Cat Fluxx

Time to try yet another Fluxx game.  It's hard to believe it took them 20 years to think up "cats" as a theme.  Sure, most of their past editions were sci-fi and fantasy.  Can't go wrong with cats, though.

It played as expected, with some pretty funny goals and actions.  I like the "cat distribution system" action, where a player with more than 2 cats in front of them has to give cats to players with no cats.  Because everyone needs cats.

Some of our usual gripes about Fluxx came to light.  When there too many rules, it all slows to a halt.  We really don't like reading a ton of text on a ton of cards to figure out what moves to make.  When there are less than 3 rules in play, it all flows nicely.  Maybe 3 will still work.  But when there are rules to exchange cards, swap keepers, get extra cards, replace goals and discard things, all at once, it just doesn't feel like the player's turn is well defined anymore.

One of the tricky rule shifts happens at the most basic layer, when the default "Draw 1, Play 1" is changed to other numbers.  Say it's currently at "Draw 3, Play 2" and I play one card, then play a "Play 3" card.  It's like reality fractures a bit there.  I think the official rule is that the new card takes effect the moment it is played and the current player has to figure their moves out somehow.  In this case it would be easy, you would have to play a 3rd card.  But what if you've already played 4 out of 5 and step it back down to Play 2?  You've played 4, so you've already gone too far.

We just figure the new Draw/Play counts start with the next player.

So, this was fun, except for the few turns where it was just an overload.  Sometimes we just agree to clear all the rule cards and get on with the game.  

Fluxx is always good for tossing cards for a while.  Also good for confusing the crap out of unsuspecting players who though it looked simple.