Chaosmos… Remember Spy v Spy? An awesome computer game from the 80’s based on a comic in Mad Magazine?
This is SO a board game of that!
The universe is about to collapse, and your final hope lies in an ancient mysterious artefact, the Ovoid. Whoever controls this “cosmic egg” can shape the birthing of the next universe according to their own agenda. Players are secret agents from a handful of surviving worlds, zipping from planet to planet in special “amnion suits” that allow for interstellar travel, space combat and planetary landings.
Each player has a funky, humorous race they control… I went with Gazmae because they were pink.
You’re basically moving around a board, hiding/drawing cards on planets. When you get to a Planet you look inside the envelope of cards stored there… These look really cool.
If someone has already visited that planet they may have left some cards face-up. These are traps that have nasty effects or Bases that you have to fight… Deal with them and you get to look at the cards.
But, as the Blurb says you’re trying to find the Ovoid… We played with a cool variant where there are 3 cards… One is the Ovoid, one is the Dark Ovoid and the Cipher, which tells you which is the REAL Ovoid.
So you go around, checking envelopes, fighting other players to look in their hands and swap cards trying to finish the game holding the Ovoid…
I happened to start the game with one and pick up the other on the first turn. It wasn’t long before I knew what was what…
Chaosmos Summary
While it was fun I do need to play it again. Having figured out so much and being in control of the knowledge about which Ovoid is real for the majority of the game there wasn’t much to do.
All I had to do is play ignorant and keep my head down. When the REAL Ovoid was taken from me I stole it back on the very last turn of the game and won…
It was a win, but it felt cheap. It was like scoring a last-minute winner which is usually exciting but it just felt cheap to me.
Maybe future plays of Chaosmos will lead to better game situations.
JestaThaRogue