The Legend
"Cosmic Wimpout originated in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Two travellers came upon the game and liked it so much they shared it with people everywhere they went. Many of these people liked it, played it, and wondered where on earth they could find it!

This is a Guide to the Cosmic Wimpout Experience. These small cubes will bring you and your friends hours of fun once you know how to use them. So pick them up and hold them while you read on.

Cosmic Wimpout is like life - the interaction of chance and strategy is contained in the play of the game. The more you play the game, the more you’ll see that Cosmic Wimpout is indeed like life - sometimes you’re in the Cosmos, and sometimes you Wimp Out! So have fun.

And remember...


Cosmic Wimpout is more than an Experience..... it’s the Game!"

History of Cosmic Wimpout, Part 4 - by Shannon
An article which appeared in a local magazine long ago and far away...in 1986!
"Has this ever happened to you: You´re on an archaeological dig on the coast of Spain with a team from the Smithsonian Museum. You´re exploring a series of caves - going deeper and deeper into the murky darkness - when suddenly you realize you´ve become separated from the rest of the group. Plunging boldly ahead, you emerge into a large inner chamber. There, all around you on the walls, are primitive cave paintings...the earliest artwork known to mankind (or womankind, for that matter). As you run your flashlight along the walls, you´re just on the verge of shouting out ?Eureka“ when your eyes fall upon a small, round, day-glo sticker depicting a single star shooting across a blazing sun and the cryptic message...“Cosmic Wimpout

Alright, so maybe this has never happened to you. Maybe it´s never happened to anybody. The point is that Wimpout stickers have been known to turn up in the strangest places. In your travels, you may have seen them on toll booths, in elevators, on \"No Parking“ signs, but never on the rear bumper of a Mercedes.

One of the high points of Cosmic Wimpout folklore was the moment during the Spring tour of 1979 when the Grateful Dead politely but firmly asked Wimpout fanatics to stop stickering their tour bus.

But what does it all mean? Well. Cosmic Wimpout is a game. That´s it. Just a simple but fun game. You get five dice with mysterious symbols like lightning bolts, Saturns and pyramids. You roll the dice, and, depending on the combination of the symbols, you score a certain number of points and move your marker around the playing surface. If you roll the wrong combination, you go nowhere and just merely pass the dice to the next player. Sounds easy, right

In fact, it sounds pretty stupid. Well, hold on. What makes Cosmic Wimpout so unique is two things: first, there are dozens of mind-boggling rules that make it impossible for you to comfortably sit back, take your points and finish the game in five minutes. You just can´t stop. You´ve got to keep rolling, even though you may roll a bad combination at any moment and and lose all of your accumulated points. Second, in Cosmic Wimpout, you can make up your own rules to fit the needs of tricky situations, as long as everyboday at the table agrees that it´s okay. If you don´t think that´s unique, we suggest that you try pulling such a maneuver the next time you´re playing chess or backgammon or Crazy Eights

So, how come lots of Cosmic Wimpout players are Grateful Dead fans? Or, to put it another way, how come lots of Grateful Dead fans are Cosmic Wimpout players? Nobody knows, although we suspect that the Dead knew a good thing when they saw it and just latched on for the free publicity. Seriously, there just seems to be a mystical affinity of Wimpout players for the Dead´s music. Nobody understands it, but it´s there. The idea of not being tied down by rules and playing along to suit your mood sure may have something to do with it.

Although Wimpout has been around for (about fifteen years), it´s not always easy to find. That´s because Wimpout was created, designed, manufactured and marketed by a group of friends, not some multi-national corporation. You won´t be seeing \"Donald Trump´s Cosmic Wimpout“ any time soon. Toy stores and game stores are your best bet for finding Wimpout. But if you´re really into the thrill of the hunt, you can order by mail: Cosmic Wimpout Clubhouse, PO Box 3199, Greenfield, MA. 01302. Once you´ve got your game, get a group of friends together and start rollin´and controllin´ those bones. Be sure to keep the rule book handy, because people won´t believe you´re not making it up as you go along. Of course, if worse comes to worst, you can always just throw the game away and keep the stickers. You never know when you might be in some cave in Spain."

