Games of the Year 2020: Lolies on the planet-gobbling astro-amphibians of Cosmic Frog
Star 'spawn.
My pick for Game of the Year 2020 is Cosmic Frog. Cosmic Frog is a game by Devious Weasel for two to six players that plays in about an hour and casts you and your friends as giant frogs... in space!
In actual fact, you’re not frogs exactly - but you do play as frog-like creatures known as rayna that are immortal, invulnerable and two miles tall.
You and your friends - *cough* opponents - will be fighting it out on the celestial planes to gobble up as much terrain as possible, store it in your gullet and jump into the aether so you can regurgitate it into your vault for safe keeping and to score points. All of this is a race against time as the land you are feeding on slowly starts to splinter and disappear into nothingness.
You can play this game in several ways. You can play nicey nice and keep to yourself, concentrating on the task at hand: gobbling up all that lovely land. Or you can play it Lolies-style and beat up other frogs to unload them of the land in their gullet - or sneakily raid their vaults for what they’ve tried to keep safe.
Johnny, Wheels and myself discovered this game at PAX East earlier this year and instantly fell in love with it.
Not only is the art done in a fantastically garish '70s style, but the theme of this game is absurdity at its finest. Who couldn’t love it?
Whilst the game has a lot going on, the basic mechanics are actually quite simple. You will get into playing the game in no time at all, which is always a plus in my circles.
If you’ve ever played Cosmic Encounter, a game that stems from the actual '70s, you’ll recognise that Cosmic Frog is definitely a nod towards the classic, sharing similar mechanics and influences from the era. Even the name is similar.
When we did a Today We Played video on Cosmic Frog earlier in the year, I spoke about how I felt this game was quite specifically made for one Alex Lolies (that’s me) and I still believe this, no matter what Devious Weasel says to the contrary.
It is a take-that-style game and anyone who knows me, knows I’m a take-that-style player... even when the game doesn’t lend itself to that way of playing.
There are some fantastic contenders for this year's Game of the Year but this is the game that ticked so many boxes for me. I can’t wait to show it off to my friends when we can finally play games in real life again.