My first stop on Day 2 of Origins was Bezier Games. I spoke with Matt about what they’ve got coming out this year and watched a few demos.
The most amusing demo was One Week Ultimate Werewolf – the group playing got into some high-spirited debates about who was who and who did what in which rooms.
In One Week Ultimate Werewolf, players are running around one of the castles of Mad King Ludwig and each room provides a different action while you’re in it. You can start the game knowing who you are, but by the middle, it’s anyone’s guess. One Week Ultimate Werewolf will release at Essen. Here’s part of the gameplay I saw while I was there:
I also saw a demo for the Whistle Stop expansion, Rocky Mountains, which adds a 3D mountain range to the game that makes the trek West a bit harder. I fell in love with Whistle Stop at Geekway to the West and I’m really looking forward to the new expansion, which releases at Gen Con.
My next stop was GameFor. I spoke with Adam Loper about the social app that he and his team developed. GameFor is a community app that connects board gamers and even game stores. Users can create personal profiles and public groups while stores can manage a store profile to share events. Users can indicate on their profiles which games they like (board games, collectible card games, role-playing games, war games) and search for matching groups and events in their area. Originally there was a low fee for an upgraded group feature, but the fee has since been removed. Here’s what Adam said about the decision to remove the fee:
After all the positive feedback from gamers at Origins Game Fair, we decided to move towards an idea we had been considering for several months: making Groups & Clubs completely free. Therefore, instead of two tiers of groups (free and subscriber) there will now only be one tier – which will have all the benefits of the subscriber tier (more than 10 members, repeating events, public events in the main Game Events listing, and custom verified locations) but with the cost of the free tier. Which is free. -Adam Loper, GameFor
Here are some screenshots of the app:
It would be great to see an app like this take off. Adam’s team is super friendly and they really care about the gaming community. If you own a store, check out the app and claim your store page. If you run a gaming group, get your presence on the GameFor app to find new players in your area. It’s a free service and the interface is pretty smooth!