Encountering Cosmic Encounter’s Variable Player Powers

Cosmic Encounter is a board game that was originally published in 1977 by Eon games by designers Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Bill Norton, and Peter Olotka, and is still being produced (currently by Fantasy Flight Games). If one has spent any amount of time listening to The Dice Tower podcast, watching videos from The Dice Tower channel, or paying any attention to The Dice Tower at all, he would know how passionate The Dice Tower founder, Tom Vasal, is about Cosmic Encounter. Tom has placed this game at the highest spot of his top 100 games of all time, listed it as a top ten most influential game of all time, and even included a video of the top ten aliens of Cosmic Encounter. He’s a big fan. Boardgaming.com user, HaiKulture, recently posted an article entitled Foundation Gaming: Encountering the Cosmos, where she focuses mostly on the variable player power mechanic pioneered by Cosmic Encounter. Along with giving her observations of the game and its mechanics, HaiKulture interviews Bill Eberle and Peter Olotka. The interview gives great insight into the early stages of development, the designers’ mindset during creation, and their feelings about specific aliens. Click here to read the full article.