For the first four years of our marriage, my husband and I enjoyed playing two-person card games. Wait... let me rephrase that. I enjoyed playing card games with my husband. He will be the first to admit, I am afraid, that he has a rather competitive spirit. He is a great strategist, and as such, he takes it quite personally when he loses a game that involves strategy. You could say this puts him in a bad mood. A very bad mood. As a result of this conundrum, we found ourselves playing fewer and fewer games.

The year was 1998. My husband took a trip to an area game store ("The Game Preserve," to be exact), and he returned with a gift of sorts. He had asked the salesperson if she had any suggestions for a good, two-person game that is entertaining and thought-provoking, and relatively noncompetitive. She immediately recommended FLUXX, a game that she and her husband enjoyed playing together. It didn't take her long at all to make a sale, and home came my husband, toting his sack.

I look back on that day with a smile, as it really did reenergize our game-playing spirit. FLUXX requires thinking, but it has such random components that even the most skillful player will not always win - that's just the way it is. Knowing that a win or loss did not reflect his ability to play granted my husband a freedom that allowed us to enjoy this game together, leaving the competitive spirit behind.

The Box

I know, that IS a strange heading. It's just a box, right? Actually, the print on the box gives the soon-to-be player a good idea of what he or she is in for. Allow me to share the text from the back panel of the box:
Simple? Fluxx has but one rule: "Draw one card and then play one card." What cards could you play? Well, you could play Time, or War, or perhaps Love. I shall play Chocolate - it is a fine thing to have Chocolate. What's this? You have played the card "Play 2." Well, play a second card! Don't you know the rule of FLUXX? It is this: "Draw one card and play two cards." Well, that's what it is NOW. Perfectly simple. The goal of the game? Oh, I'm terribly sorry. No one has played one yet.

This print is not exactly as it appears on our box - we have version 2.0, and the last sentence was cut off at the printers (so the website explained), so it makes even less sense! Thankfully, the only version available today is version 2.1, also copyright 1998.

The side panel of the box gives a little more useful information to the consumer:
Fluxx: the card game with ever-changing rules
o 2-6 players
o Ages 8 +
o 2-30 minutes
o 84 cards + instructions

Again, version 2.0, produced by I.C.E., does not have all of this useful information printed on the outside. I.C.E. (Iron Crown) no longer exists, and the game creators Looney Labs are the distributors - I prefer their updated packaging.

The Game

But back to the game! To understand the game of FLUXX, one must first understand the cards. There are four types of cards: keepers, goals, new rules, and action. All of these cards have the same back of a basic black background with faded edges and whitish lettering, spelling "FLUXX." The one exception is the card you always play first - it has a white background with black letters so that it stands out from the others and can easily be located at the game's start. The card's front has a colored stripe along the side, depending upon the type of card it is, and either a picture or written description. Here is a more in depth description of the four card types:

1. Keeper
These, I must admit, are my favorites. They are marked with a muted green stripe along the side and the work "KEEPER" across the top. The keeper cards, as the name suggests, are laid out in front of you to accumulate during the game. Keepers include such things as bread, love, peace, war, toaster, coffee, cookies, milk, sun, moon, and doughnuts, among others. A black and white sketch and name of each item is on the bottom half of the card. Peace, love, and chocolate are my own personal favorites - if that was all we had, wouldn't life be grand?

So what is the point of peace, love, war, chocolate, and a toaster? Read on...

2. Goal
The goal cards are marked with a fucshia stripe across the side and the work "GOAL" across the top. The goal is just that - the point of the playing, the way to win the game. But there is a catch. You see, each turn, a player has the chance to replace the current goal with a new one. The goals generally consist of one or more keepers that a player must have displayed, such as coffee and doughnuts or peace and love. But if the goal is "death and taxes" and the person before you replaces it with "all you need is love" just as you were poised to add taxes to your death, you're out of luck. That's FLUXX.

There are two goals unrelated to the types of keepers you have displayed. One goal is "10 cards in hand," while the other is "5 keepers." These seem simple... well, they're not. Read on!

3. New Rule
The new rules have a yellow stripe across the side and "NEW RULE" pasted across the top. And they are just what they say - new rules. The rules, as they are played, are laid out in the middle of the table for all to see. Until a card says to do otherwise, the rules simply accumulate. At the beginning of the game, the white-backed card is on the table with the only initial rule showing: draw one card and then play one card. Simple, right? Well, you can imagine the number of additions there could be, and there are! The rules cover the following areas:
o number of cards to draw... anywhere from one to five
o number of cards to play... one to five again
o "hand limit" - the number of cards you may keep in your hand - you must discard the rest. Can you believe there is even a hand limit zero?! This, of course, is my least favorite card, but my husband and brothers will not allow me to remove it from the deck.
o "keeper limit" - the number of keepers you can have laid out in front of you. It can be as little as two.
o secrecy - there are two rule cards that allow you to hide one or more of the keeper cards in front of you by keeping it turned upside down.
o and a few more that I will not mention...

