Boxed anthropology boardgame.

designer: Phil Eklund

player: 2-5
age: 12+
playing time: 4 h

Comes with rules, two mounted maps, 110 cards, 120 wooden pieces, and 6 player aids. Box dimensions are 13 X 13 X 2 inches.
All components bilingual (English and German). Origins plays great solo, as well! See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/454727/homo-floreniensis-survives-against-the-odds
A dozen reasons why Origins is quite unlike other civilization-style games:
(1) Origins has unprecedented sweep. The time period begins 120 thousand years ago (instead of 10 thousand years ago). Each turn is a thousand years!
(2) Cerebral reorganizations are tracked with brain maps, including the ignition of consciousness. Manual dexterity, natural history memory, and social skills are represented. Important early innovations include counting, body paint, and the ability to give the members of your tribe names.
(3) The role players take is unique. Players start as different species in Era I, as different languages in Era II, as different faiths in Era III, and as different ideologies in Era IV.
(4) Climate change is comprehensive, covering the advance and retreat of sea levels, ice caps, deserts, and jungles.
(5) Disease and immunology is handled uniquely in Origins, and is tied to animal husbandry and the number of neighbors. (Inspired by “Guns, Germs, and Steel”).
(6) The “currency” of Origins is not monetary, but rather the allocation and expenditure of elders. This value system is constant from the stone age to the nuclear age.
(7) I adopted the controversial Jaynes hypothesis for Origins: the idea that consciousness is an artifact of language (rather than the other way around), and thus is almost a technology-based advance, rather than an evolutionary one.
(8) Progression is cyclic rather than constant. If your dynasty reaches a plateau, you must tear it down again in order to reach the next level. A unique feature of Origins is that often, you WANT to fall into chaos.
(9) Origins is quite sexist. Most games represent only the male values of invention, administration, specialists, conflict, animal husbandry, and farming. In Origins, every card has a “male” half and a “female” half. Players must balance the traditional male values with the feminine values of demography, child care, pair bonding, and cultural diffusion. In Origins, the invention of marriage, “male parental involvement”, “cuckoldry”, and “exogamy” are big deals.
(10) The Origins view of government is quite libertarian. Most civ games put you into the role as head of a supreme government, trying to control an unruly populace. In Origins, you assume the role of the populace trying to control an unruly government.
(11) Most games are “big government” in their solution of problems. For example, building universities to increase innovation. You will find none of this in Origins. To increase innovation, one adjusts your demography by allowing female choice. “Fecundity decreases” (the policy of having fewer but better cared for children) is a big deal in Origins. Another example is inventions. Most inventions are not the result of government initiatives, but rather spring from “backyard tinkerers” such as Goddard and Wright Brothers. Such innovation requires only a populace with the freedom to benefit from their own innovations.
(12) What other game allows you to ride war zebras into battle, or lets you plow your fields using armored glyptodonts? What other games allow you to sacrifice bears, and have mead parties as a sign of culture? Where else can players enslave each other, but the slaves can plot their revenge using nuclear weapons? Name one game where a valid mechanism is to steal your opponent’s women (“sabine raid”). Or the Ark of the Covenant as a victory condition? Where else can you find the the origins of music, chickens, emotions, divination, tatoos, spoked wheels, kudurras, astrology, spatialization, plowshares, justice, butchery, atlatls, I Ching, oracles, biofuels, and corn?
Maps of the Old and New Worlds depict various plants and animals, that players must domesticate to become herdsmen and agriculturists. They progress through both innovation as well as imitation of competing cultures. Through the millenia, global warming may end the Ice Age and flood the coastal settlements, as deserts, jungles, and glaciers advance and retreat. Players who do poorly may become enslaved by other cultures, only to get a new chance as advanced civilizations go through cycles of chaos and renaissances. There are three eras in the development of the mind: The Age of Instinct (pre-lingual), The Bicameral Age (lingual but not yet conscious), and the Age of Faith (conscious with faith-based authorizations).

Unfortunately the Era IV “Age of Reason” expansion deck, which bringing the game into the modern era is sold out.

The 24 page rulesbook includes maps and 6 pages of historical background, a theory on the origins of consciousness, weather charts and historical maps. The historical backdrop of each and every card, from the Pleistocene to the Medieval Era, is described and illustrated.
For the latest in tips, optional rules, errata, and science, join the OriginsGame yahoo group http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Megafauna/
The “Living” Rules (containing errata) are here: http://www.sierra-madre-games.com/downloads/ORIGINS-Living_Rules-29-04-2008.pdf
A gamebox to play Origins with Cyberboard. Included is also the 5 player scenario, which you can use “as is” to play with fewer players. (courtesy Pablo Klinkisch): http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/30153/Origins-5players.zip
A solitaire variant (courtesy John Douglass): http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/304070
Translations into German, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese available.
Traduccion al espanol esta aqui?: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/29943

Translation of the rules into Japanese: http://www23.atwiki.jp/kondohi/pub/game/origins/origins.pdf
A review by Mike Barnes: http://www.gameshark.com/features/428/Cracked-LCD-37-Origins-How-We-Became-Human-Review.htm
A review by Erik Nicely of Funagain Games: http://www.funagain.com/
A review by Mike Debije: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/2079347#2079347
A review by Phil Klarmann: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/229570

You can buy the game in our shop.