2011 gaming year in retrospect

Marengo scenario setup from Napoleon's War Volume II: The Gates of Moscow, one of my 2011 purchases.

2011 is almost over and what an unusual gaming year it was for me. The biggest development of the year was being laid off from my job. While having a considerable negative effect on my finances, perversely it was a boon gaming wise.

Nothing like having an awful of of time on your hands to inspire a lot of game-buying, and as near as I can tell I acquired about three dozen new games over the twelve months, about half new 2011 titles and the rest from previous years. In addition, I picked up expansions and bought a couple of cases worth of War at Sea naval miniatures as well. My back of the envelope calculations indicate this probably cost me somewhere around $1,800. Mitigating this shocking expense, however, was a very active year on eBay which grossed me around $1,900 from game and miniatures sales. After taking into account shipping costs and fees, the total out-of-pocket impact on my budget was just a few hundred dollars. More than half of the eBay income came from selling off two major collections (My TCS series games and my Lord of the Rings Tradeable Miniatures) which were painstakingly assembled over long periods of time and unlikely to be repeatable in 2012. As a result I'm going to have to severely curtail new game purchases -- at least until I find a job!

On the other hand, this was an exceptionally good playing year. This, again, was part of the fallout from losing my job. My biggest gaming constraint for years was the mismatch between my schedule and most potential opponents because I worked an evening shift. While I had most weekends off, they were so crowded with other life activities that my gaming opportunities were limited. Being laid off sure freed up my time! Also helping was getting involved in several local Meetup groups, being able to attend the Central Connecticut wargamers occasionally and a lot of activity at the local game shop Arkham Asyklum. All-in-all I played quite a few face-to-face games this year -- perhaps the most in decades.

As far as those acquisitions went, quite a few were continuations, expansions and sequels to various series I've enjoyed, such as Napoleon's War, Fluxx, Munchkin, Small World and Commands & Colors. There were also a fair number of notable new game such as Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Conquest of Nerath and Test of Fire.

Personally, my newest enthusiasm was for cooperative style games (and their semi-cooperative kin) represented by the Fly Frog Productions line of games such as Last Night on Earth and Fortune and Glory and similar tiles such as the Dungeons & Dragons adventuring games, Star Trek: Expeditions and Forbidden Island.

This also continued a trend towards lighter fare among my purchases. While I did pick up some hard-core simulations such as Persian Incursion and Lock n Load: Day of Heroes, the vast majority of the year's acquisitions were more along the lines of Test of Fire, Shenandoah and Napoleon's War -- definitely wargames, but not really simulations.

It's not hard to trace the origin of this trend -- it's just hard to get simulation games on the table. Opponents are scarce and time is precious these days for that sort of game, which tends to be time consuming -- and not just in table time. To get the most out of a good simulation game it really helps if both players are reasonably familiar with the game rules beforehand, which adds to the imnvestment in time compared to euro games and other lighter genres.

I've pretty much given up on worrying about it. While I occasionally break down and pick up an old school wargame such as Four Roads to Moscow, Falklands Showdown or Marengo: Morning Defeat, Afternoon Victory, I usually take a pass these days no matter how tempted I am. Every time I feel the urge I just ask myself the question: And just WHEN will that get played? Unless I can justify it despite the likely answer of "Never," I probably won't buy it.

Also helping me exercise some future purchasing discipline is the likely end of the line for my only active collectible game: Axis & Allies: War at Sea. While there's some slight glimmer of hope that another set may appear, it probably won't be in 2012. In any case, I won't start another collectible game. While I don't have the same heartburn many do about the limitations of the format, there is the serious problem of what happens when the game gets canceled. Experience has shown that even a very good game such as Dreamblade or Navia Dratp becomes almost impossible to get on the table once official support dries up. The Axis & Allies Miniatures (both land and sea) and the D&D miniatures lines have some utility outside of the official game rules, but the basic problem remains that the collectible format really relies on a stream of new material to work. Once the stream dries up the lake will inevitably dry up and vanish.

While I did acquire around three dozen games, which is a lot, the good news is that I had a very successful time getting the new games on the table -- playing at least 21 of them at least once. This is important because my experience has been that if I don't get a game played within the first year of owning it, there's a very good chance I'll never play it. Several of the not-played yet were late 2011 acquisitions such as Sheandoah, Merchants & Marauders and Julius Caesar which I fully expect to get played soon. Some others were solitaire or solitaire-capable games such as Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Operations and the D&D adventures games that I can always get around to playing someday. There's just a handful of games like When Lions Sailed and Four Roads to Moscow that have dubious prospects for future table time.

