Cosmoctopus is sort of – at least at first glance – a benign version of Cthulhu. Lots tentacles, of cosmic proportions and their own followers trying to summon these godlike creatures. Cosmoctopus, however, looks a lot more cheerful due to its purple countenance and cartoonish appearance. In Cosmoctopus, players try to summon this cosmic god by moving the octopus through the Inky Realm and collecting cards to draw enough tentacles into their portal.
Cosmoctopus can be played competitively with 2 to 4 players, but the game also includes a private investigator mode that allows you to play the game solo or even cooperatively. For now, in this written review, we will only discuss the competitive mode, but stay tuned.
A number of tiles are placed in the center of the table that make up the Inky Realms. Each game, one of the special tiles is added for some extra variety. During the game, players move Cosmoctopus to an adjacent tile each time. By discarding a resource, players may take an extra step each time. Players may then apply the action of the tile where Cosmoctopus ends. The active player receives resources and/or cards from the market.
Players may also play a card from their hand each round, but must pay the cost shown. Black cards provide discounts in subsequent turns, red cards are one-time effects, yellow cards provide bonuses when players obtain resources, and by completing blue cards (by placing resources in later turns) they can activate an effect that almost always results in players receiving a tentacle. This is important because you win the game if you are the first to get 8 of those tentacles. By the way, if you have 13 resources of a certain kind, you can buy two tentacles once….
Players try to use the cards, special effects and the tiles to build a clever system with which they can be the first and most efficient to win over the tentacles and eventually Cosmoctopus in this race. Once players become more familiar with the cards, the game will move faster, but Cosmoctopus offers players an interesting and highly dynamic optimization puzzle.
