The First Fifteen: Trader

First in a series of articles taking a (mostly) fond look back at the 15 aliens included in the original 1977 release of Cosmic Encounter:

Name: Trader
Description: "Trades hands with opponent"
Power: "You have the power of transference"
Art: A space crab
The rule it breaks: You're stuck with your own cards; you can't just grab other players' cards
Still active? Yes; included in the FFG core set
CE Online? Yes; one of the six aliens which can be played for free
One-sentence pass/fail test*: Pass. "You get to trade hands with another player."
Power scale (1-5): 4. Trader can be an absolute game-changer if the timing is right.
For 30 years, Trader fans have said: "That's right ... come to papa!"
For 30 years, Trader detractors have said: "What? Twenty-seven cards for one? Clearly, this game is broken."

* A completely arbitrary test of whether an alien power can be explained to a CE newcomer in exactly one sentence, using basic English.

Cosmic goes social, and other notes

It's the first episode of "Poor Man's Podcasting." Just press play to get my earth-shaking thoughts on Cosmic Encounter's official presences at Facebook and Twitter.

Also of note:

1. Blogmic Encounter can now be accessed directly from the CE page at Facebook. The link is in the left-hand column.

2. As mentioned at the end of the audio, my first project right now is to clean up/add/remove/improve the links at Blogmic. If anyone has come across any new CE (or even Dune) links, please let me know.

Fascinating Olotka interview (plus Dune news!)

A recent podcast featuring Cosmic Encounter designer Peter Olotka is making the rounds, and it is well worth a listen. The Little Metal Dog Show caught up with Peter and had him share about 50 minutes' worth of insights into Cosmic Encounter, its history, and the current state of the game.

It's also worth noting that there's quite a bit of juicy news concerning the Dune boardgame, including the first public mention that I've ever heard that the new version of the game — Fantasy Flight Games' Twilight: Dune  or Dune: Imperium or whatever — will actually be produced.

There's also some fascinating stuff about the somewhat troubled history of the Dune game, including Peter talking directly with Frank Herbert himself at one point. Look for the Dune content at roughly the 32-minute mark.

The podcast is available as a direct download from the Little Metal Dog site or as a free podcast at the iTunes Store.

Mark your calendars for national CE Day

Wow, first post since June? Yikes.

Short answer, for those who might care: new work situation; two very active ankle-biters. And, since I don't really expect anyone to care too much, I'm just going to leave it at that.

Wait ... where was I?

Oh, right: February 12 is officially National Cosmic Encounter Day.

No, really. It's official and everything.

Personally, I know I won't be able to play CE on that day with actual physical components — I'm reasonably certain I'll never actually play the boardgame version again — but I will be making an effort to get in some time at CE Online that night.

Either way, I'm asking all true and faithful CE players to spread the word and mark their calendars. February 12, brothers and sisters. Be there or be L7.

Cosmic Encounter in the cloud: FAST!

The Thursday test of Cosmic Encounter Online running on a cloud-based server seemed to be a smashing success. With about 90-percent of the game totally functional (things such as Join In Progress were turned off), the site performed at top efficiency, supporting many rooms of players and a chatty lobby. At one point, in fact, players were encouraged to post as fast as they could in the lobby, which has often been a problem area in the past. The result: not even a minor hiccup.

To the best of my knowledge, no players reported any errors or issues with lag. I personally had one laggy moment, but I'm 99-percent sure the problem was on my end, as I've really been struggling with AT&T for the last couple of weeks. Other than that, I didn't hear of any other players having issues.

The hope is that this could lead to a better experience in all areas of the game. A faster experience, combined with some bug-fixes and new aliens, would also be just the ticket to draw in a new generation of players and entice some of the old-school veterans to return.

Thursday testing for "Cosmic in the cloud"

Re-blogging from the official Cosmic Encounter Online blog:

We want to get a bunch of players in the game on the development server to try to replicate the LAG problem that’s been plaguing the game since we have been running on Network Solutions. Our goal is to fix up the current game and then add aliens from the new FFG set.

(Can I just add that I really love that last line?)

The test is scheduled for tomorrow, June 10. All of the details can be found right here.

Dune Express: really digging it

(Get it? Digging? You know, sand? Desert? Bah, never mind ...)

I've been playing a lot of Dune Express lately, and my initial skepticism has been replaced with a healthy dose of respect. There's a lot of game there, man. And my biggest complaint — essentially, lack of movement — isn't nearly so important now that further plays have revealed more about the mechanics of the game (not to mention that the entire board only has six spaces; "movement" really isn't that necessary).

The game bills itself as a fast-playing version of the classic Dune boardgame from Avalon Hill, which is reasonably accurate. The only two major things that are missing are rules for leaders and storms, but both of those have been covered with fan-made variants. The basic game also doesn't include faction powers, but there's no shortage of variants for those, too.

I really heartily recommend Dune Express to fans of the original boardgame, those looking for a quick Dune-themed dicefest, fans of print-and-play games, or fans of the Dune series looking to play their first game with an Arrakis setting. And you can't beat the price; if you own a printer and some 6-sided dice, you're ready to go.

BoardgameGeek: always good for laughs

So it looks as if BoardgameGeek's relentless quest to turn every single aspect of gaming into a piece of quantifiable data has reached another milestone. In addition to the ongoing controversial attempt to marginalize all games that aren't brown-cube-shuffling, penguin-moving, bishop-influencing Euros, the site now features rankings broken down by mechanics. Jesus wept.

So did you know that Cosmic Encounter is, apparently, the 13th-best theme-driven game ev-AR? Did you realize that CE was, in fact, "theme-driven"? Yeah, neither did I.

That place is a real head-shaker, I swear. So much data ... so little thought.

I have thoughts. Often, on games

And here's the proof:

So ... anyone desperately bored enough to see what I'm thinking about the world of gaming — definitely including my perpetual favorites, Cosmic Encounter and Dune — is invited to follow along. I'll even provide a convenient link!