Job prospects for the coming year are hard to predict, but it seems very unlikely I'll ever work at a newspaper again, with the evening hours that usually requires, so I expect that I'll continue to see a fair opportunity for game playing in 2012. I expect game purchases to slow down a lot, though. I've already cut down on my pre-orders (just Commands & Colors titles and Wizard Kings expansions currently) and, as I said, I am done with collectible games. Or so I say. Time will tell!

Avast! Another great Fluxx

I'm an admitted silly card game addict, so there's no surprise that I snagged a copy of Pirate Fluxx as soon as it showed up on the shelves.

Fluxx is known as the game that you basically make up as you go along. There are just two rules to start -- draw a card and then play a card. But some of the cards youc an play are New Rules so the game changes as you play it. And the game starts with no victory conditions -- those are supplied by Goal cards -- which generally involve having two of the third type of card -- Keepers. The fourth type of card is an Action, which lets a player do one-time things like trade hands or draw extra cards.

Zombie Fluxx added a new kind of card, a Creeper, which is a sort of anti-Keeper, as it usually prevents you from winning. This proved so popular it was retrofitted to Fluxx and it played a big role in some of the new version of Fluxx, especially Martian Fluxx, but in Pirate Fluxx there are just two Creepers (Scurvy and the Shackles) and they have several counter measures available.

What is new in Pirate Fluxx is a kind of card called a Surprise, which is the first Fluxx card type that can be played during another player's turn. There are four of them, each canceling the play of one of the basic four types of cards, so now it's possible to prevent an otherwise winning play, much like Munchkin.

This adds an interesting wrinkle to the game and I expect we will see more of it in the future -- possibly even being retrofitted to earlier versions as well.

Needless to say, this doesn't add enough strategy to the game to convert Fluxx-haters into fans, but it's all good for Fluxx fanatics like myself. I don't think the theme is quite so delicious as Martian Fluxx or Monty Python Fluxx, but it's silly enough to do what Fluxx does best and that's provide a nice diversion from heavier fare or while waiting for the last player to show up for that serious game you're planning that night.

We all have our weaknesses

And my weakness is silly themed card games. And among the silliest of that genre are the various Fluxx versions.

Now, like the Munchkin series of silly themed card games, Fluxx has its detractors. And most of their criticisms - which tend to revolve around its random nature which tends to work against skilled play -- are perfectly valid. I also don't care.

I've neve rhad a bad time playing Fluxx. I've introduced to it to various groups of gamers with sucess. The kids like it. And as good as the main game is, the themed versions like Martian Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx are even better. So the news that there's a Pirate Fluxx on the way means that there's another purchase in my future. Aaaargh!

And now for something completely different ...

My wife and I attended a game Meetup right here in Norwich last night which was a lot of fun.

It's easy for gamers, especially wargamers, to lose sight of how specialized a niche hobby gamers occupy in the universe. Our hostess was a woman who was a self-described game addict who had a fairly extensive collection (several dozens) of games of the sort you'll find in mass market retailers. Many party-type games, trivia games, card games, Scrabble, Apples to Apples, and more of that sort. She had recently played a game of Puerto Rico at another meetup but wasn't really aware that the game represented a doorway to the whole "euro" game scene. She'd never heard of Acquire or Settlers of Catan, let alone something like Cosmic Encounter or Small World that I had also brought along.

She had heard of Fluxx, however, having an edition of the game from 1998, so we played that, largely because it was quick and easy to get into and we were expecting a fifth player to show up any moment and Fluxx is one of the few games you can join in progress. The fourth player was another woman who had recently joined the game Meetup but wasn't yet a "gamer" in the hobbyist sense. Player No. 5 arrived midway through our first game and he jumped right in.

The game was a big success, as it has been every time I've introduced it to a group, and we played three complete games of it. I then suggested we try Martian Fluxx, which was even more popular than the basic Fluxx game. It is slightly more involved, though, so I think it's good to break in novice players on a game or two of the basic game before playing Martian Fluxx.

We played two games of Martian Fluxx (did I mention that Fluxx is quick?) before moving on to something I had never seen before called Sequence. It's not a new game, being around since the 1980s. This is a board game using four decks of cards and some chits. The board depicts two standard decks of cards less jokers and jacks laid out in a grid pattern, with each card shown twice. A play consists of revealing a card and placing a chit in the space showing that card with the objective of getting five chits in a row, rather like Pente. one-eyed Jacks, when played, allow a player to remove an opponent;s chit from anywhere on the board. A two-eyed Jack is a wild card, allowing the play of a chit anywhere. Naturally these powerful and relatively rare cards are the main strategic tools in the game.

