Fluxx games
Do you ever get tired of card games that have the same boring set of rules from start to finish? Yeah, that is so normal. Snore. In Fluxx, the goal is sooooo simple, just play two "Keepers" (green cards) that match the current Goal (the pink that is showing). Out of a deck of about 90 cards, you would think that would be both simple and dull.
But in Fluxx, there are cards that modify the rules themselves. So while it starts off as draw one card and play one card, the rules might change to draw three and play all, plus all kinds of weird bonus rules like trading in cards for other cards, allowing a second goal, limiting the hand size or how many keepers can be showing. So, perfect name, Mr. Looney (actual name) ... the rules are always in flux.
Here is a round of Fairy Tale Fluxx after just a few moves: the rules are Draw 4, Play 2, and the goal is the Princess and the Frog. But wait, if you get the princess, the other player can yoink the goal before you reach it, and play the goal they are closest to reaching themselves. Just two cards, that's ALL you need here. You can easily burn through the whole deck trying to reach one winning trick.
It ends up looking more like this:
We're now at Draw 4, Play 3, Double Agenda (two goals showing), and none of our green cards match either of the goals. In this game, we kept playing additional rule cards and negating them, so it's still pretty basic.
It is a controlled chaos, and funny stuff is bound to happen, like being forced to Play All when you're holding 15 cards, only to find out after scrutinizing them all that you actually had a winning combination all along. Or stealing a card from an opponent only to have it be the most annoying rule of the night, and you are forced to play it anyway.
Now, Fluxx has been skinned with all kind of fun themes and media tie-ins. I got Fairy Tale Fluxx first (shown here), and was happy to grab Star Trek Fluxx a few weeks later. And Doctor Who Fluxx. Only to find out that these other decks have a new type of cards called the Creeper. So, you play the Keepers like usual, try to get the Keepers that match the goals. That is the normal game. But now, the Creepers are just bogus cards that stop you from winning, and you know what? We don't like them. It takes an otherwise perfect balance of actions and just sticks a wrench in the gears. You literally can't win sometimes (according to the notes on various cards) if you have a certain Creeper showing. Boo. Can't we just stick to the positive goals?
Looney Labs also has an app version of the game, and we play multiplayer on the Android version sometimes. It flows fairly well, but at times the poor computer tries so hard to make sequential order out of the inherently illogical rule combinations, it almost doesn't make sense anymore. Like having to pick up more cards in the middle of playing 5 cards, or you play a Keeper Limit card and the non-active player has to immediately discard cards without expecting it to be their turn to do stuff, because it is NOT actually their turn, it is just a chain reaction of card effects. But it works overall. We have been debating whether the app version is more fun that the physical cards, and I say no. Sure, it's nice to have the computer walk you through every step, but it's more fun for me to deal with those spontaneous changes for real, even if you miss some tiny detail along the way. Just play.
Anyway, the game creators are here: Looney Labs. They have a ton of inventive games, and lots of tutorial videos. Enjoy.
5/9/2021 Update: We played some hands of Monty Python Fluxx today and the Creeper cards in that deck were both hilarious and not as much of a roadblock as mentioned above. Several Goal cards had both a Keeper and a Creeper as the winning conditions, so you could still win with a Creeper card is it's part of the goal. And, this is worth extra credit: the Action card that cancels out all Creeper "you can't win" effects is called "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". On the other hand, this deck had some performance cards where you get extra cards or karma for singing part of a song or quoting some lines from the Pythons. If not all players are equally skilled at that, we just played that those can be traded for different cards.
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