Lisa J.
, MA
"My uncle Dave and a bunch of his friends were die-hard CW players back in the 70's and 80's--they'd go to tournaments on weekends. I got a bunch of my friends hooked in high school--I even bought my best friend a wimpout rat for Christmas one year. Well, I recntly reunited with my sister and she asked me if I still played. I told her I had no idea where to even get a set of dice, and that I'd pretty much forgotten how to play. I thought CW had gone the way of the DoDo. Now for the cosmic part: she lives in an apartment above a hobby shop down on the Cape and happened to go in, and the sunburst caught her eye in the display case. Her landlord gave her the set and wished her a Merry Christmas.At the height of CW's heyday in our family, my sister was too young to play, but now we can carry on the Tissari family tradition!!"

Tim Shaw
"I was in NYC my senior year in high school waaaay back in 1986. I found the game in a small game shop and it seemed like a very affordable way for a poor boy from Arkansas to occupy some time. I brought it back. When I started college the next year, Cosmic Wimpout became a craze... the whole small dormitory signed up to play in tournaments. I later gave the game to a great pal, Stephen Koch and we played every time we visited. Over these years we had worn the numbers off the dice. Stepen wrote in to see about getting another pair. This was still before the days of the WWW. The Kind folks at CW sent him a complimentary set. I just ordered five more sets I will give them to my CW buddies and spread the love..... thanks for a great game. Oh by the way, we play differently, based on a misunderstanding of the old photocopied rules. We thought that when you wimpout you lose ALL your points... we still play that way... plus you have to finish your adult beverage.... fun, fun, fun......"

Tim
"I was in NYC my senior year in high school waaaay back in 1986. I found the game in a small game shop and it seemed like a very affordable way for a poor boy from Arkansas to occupy some time. I brought it back. when I started college the next year Cosmic wimpout became a craze... the whole small dormitory signed up to play in tournaments. I later gave the game to a great pal, Stephen Koch and we played every time we visited. Over these years we had worn the numbers off the dice. Stepen wrote in to see about getting another pair. This was still before the days of the WWW. The Kind folks at CW sent him a complimentary set. I just ordered five more sets I will give them to my CW buddies and spread the love..... thanks for a great game. Oh by the way, we play differently, based on a misunderstanding of the old photocopied rules. We thought that when you wimpout you lose ALL your points... we still play that way... plus you have to finish your adult beverage.... fun, fun, fun...... I would be Cosmically complemented if this became associated with my name in some way... Tim's total wimpout... Shaw's Sacrifice Rule or even the 404D rule (the apartment we roomed in college) thanks!!!"

wild bill aka houdini
orleans, MA
"still roll'en at the cape, last \"cape cod tourney was in ??? '80! Frenchie,and Flea bag, got me going at the \"Pool\" and life has been a roll ever since! Taught a gang of my daughters college friends a while ago, and as the cosmos will allow I rolled a 500 just two turns in! Had a grand time convincing them it was time for \"last licks\". Hope you got lots of hits on this page as I told them if you need to know the truth go to wimpout.com.
Peace, W.B."

Colleen
, ME
"A stormy Saturday night. A parking ban. Seven friends, a lot of booze and a lot of food. Two of us know how to play Cosmic Wimpout. To the rest, it's just a game that sounds vaguely -- OK, totally -- hippie.

As the night rolls on, I tell my friend Justin, \"We're going to play Cosmic Wimpout.\" He asks me what it is and I tell him that it's too hard to explain and that it's a game that can turn friends into enemies if someone is convinced that rules are being made up and they don't generally understand how the game works. There's always one.

More if you've all been drinking.