I remarked during the game that the main difference between Euro games and traditional American games is that usually in Euros a player is faced with a whole bunch of things he'd like to do but the game forces him to make a choice, while in American games the pattern is more like you have many things you;d like to do and the game won;t let you do any of them. Or another way to look at it is that euros force you to choose between attractive options while in American games you're often stuck without any good moves.

Sequence definitely fell into that category. It's a pretty intense game of strategy, but ultimately rather frustrating because it's pretty easy to be stuck with no good moves. We played twice and the second game turned into a real epic that exhausted the draw deck and was well on its way to exhausting the deck again before someone finally won.

Still, it was an interesting game and while I doubt I'd buy a copy, I would be willing to play it again.

Martian Fluxx -- a Creepy version of the game!

Martian Fluxx contents

Copyright Looney Labs

I'm a serious fan of wargames and simulations, but I also have a definite weakness for silly multiplayer card games and there are few sillier, but great multiplayer, games than the Fluxx series of games from Looney Labs.


The fundamental structure for all versions of Fluxx is extremely simple. You deal out three cards to each player and they start laying by following the Basic Rules: Draw a card and then play a card (following the instructions on that card, if any).


The key cards in Fluxx are New Rules, marked in yellow, that change or add to the Basic Rules. They may change how many cards, you draw or play introduce new rules such as a limit on how many cards you can have in your hand. New rules take effect immediately, so if you play a Play 3 card as your first play you can now play 2 more cards from your hand. These might include Action cards, marked in blue, which allow you to perform the action listed on the card such as draw more cards or trade hands with an opponent.


At the start of the game you don't even know what you have to do to win. You find out when someone plays a Goal card, marked in red, which might say that whoever had 10 cards in their hand wins. Most, however, center on having certain Keepers, marked in green, the fourth type of card in the game, played on the table in front of you.

Zombie Fluxx introduced a new type of card called the Creeper, marked in black, which is basically an anti-keeper. If you have a Creeper in play in front of you you can't win, even if you otherwise meet the conditions of the Goal currently in play. Unlike most other cards, if you have a Creeper you must put it in play instantly in front of you. It's not all bad news, though, because occasionally a Goal may actually require a certain Creeper to win. The Creeper idea has been popular and shown up in every version of Fluxx published since Zombie Fluxx came out and was even retrofitted back to the basic Fluxx game when its 4th Edition came out, so it can be considered a core element of the game

Martian Fluxx brings the role of the Creepers to a whole new level. In previous versions Creepers were pretty uncommon -- just four cards in Fluxx and seven cards in Monty Python Fluxx, for example. But Martian Fluxx has 14 Creepers, most of which are Pathetic Humans. Yes, in Martian Fluxx the players are the Martians, out to invade the earth with flying saucers, ray guns, mother ships and abduction chambers, with just the Pathetic Humans, their Army and the Germs standing in the way. There's even a small chance the humans will win. One of the cards is an Anti-Goal card called Retreat and if its stiff conditions are met the Invasion is called off the Martians retreat in defeat!

It's all good fun and demonstrates the flexibility of the Fluxx game engine, which seems adaptable to any theme so long as there's some silliness involved.

Like all versions of Fluxx the game is very easy to teach (although so chaotic that some folks will need a game or two to wrap their minds around it), very quick (half an hour or less), and very scalable (the box says up to 6, but I've managed 7 OK). It's one of the very few games that someone can join in-progress (just deal them 3 cards and they are in).

While all Fluxx-series games have the same art on the back, and could theoretically be mixed together, the trend with the latest themed versions has been to discourage that. Martian Fluxx explicitly says that the theme of Martian invasion doesn't fit in well with the other themes, and shouldn't be mixed with other decks.

I haven't played every version of Fluxx (others are Eco-Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx), but every version I've played has been a hoot, so it's highly recommended.

Looney Labs casts its first stoner

In an interesting development, Looney Labs, best known for its loopy card game Fluxx and the various Pyramid games has started a whole new game company to market adult-themed games. Turns out Andy Looney (yeah, really his name) is a marijuana legalization activist, as well as game designer but felt that there was a growing conflict between his light-hearted Looney Labs line of game products (like Family Fluxx) and his activism on the marijuana issue. So he decided a clean break was in order, hence the new imprint Fully Baked Ideas.

