In Origins: First Builders, players are members of a powerful and ancient space-faring race that visits Earth regularly to bestow gifts of progress and wonders upon the blossoming humanity. You will influence the construction of buildings and monuments, guide a population of your Freemen, climb the three mighty Zodiac Temples, and take part in an arms race—all in an effort to leave the greatest mark on mankind’s ancient history.

 it’s basically a worker placement game, with the strength of your workers being represented by the value of their die.   Each time you use a worker, it increases the value by 1.  You can also spend wisdom to buff up the value of a die.  However, once you push them past 6, they essentially retire and become advisors.

Each round gives you a puzzle to try to figure out how to best use your dice.  You have to take into account the current value of your dice, the anticipated actions of yourself and your opponents (because each time a spaceship is used, the value of the ship rotates forward one space), whether you want to try to collect neutral dice, etc.  Of course, it helps to use a matching color die in the action spaces as you’ll get the bonus action as well.  Or if you can’t use the matching die, save your 6s for when you need the bonus of getting both regular actions at a space.

The rotating nature of the ships makes timing and turn order important.  You can choose to do your actions in any order, but don’t get shut out of a particular action site because you waited too long!  Of course, if there are a limited number of tower discs left or a particularly valuable building in the market or a really nice die in the center, you might have to move on those first in order to get the things that you want.

I love this game not because its packed with novel mechanics but because it just works so well.

Click here for a review and then here to find out more on Amazon .

Click here for a review and then here to find out more on Amazon .