You get the idea - these cards can pile up quite crazily. When a new card contradicts an old one, though, the old one is discarded. The only exception is that the original card always stays, and at some point, the rules can be reset, discarding every rule but the first. How? Read on...

4. Action
The action cards are each marked with a dark blue stripe along the side, with "ACTION" spelled out at the top. As it says next, "When you play this card, do whatever it says." Actions include getting rid of a specific rule (like the "trash hand limit" action), resetting all of the rules, taking a keeper from another player, "pilfering the trash" (choosing a recent card from the discard pile to play in your hand), or drawing a card and immediately playing it. After an action is completed, the card is discarded in the discard pile.

5. I thought you said there were only four types of cards!

Okay, there are four categories, but there is a fifth type that will be in the box. The set comes with one blank card - it has the same background, but nothing on the front. Why is this? Why, so you can make your own card, of course! We can't decide what card to make, though, so ours is still blank after three years. At the Origins game convention, I have heard of contests by Looney Labs regarding the most creative new FLUXX cards - I'd love to go to the conference some year just to see that!

Playing the game

To begin, players are each dealt three cards. The instructions tell the players to decide who goes first by drawing lots, playing "paper, rock, scissors," or whatever makes them happiest. (In another Looney Labs game, the person with the longest hair goes first.) Once this is decided, each player plays in turn according to the directions, going clockwise around the table. As the box says, the game can take as little as two minutes or a half hour or more. We have experienced both extremes! One of our longest games ever was a game of six of us in an airport, waiting for a delayed flight. I'm sure we made an interesting sight.

Finding FLUXX (Doesn't that sound like a movie title?)

The only places I've ever seen FLUXX for sale are stores that specialize in games. Here in Indiana, we originally purchased it at "The Game Preserve" in Indianapolis, but it is no longer listed on their website. I had the occasion to purchase this game two weeks ago, so when the first store didn't have it, I called "Boardroom Games," and they did have one copy in stock. I needed two of them, so I searched further online and found one place where I could obtain it: Looney Labs themselves!

Even if you are going to purchase FLUXX at a store, I still recommend that you visit their website at www.looneylabs.com. It is a riot! If you are going to order, search the ENTIRE site before you place your order. When I did so, I found that they had several items that they would include free if you just asked for them. These included a button, postcards, and game catalog, but my favorite was quite exciting. For a game convention, Origins, they had specially printed five new FLUXX goals, and they had four types left that they would give away for free with any order! The four goals, which I was so happy to receive, were "The bakery" (doughnuts and bread), "Coffee break" (coffee and time), "The desert" (the sun and the pyramid), and the truly bizarre one, "The 100,000 year old game from Mars" (the pyramid and time). We plan to add these to our deck and not tell my brothers, so that they can be surprised the next time they play with us. These are my brothers who love to stack the deck, steal the deal, and even cheat at Monopoly, so anything I can actually pull on them will be quite enjoyable on my part.

But I digress... the purchase price from Looney Labs is $10 plus shipping, which is a flat $5 no matter what size the order is, within weight limits. They have one other game I almost ordered called "Icehouse," but I decided to wait until I'm actually purchasing something for myself rather than using our "gift budget." If you purchase the game at a store, it generally retails for around $9, and it's well worth the price.

Oh - I must share one more recently acquired FLUXX tidbit. This game was a Mensa Select Award Winner in 1999! Now I have no idea how Mensa selects its award winners, but it sounds impressive, don't ya think?

My review title

You may have wondered what this all has to do with a wedding gift... would you believe that we did indeed give this game as such a gift last weekend? Along with some microwave popcorn, we gifted FLUXX to a couple who already has the kitchen, homebuilding type of stuff that young couples need. They have a definite sense of humor and they are close to our age, so when trying to think of a creative gift that is something we enjoy and nobody else would give them (got THAT right!), we chose FLUXX. In fact, I ordered two copies as we were invited to a wedding of similar friends who are getting married two weeks from now. If I hear a reaction from them after they open it, I may just have to add an update to this opinion.

My husband and I have now been married for about seven years, and the last three have truly been enriched by the game of FLUXX (bet Looney Labs didn't create the game with that intention!). So what better gift to pass on to our newlywed friends who already have all the dishes they need?



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 10
Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older