The initial product for the new line is a new edition of Stoner Fluxx, which is, naturally, a pot-themed version of Fluxx. Stoner Fluxx is being removed from the main Looney Labs line and won't be mentioned on its Web site or catalog.

Given how crazy a Fluxx game is anyway, it might very well be even more amusing to try playing it while stoned. Looney reports they're working on a drinking-themed version of Fluxx as well, although I suspect more than a few game groups play an alcohol-enhanced version on their own anyway.

(Optional explanation -0- skip if you know how to play Fluxx) Fluxx is a card game of ever-changing rules. The game starts with just two rules: Draw a card and then play a card. But new rules can be played that change those rules or add to them. Some cards are Actions that allow you to do certain bonus things. Other cards are Keepers, which are played in front of the player and other cards are Goals, which specify the current winning conditions -- which usually involve having particular Keepers in play. A (usually) bad kind of card is a Creeper (a sort of anti-Keeper), which prevents a player from winning -- unless a Goal says otherwise! It' s all gloriously chaotic and occasionally confusing, but a lot of fun.

It will be interesting to see how this initiative pans out, but I think there's a growing sense among the public that the so-called war on drugs has been an irredeemable failure and medical-use marijuana has increasing support as well. This may be an issue of, er, growing relevance in the future.

Tale of two game clubs

I had the chance to visit two different game clubs today and they were very different experiences, although each positive.

My first stop was the monthly central Connecticut meeting of the Connecticut Game Club in Middlefield.

This was definitely serious geek gamer territory. I got to play a game of Small World. Other games I witnessed in progress included Talisman, Carcassonne, Agricola and World at War. Any of these would have been well beyond the ken of the second group I visited, which was a gamer's Meetup Group called the Cardplayers Club. This was definitely not geek territory, and as matter of fact, we not only had gamers but the hostess had also invited folks from an entirely different Meetup Group, the Over 40 Meetup.

Things got off to a slow start because everyone really wanted to play in one game, but the group didn't have anything suitable. We started a game of poker, but enthusiasm wasn't high and few of the players were familiar with the rules. There really aren't that many game that can handle 8 people well, especially if those people are not really gamers.

Fortunately I remembered I had a copy of Fluxx in the car so I broke that out. The first game was a little rough. It can be a little confusing, but everyone was willing to make another go at it and by the second game people were starting to get the hang of it. We ended up playing it three times, so I think it was a success. Fluxx has its critics -- it is a bit random -- but it is well suited for a large group of casual gamers. It's really almost self-evident in play, turns go fast and the random element means that everybody has a decent shot at winning..

Looney-ness

Looney Labs sounds like the lair of a mad scientist you might find in a pulp sci fi or spy novel. The kind where all sorts of bizarre events with unexpected consequences might occur.

Well, you will find bizarre events with unexpected consequences in all the games from the fertile mind of Andrew Looney, whose name would surely make a good case study for the proposition that your name may influence your life choices.

My first introduction to Looney-ness was with the card game Fluxx, which set the pattern of a game with a very simple premise and rather sparse rules that ends up having a surprising amount of fun play with surprising twists and turns. The one thing Looney games do NOT reward is the kind of meticulous planning and optimised play that euro gamers seem to love. In spirit Looney's games are closer to wargames or traditional family games where luck can upset, or at least complicate, the best-laid plans.

In Fluxx the basic rules to start with are just two. On your turn you draw a card and you play a card. There isn't even a "victory condition" to start with, which is perhaps unique. Among the cards that you can play are "Goals" which specify what the winning conditions are. In most cases these comprise holding a specified pair of "Keepers," which are another card you can play. For example, in the Goal "Winning the Lottery" a player wins by having the Keepers Dreams and Money in play on the table in front of you.

Along the way the rules of the game can change through the play of "New Rule" cards, which might change the number of cards you draw, how many you play, how many you can hold in your hand or other aspects of play. And just to boost the level of chaos, there are also Acton cards, which are one-off special events such as "Jackpot!", which allows you to draw three more cards or "Steal a Keeper" which lets you take a Keeper that's in play in front of another player and put it in play in front of yourself.

While most goals involve having a certain pair of Keepers, there are also goals that revolve around different things such as having 10 cards in your hand or "Peace (no War" where a player with the Keeper "Peace" wins so long as the Creeper "War" is not on the table. Oh yeah, Creepers. These are a fairly recent addition to Fluxx, having first appeared in Zombie Fluxx but now migrated into the main game. A Creeper is sort of an anti-Keeper, which generally prevents a person from winning. So, for example, even if you had the Keepers Dream and Money on the table you wouldn't win with the goal Winning the Lottery if you also had a Creeper (say, the "Radioactive Potato" in front of you.)

