Sponsored.  You've probably played an engine builder or two before, so let's focus on what makes Crafting the Cosmos special.  Unlike a lot of engine builders, Crafting the Cosmos starts with a satisfying amount of resource acquisition that only grows, much like how life spreads exponentially—very on theme.  Players begin the game with their own marble and 3-4 dark matter marbles they can move on the center console.  For each marble on the center console, players will collect a passive resource, including for their own, the dark matter, and the marbles of other players.  This is the only impactful player interaction in the game.  Players won't find themselves competing over a very limited set of public resources or checking available actions for opponents to see who is able to get the best card from the shop, instead they’ll be predominantly focused on their own cosmos and how best to build it.  There are public goals over which players will compete, but you'll do so by trying to make your cosmos excel rather than by trying to deny resources to other players.

Once players have collected their passive resources for each marble, they also collect the star reward for the quadrant their marble ended in.  This means each player receives 8-12 resources on their first turn of the game, which only increases as power cards are added to their boards and time chambers are filled.  Don't know what any of that means?  You can check out Meeple University’s Tutorial Video to learn the lingo, how to play, and get a good look at the pieces in action.

In addition to the absolute oodle of components you get to fiddle with each turn, they also are pretty dang cool themselves.  It's commonly asked if this is the deluxe version or if the game is on Kickstarter because the element-rich star pieces and life tokens provide a premium appearance and touch.  Each token is double-sided, and injection molded to provide a seamless hand-feel and play experience.  Making a star go supernova feels rewarding not only for the powerful "wildcard" effect it has in the game, but also for the satisfaction of picking up your star and flipping it over to its exciting supernova side.  The components fit neatly into each player's cosmos board during gameplay, which helps keep boards tidy and beautiful even as they start to fill up with new nebulae, stars, and life.

With so many great components, it only makes sense that we would include an awesome way to store them!   The center console is important to the play experience but also serves as the storage tray for the components between and during play.  Set up and clean up with ease, storing the boards under the console box and using the thumb slots to easily extract the console when your group is ready to play.  No need to assemble and disassemble structures every time you want to break out Crafting the Cosmos for game night, just open the box and you'll already have the components in their designated areas in the center console.  After a short setup for the individual cosmos boards, you and your friends will be ready to start building your own cosmos (…cosmoses?  cosmoi?) and populating them with life!

For our visual learners out there, we will be sharing a re-boxing video in addition to the already published unboxing video on Instragram, Facebook, and Threads.  Follow @officedoggames for more updates and how-to videos!

Click on Gallery below for full-sized images.