We gather around a table to play. \"Pick your fruit,\" I instruct. I need to explain the fruit: The fruit are tops of fancy glass drink stirrers that met a very rude fate when I was dragging my Christmas tree out of my apartment and knocked the whole lot of them over. Not wanting to give up the pretty glass fruit tops, I saved them and recycled them for game pieces.

We chose our pieces and I decided it would be easiest if I just explained the game as we went along rather than try to run through the rules all at once. Plus, at this stage in the party, most of use were inebriated and had the attention span of a porn addict in a red light district.

Soon after the first role, the increduelty began.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO ROLL AGAIN? I WANT MY POINTS?

WHY IS THE SUN A FOUR?

WHAT'S A FLASH AND WHY DO I HAVE TO CLEAR IT!

I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!

After a bit, people started catching on and generally believing that I wasn't trying to scam them. This was all the more believable because my bunch of cherries were moving along at a pitifully slow pace.

Vicky, though, was not buying it.

\"I wimped out? You say that like I had a choice. Like I failed.\"

And so on.

The time wound on and Justin was well on his way to winning. No one was more happy than Vicky, who wanted the whole ordeal to end.

Justin rolled and made it past 500. We weren't done, I explained, because everyone gets last licks.

LAST WHAT?

I explained and we started rolling. Nothing. Nothing.

Then it was Vicky's turn. Shake, shake, shake and a roll of the eyes. She uncupped her hands and let the dice fall.

A six. A six. A six. A six. A six. A six.

\"Is that anything?\"

Paul and I looked at each other with wide eyes and then I looked at the rules.

A supernova. Instant winner.

I told Vicky and she jumped from her seat and embraced her girlfriend as if the war had just ended.

Justin clenched his fists and swore.

Loudly."

Brandi
"I finally pulled out Cosmic Wimpout to share with some new friends. I had not played in about two years, but of course i remembered the rules, amazing when i can't eevn remember what i did yesterday.
So as we headed out to the bar, i brought the game and some scoring paper. When we managed to keep the dice on the table the game went smoothly. But this i mean i just told everyone whether they could stop or if they had to roll and what their current score was. If one more person called me a liar i swear i was going to throw a fit. i just kept handing them the instructions and said read it if you don't believe me!
we were rapping up our second game of the night (four hours later) and one of the dice was dropped (rolled) on the floor. no one would pick it up, so i decided i would have to, since it is my game, and instead of placing it on the table delicately, i drunkly slammed in and it went flying!!! now i am online buying three more sets! gift and one for me!! so there are some \"non-hippies\" (ie. people that throw irrational fits when drunk) playing the game too."

Patrick Connelly
6104 Wolverhampton Dr
Raleigh, NC 27603
"One of my friends introduced CW to a few of at camp one summer. After about two or three games I was hooked. I went immediatly home an purchased a set of dice on the website. When school started back up I brought them to school and played with one of my friends that had learned it at camp with me. We started out with just getting weird looks as people passed. Before long we had people that would stop and watch the game, and even some that wanted to learn how to play. Close to the end of the semester we had to turn people away because the game would have taken longer than our lunch break. My friend and I were in one class together and during the \"down time\" in the class we would play CW. We eventually got the teacher of the class playing during the class time. One of the days that we were playing during lunch, an administrator came over and confiscated my dice and board because if you are playing a game that involves dice then you must be gambling. We were kinda bummed about it and were talking about it when the teacher we taught how to play overheard us and went and got them for us. It was a wonderful feeling to be reunited with the dice."

Kim Juric
67 Martins Lane
Hingham, MA 02043
"I started playing CW in college longer ago than I want to remember. When my kids were old enough we introduced them to the game. Of course they loved it, they had to it was in their genes. They brought some dice to school for indoor recess and it became an instant success with students and teachers. I send a set in every year for the teacher to keep in her desk. You guys would probably sell alot to the grade school/middle school teachers just tone down on the \"hippy\" portion of the text in your sales pitch. In the mean time I'll do my part to infect a new bunch of kids with the love of the game."

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