And there's more, but you get the idea. Obviously long-term planning is not feasible in this game. There's little sense in plotting a clever plan to meet some goal that's on the table when it's likely to change several times before it's even you turn to play again. Instead the game rewards opportunism and a general tolerance for chaos. Often enough one of your plays will cause someone else to win. But it is great fun and a game that's very accessible to younger players and people who don't play a lot of games.

The basic Fluxx game has spawned a whole line of expansions and themed decks. There's Zombie Fluxx, with its undead theme, Eco-Fluxx, Family Fluxx and even, in a truly inspired match between game play and theme, Monty Python Fluxx.

Looney Lab's other games show the same kind of chaotic sensibility. For example, there is Treehouse, which uses simple pyramid playing pieces in three sizes to create an intriguing game of pattern matching. Player's try to arrange their three pyramids to match a black "House" set of pyramids. They aren't completely free to do so, though, because they have to act according to the roll of a special die, which tells the player whether he can Tip, Dig, Hop, Aim or Swap pieces. The sixth face of the die is Wild, which allows the player to choose any of those actions. If a player can execute an action with his own pieces he must, even if it's a disadvantage. If he can't perform the action with his own pieces he can choose to do it to the House configuration, which could mess up someone else's plans. A player can also choose to leave the House pyramids be and pass. If, however, it's not possible to use the rolled action with either your pieces or the House pieces then you have to roll again until you can act on your own or the House pieces.

Again, there's a lot more going on this this game than it first appears. Even though there are just three pyramids in a player's formation and just five possible actions the possible combinations add up and there are a lot of choices to be made. Again, however, long-range planning is difficult and the most important thing is to try to keep your options open so you can pounce when the opportunity for a win presents itself.

Those same pyramids feature in a number of other games that Looney has designed. For example, World War 5 is a Risk/Diplomacy-style game of world conquest that uses three Treehouse sets-worth of pieces and a world map. Players control armies of small, medium and large pyramids. During his turn the player can increase the size of an existing army, create a new small army, move an army to an adjacent territory or across a sea lane or launch an attack against an enemy occupied territory. Battles are resolved by a simple comparative roll of the dice. A large army rolls three dice, a medium one two dice and a small army just a single die.

The game is won by occupying all three territories in a single continent outside of your home continent. A player can be eliminated if he has no pieces left in his home area. The game has just one page of rules, and not in small type either. Yet again there's a lot of interaction and a game full of twists and turns. It all happens fast, so there will be plenty of time to start a new game and seek your revenge!

Looney's approach isn't for all tastes. Players with a low tolerance for luck or who derive their satisfaction from seeing carefully crafted plans bear fruit will find the games very frustrating to play. But those who enjoy a more free-wheeling style of game will like any of Looney's designs.

Fluxx 4.0, a review

Fluxx is a chaotic, fun family card game that's completely silly.

It's definitely not for everyone, and it's especially NOT for the kind of player who worries absolute winning or likes to design and execute intricate plans. Fluxx is, instead, an ever-changing game that rewards flexibility and seizing opportunities. Fairly often the winner of the game will be a complete accident.

The basic rules of Fluxx are very simple. Every player starts the game with three cards, draws one card and then plays one card. The twist in the game is that many of the cards are yellow "New Rule" cards that change the rules instantly (maybe you'll now draw three cards every turn). Others are blue "Action" cards that allow you to perform a one-time action like draw three new cards or exchange hands with an opponent. Some cards are green Keepers that you play in front of you and "Keep" and these are important because you generally win the game by matching the Keepers you have with the red "Goal" cards. A typical Goal card may ward victory to whoever happens to have the Keepers "Chocolate" and "Cookies" in front of them.

And that's basically it. Like other break-the-rules style games such as Nuclear War, Cosmic Encounter of Magic: The Gathering, almost any kind of rules variation is possible.

Fluxx has been around for more than 10 years now and gone through several editions and spawned a number of popular spin-off games such as Eco-Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx. All the games are more or less compatible and use a common game back, although the company cautions that mixing cards between decks can create unanticipated contradictions. They suggest just adding a few favorite cards from other decks into a Fluxx game. An example of this is provided by some small themed expansions such as Christian Fluxx, which adds one New Rule, one Action, two Keepers and three Goal cards for a total of 7 new cards.

