Concept
The problem with teleportation is that it's a one-way trip. You've transported a ship to an enemy moon... but now what? Their teleport pad is under heavy guard. To win, you must take control of their teleportation system and use it to beam one of your ships back to your home moon. Of course, they will fight to stop you, plus they’ll be beaming onto YOUR moon, trying to do the same thing! Fortunately, you have a special power. But so do they, so good luck!
Rules
- The rules are now available as a one-page PDF. You can also print your own versions of the gameboards.
- The coasters themselves actually include the rules printed on their undersides. The original webpage version of those rules is also still online.
- Cosmic Coasters was designed to use Rock Paper Scissors as a randomizing factor for resolving combats. Again, the idea was to use only equipment available to the players in a bar setting. However, RPS has a psychological element that prevents it from being truly random, so you may choose to roll a D6 instead. (If Attacker rolls 5-6 they win, if 3-4 it's a tie, and 1-2 means they lose.)
History
- This is the new official homepage for Cosmic Coasters. The original homepage is still online in its original format.
- Cosmic Coasters was invented in 2000 by Andrew Looney. You can read about the development of the game in these vintage blog entries from November 2000 and January 2001.
- The game was originally designed as something that could be printed on drink coasters. The only equipment needed were sets of coins which would be easily available in a drink-oriented situation where coaster usage might be common.
- The Looneys gave pre-release copies of the game to their friends as the Holiday Gift of 2000.
- Cosmic Coasters won the Origins Award for Best Abstract Board Game of 2001.
- Cosmic Coasters are still for sale!
Lunar Invaders
- 10 years later after developing the original game, Andy decided to revisit the design. Instead of using 7 identical tokens, each player would get a set of 3-trios of Looney Pyramids. This became a more strategic game called Lunar Invaders. Besides the difference in game pieces, Lunar Invaders also eliminates individual special powers as well as the luck factor, instead providing more controlled volatility with a limited supply of “malfunction cubes.”
- The rules for Lunar Invaders are featured in Pyramid Arcade.
- Visit the Lunar Invaders homepage for more info.