Weekly Trash - Cosmic Encounter

the barefoot killer wrote:
Hypothetical question: Would it be a mistake if FFG doesn't opt for a faithful reprint and instead re-imagines it as they did with these other games?

Yes, yes it would. But at very least: make it possible to play it in the original way. I find it hard to imagine that they *wouldn't* do that, really: after all, all you need to play it the original way is all the cards from the original game (they can include plenty more if they want), 20 pieces for everyone, player boards with five planets, a deck of colors (easily made even if they decide to change that aspect), and alien powers. So I'm not worried that it'll be changed beyond recognition.

And yes! The Healer! Definitely the Healer, not the Philanthropist.

If anyone wants to do next week's trash just say so.

the barefoot killer wrote:

Kevin Wilson's Arkham Horror -- major revamp
Kevin Wilson's Fury of Dracula -- revamp (heh)
Kevin Wilson's Cosmic Encounter -- ???

Okay, without losing my insider/playtest privileges here**, I think I can come up with something amazingly bland and neutral to say about the new edition.

Most important point: Kevin is a huge CE fan, a fact he has repeated on several messageboards. FFG did not just hand this project off to a random designer; they gave it to a fan.

Second point: Old-schoolers and/or die-hards will not be disappointed.

Last point: Newcomers to the game will find the FFG edition to be the best entry point in the game's history.

How's that for "carefully worded"?

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**Hey, it's as close as I'll ever get to playing Game Z or being part of the BGG Too Cool For School crowd. Let me have my one insider moment in the sun ...

I hope that this one comes out. I never took the chance to get any of the versions when they came out. This is a very fun game with the right people.

The new CE is due in November, according to Boardgame News:


www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgam..._coming_in_november/

This is pure, idle, uninformed speculation on my part, but the box design on boardgamenews.com looks a lot more like Ingenious than Twilight Imperium, and that might be an indicator of the type of consumer that FFG is targeting with Cosmic Encounter. I personally hope it is, anyway; the perfect Cosmic Encounter would have the easy accessibility of the Hasbro edition and still be as extensible as the Mayfair or Eon editions.

Back from the dead. I just read the rules. I'm not sold. But, like Android, this looks like a game where everything that is fun and interesting is on the game components (cards) so I've really got no feel for the game after reading the rules.

How easy is this game for people to pick up? I'm torn on whether my casual friends and wife will "play along" as some people have mentioned needs to happen. How long is a game? I need to start buying shorter games that I like (right now I just have a ton of epic wargames for myself) to play with other people, as right now my only short game options for people is to play a euro I'm not that into. Would this fit the bill? Incidentally, could I play Battlestar Galactica with these type of people? That is my other option for the holidays.

I'm really going to try to start a game group this coming year and invite people over.

Reading the rules the game looks stupid. Playing it is a whole different story.

I do think it's something that not everybody gets for some reason though...Robert Martin, for instance, just doesn't get the negotiation part of it at all. And some people don't get the subtle ways you can use your powers to be a real bastard. I have played it with a couple of groups where it just totally sucked...but other times have been some of the best sessions ever.

I do think it's pretty accessible though...it is a 30 year old design, and it was designed to be simple and streamlined so a lot of hobby baggage isn't in it. Game length is usually 45 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on the number of players. If you have 6-8 players and a bunch of expansions...well, you're on your own.

I think it's a pretty casual game...it's not as hardcore as some folks would have you believe.

It's one of the best games ever published...don't be put off by what you think the rules describe.

Reading the rules actually made more inclined to pick this game up. In general FFG rules are a mess. These ones made sense. There aren't 10 bazillion components. The rules seem able to be explained to someone in short order.

Now when I look at Android.....it reminds me so much of Arkham Horror. There might be a fun game in there and hopefully you have a friend to teach you, because learning from the rules doesn't look fun. I know Euros get panned for being spreadsheets in box, but looking at Arkham Horror or Android set up- they actually look like a spreadsheet!

That's exactly what I thought with respect to reading Android's rules as well. I think the plot cards have the potential to be very cool though.

ANDROID is barely like ARKHAM HORROR or other adventure games...sure, some of that is in there but there's a lot of really different things happening. The character subplots make a HUGE difference- rather than character development being "+1 Magic Die", your character actually grows and changes- sometimes for the worse. The puzzle thing with the conspiracy diagram is genius. There's a lot of new ground broken in the game, don't dismiss it as another TALISMAN clone just yet.

dan daly wrote:

The rules seem able to be explained to someone in short order.

I can tell you that during our long playtest/editing phase, Kevin W. really made an effort to get the rules exactly right (or maybe he'll sign on and tell it in his own words. ).

It's little (but important) things that will make this the best CE rule-set ever. For instance, when you see the aliens, you'll notice the word "use" quite a bit. No big deal, right? But it is: "use" is very carefully tied in to the concept of zaps (a traditional CE rules argument). By taking the extra time to get this right for all 50 aliens, the zap-centered rules arguments will be cut by about 95 percent.

That's just one example. You can believe me when I say that this set of rules absolutely boatraces all previous CE rulebooks.

dan daly wrote:

I know Euros get panned for being spreadsheets in box, but looking at Arkham Horror or Android set up- they actually look like a spreadsheet!

Hmm. To me, both Arkham Horror and Android look more like flowcharts than spreadsheets. Then again, I'm an accountant, so I spend all day looking at spreadsheets but hardly ever look at flowcharts.

Shellhead wrote:

Hmm. To me, both Arkham Horror and Android look more like flowcharts than spreadsheets. Then again, I'm an accountant, so I spend all day looking at spreadsheets but hardly ever look at flowcharts.

I agree. I look at spreadsheets all day too and AH is definitely more of a flowchart kind of game. Cosmic, which I've only played once, seemed to be in neither group to me.

Cosmic is more of a Venn Diagram on steroids.