If you didn't like the original Fluxx or its variations nothing about the new Fluxx will appeal to you. On the other hand, if you liked Fluxx, the new game is an improvement and worth adding to your collection. It adds just a little more oomph to the game.

The biggest change is a new class of cards, Creepers. First seen in Zombie Fluxx and appearing recently in Monty Python Fluxx, their inclusion in Fluxx 4.0 elevates them to a standard part of the game. Creepers are similar to Keepers, in that they are played in front of the player, but unlike Keepers playing a Creeper is not voluntary and they generally have the negative effect of preventing a player from winning so long as they have a Creeper in front of them -- but not always! Some Goals require a Creeper in order to win.

Several Keepers from the older version of Fluxx such as War, Death and Taxes are now Creepers, as wella s some new ones. There are 100 cards in the new set, up from the previous 84, but they are mostly the same, although there have been some changes. For example the new deck doesn't include the Reverse Order New Rule card. There are now 29 ways to win, up from 23.

Oh yeah, and the cards are prettier, in full color. All-in-all, if you like Fluxx,you'll like the new version.

Fluxx vs. Munchkin, where's the love?

It occurred to me recently that Fluxx and Munchkin have quite a few similarities, but one notable difference.

The similarities is that both are silly-themed light card games based on a simple concept that have proved to be quite popular and served as the basis for a seemingly endless series of expansions.

The notable difference between them is that Munchkin has a vocal legion of critics as well as fans, wile few people seem to give Fluxx much thought at all, except to play it.

This strikes me as rather odd, because the similarities between the games are such that most of the standard criticisms of Munchkin seem just as valid for Fluxx, yet Fluxx gets a pass.

None of this is meant, in any way, to suggest that Fluxx deserves more criticism, but rather that Munchkin seems over-criticized.

Both games are highly luck dependent. While there's certainly room to influence your chances in both games, in neither game is skillful or clever play consistently rewarded with victory. Yet Munchkin seems the one to catch the most flak for being a game of luck.

Both games might, at first blush, seem a little pricey for what you get. Fluxx, for example, gives you 84 cards, a small rule sheet and a flimsy box for $12.95. Munchkin series base games run about $24.95 but for that price you get a box, a four-page large rules set, a die and about twice as many cards -- bigger and all with original artwork. Yet it's Munchkin that gets roundly criticized for its price.

The expansions come in for even more criticism on price. But, while a typical Munchkin expansion gives you 112 new cards for $17.95, or about 16 cents per card, a Fluxx expansion gives you just 7 cards for $2, or almost 29 cents per card.

Both games are sometimes criticized for being rather stereotyped and repetitive in play, but this seems to be a bigger sin for Munchkin than Fluxx.

One wonders if the critics of Munchkin are really sniping at the publisher, Steve Jackson Games, rather than the product. Looney Labs, the publisher of Fluxx has been around for much less time and is pretty much a one-trick pony game company, whereas Steve Jackson Games is one of the oldest continuously operating game companies in adventure gaming and has had more time to accumulate more disgruntled barnacles along the way.

On a lighter note

Among the many pleasures of having my collegiate son visiting this weekend was to enjoy the company of a like-minded gamer. We had some fun with an evening of nonstop card-playing of a decidedly unserious kind. Rounding out our table was my second-grader stepson.
Fortunately for the old man's ego, I had given my little speech about "how much I enjoyed playing, without worrying about winning." There was at least some plausible doubt that maybe I wasn't trying too hard ... right.
We started off playing Fluxx, which my son described as a card-game version of "Calvin Ball." Fans of the old Calvin & Hobbes know that the only rule of Calvin Ball was that the rules were always changing. Fluxx is much the same. The game starts with just two rules: Draw 1 card and Play 1 card. But new cards can add new rules. Other cards allow actions (such as draw three cards). Some other cards are "keepers" (such as "war" or "cookies." And a fourth type of card provides the goal of the game (such as whoever has the goal "milk" and "cookies" on the table wins.) Supposedly there are 23 ways to win.
It's a game of extreme chaos and we had a ball. My son demonstrated exceptional luck/skill by winning three games, while the second-grader took one. Dad was a win less wonder.
Well-primed by Fluxx, we then moved on to various Munchkin-series games and even dear old Dad managed to win once. Actually everybody won once, as we played Munchkin Impossible, Munchkin Cthulhu and Munchkin Bites once each. Good stuff!