A small contingent of Seattle Cosmic members met again on 10 March to do battle with weapons ranging from supernova bombs to, er, apples. (We played Cosmic Encounter and Apples to Apples.) Present were Mark Purtill, Ron and Marty Hale-Evans, Meredith and Bob Wilson, and Lesley Hooker. We actually played next door (at Mer and Bob's apartment) to our usual meeting place (Marty and Ron's apartment).
Since it was a Cosmic night, we were all forced (forced, I say!) to play Cosmic Encounter. Meredith and Lesley had each played once with the Hasbro/Avalon Hill set (which omits a lot of the goodies old-timers like me and Mark have gotten used to, such as Flares), and Bob had never played CE at all, so we decided to play a medium-complexity game, without Moons, Reverse Hexes, Lucre, etc.. We did use double powers, Kickers, Reinforcements, Flares, and War cards, however.
We had a lot of "sucky" powers that night, i.e. powers that dragged tokens into the Warp beyond normal losses during a challenge. For example, Mer was Assassin, which meant she selected a token, of the color turned up in the Destiny Pile, to go to the Warp every challenge. Marty was Whirlpool, an Internet alien that dragged all tokens on the same planet along whenever she had to go to the Warp. I started out the evening as Ventriloquist-Knot (two Internet powers), but found Knot to be too weak and complicated, so discarded it early on with the Wild Connoisseur Flare, and became Vacuum instead (another sucky power, designating players to lose tokens when Vacuum does).
Perhaps because no one expected him to win, Bob (the complete newbie) gained four bases very quickly, but was whittled down just as quickly because he neglected to leave more than one token on a number of his foreign bases, which made him vulnerable to the Assassin.
I learned that Ventriloquist, which enables you to speak for another player, is a good power. Ventriloquist can act like a souped-up Parasite, because you can force others to let you ally with them, then control them in other ways too. Ventriloquist is also good when Wrack is in the game, because you can speak for Wrack's attacker, forcing them to submit to Wrack's torture and reject the terms he offers, so that the attacker loses tokens and/or cards, but gains a base -- which you join them on as an ally! (Despite Ventriloquist's niftiness, I started the game with three Compromise cards and an Attack 6, and never had much of a chance.)
On the last turn, Marty played both an Attack 40 and an Attack 20 (her Wand power gave her a "charge" of Lesley's Deuce power) on Lesley the Deuce, who was severely weakened by playing two Attack cards and always keeping the lower one. Lesley didn't have much that could stand up against Marty's assault, and Marty swept the Cosmos with a solo victory.
Marty got a Lindt bar for her trouble. And I never got a turn!
Next up we played Apples to Apples. I'm usually the "big loser" with this game, scoring lower than anyone else, but I must be getting better at it, because I almost won this time; I had 5 of the 6 cards needed to win for the last several turns. Late in the game, I actually played a card that was too apt: when Bob laid down "Creepy", I played "Crawlspace", which I had been holding all game. Bob said that crawlspaces were so creepy that they were actually terrifying, and gave the "Creepy" card to something else... Sigh.
The winner was Lesley, who received a Toblerone chocolate bar for her victory. We've taken to reading our adjective cards at the end of the game as a bogus "personality test" (hey, it beats the MMPI). According to the cards Lesley had garnered, she is Phony, Touchy-Feely, Calm, Industrious, Graceful, and Soft.
Womp womp womp.
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Saturday, 17 March 2001, 7:00 PM at Ron and Marty's in Kent. Come play for fun and FABULOUS PRIZES!
Remember, game nights at Ron and Marty's are every Saturday at 7:00 PM. Please bring a snack or drink to share (cookies, chips, soda, juice, etc.).
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Page last updated 15 March 2001.