One last post about Origins ‘26.  We look forward to Origins Game Fair every year – especially, to shop for new games in the Exhibit Hall and to play them in the open gaming area.  But a third reason is to spend time in the UnPub Room.

UnPub is a non-profit that’s devoted to helping designers improve their games.  Among other things, they’ve partnered with GAMA to set aside space at Origins for people to offer playtest sessions for their unpublished designs.  You can go there to play games and offer advice, or in the hope that people will try your game.

Otto-matic Games has had a table at the UnPub Room the past three years, and the feedback we (Jeff, Josh, and Kevin) have gotten about our games has been extremely valuable.  For instance, a couple years ago, one person played Countdown To Blastoff (its subtitle is Race Into Space) and gave me the idea for an expansion (working title: Mission To The Moon).

While Race Into Space is a family game, Mission To The Moon is a strategy game – yet it uses mostly the same mechanics as Race Into Space.  In the base game, you compete to launch rockets by being the first to play a Blastoff (‘zero’) card.  In the expansion, you try to string together a succession of increasingly more challenging missions to be the first player to land a rocket on the moon!

We intend to launch a Kickstarter campaign for Countdown To Blastoff: Race Into Space this summer.  If it goes well, our plan is to have one for Mission To The Moon next year.  (And who knows, maybe Expedition To Mars will follow the year after that!)

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