All Cosmos: Last-Minute STAGE ONE Entry

Here’s something that just hit me:

1. Each player brings their own unique set of “adventure game” dice, d4 to d20.

2. Roll a whole bunch of other random dice on the table, like the “scoop-worth” you can buy from Chessex at conventions.

3. Take turns doing the following:

A. Starting with your d4, roll your die onto the playing space, trying to get it to touch a bunch of other dice. You’re going to want to do this strategically, as you’ll see in a minute.

B. Pick up your die and whatever dice are touching it. Roll these together separately off to the side.

C. If your dice rolls higher than some of the other dice, SUCCESS! You’ve captured them! Place them in your personal stash, away from the play space, and return the others to the central pool, just rolling them back onto the table.

D. Pass the turn to the next player and, while they’re going, roll your dice on MASSIVE TABLE NOT INCLUDED to figure out what you captured. This table is subdivided by your current die size, so start with the d4 tables. Maybe you captured a thumbtack or a pack of chewing gum!

E. If you’ve collected objects equal to the faces on your current die, CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve increased your die size! On your next turn, roll the die from your set that’s one step bigger: d4 > d6 > d8 > d10 > d12 > d20.

4. You win the game if you expand your rolling die past d20 (rolling up 20 dice with a d20) or if you have the largest collection of stuff when all the dice are removed from the table (or, whenever you decide to stop).

5. It is recommended that, whenever they roll, players are required to hum or sing the themesong to Katamari Damacy.

6. There are SECRET BONUS rules for what happens when you get a bunch of the same thing (i.e. multiple cows) or complementary items (toothbrush and toothpaste).

STAGE ONE: Wrap-Up

I’ve updated the game list again, after getting up this morning. I’ll still accept any others that trickle in during the next little bit. I know Shreyas was working on a Minecraft game, but I don’t know if he’s seen the end of the tunnel or not. I made some good progress on stage one of Super Farmhand, my Zelda-inspired game, but I’ll have to post that later. Maybe it’ll be done by the time I’m done reviewing.

All these games look terrific and exciting, folks. Some of them I want to play right now. I’ll try to send out comments and invitations as soon as I can. I’ll aim for at least one review a day, to try to put myself on track to finish in a reasonable time. In the meantime, let us know if any of these get played and how they went! Don’t wait for me!

There may be too many good games here for a single booklet-sized anthology, but that’s a good problem to have. Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, if enough people accept invitations and are excited about publishing these collectively.