuit. They prefer “Sidekicks.” But you might end up calling them worse than Dummy because any tricks they “take” are just removed from the round and do not benefit you. I guess it emulates a four-player game in that you generally playing around two additional hands of cards and it feels like your Sidekick has an equal chance of helping or hindering you.
You know how reviewers will say “This game is more than the sum of its parts”? Somehow, Origin Story is less than the sum of its parts. The mechanics are solid, the subject matter is interesting, nothing stands out as too egregious, but it just never really gets there. Nothing moves it beyond being good into the arena of “Super.”
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A review copy of this release was provided by the publisher. Therewillbe.games would like to thank them for their support.
