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Do you like games where you can make a long term plan, secretly manipulate opponents and pull off a strategic masterstroke at the end to win? In that case stop reading this review right now and find another game.
Fluxx is not long term, it is not strategic, Fluxx is riding the winds of chaos and holding on for dear life, Fluxx is an ever changing fairground round without a break. It’s not so much Marmite as a cat: you’re either going to love it to bits or it will irritate the hell out of you and things will get broken.
How To Play Fluxx
Fluxx is played with a deck of dedicated cards. Set-up involves shuffling these cards and putting them in one pile, then dealing three cards to each player. Play consists of drawing a card, playing a card and moving to the next person… and yes, that sounds awfully simple and ‘what’s the point of bothering, isn’t that basically a kid’s card game?’ The thing is, there are several types of cards. There are cards which form the sets you use to win the game, and there are cards which change the rules of the game.
So, you start drawing one and playing one, but if someone plays a draw five, then everyone starts drawing five. If someone plays a play three, you play three and expand what’s happening. There are a lot of rules cards which alter all aspects of the game, and they can be played at any time and nuked at any time by other cards.
The victory conditions are basically collect sets, but the type of sets changes every time a card is playing, well, changing them. When a draw five and play all is going, things change very quickly with total panic, and you might just change the rules so you play a victory condition and then meet it.
I hope this gives a flavour of what Fluxx is like. You start with no idea what you need to do to win, and carry on mostly the same until someone manages to squeeze a win out, by a combination of luck and judgement. Older children (by which I mean 11 and up) can handle this, indeed they thrive on it.
The victory conditions are basically collect sets, but the type of sets changes every time a card is playing, well, changing them. When a draw five and play all is going, things change very quickly with total panic, and you might just change the rules so you play a victory condition and then meet it.
I hope this gives a flavour of what Fluxx is like. You start with no idea what you need to do to win, and carry on mostly the same until someone manages to squeeze a win out, by a combination of luck and judgement. Older children (by which I mean 11 and up) can handle this, indeed they thrive on it.
Fire Up The Capacitor
Fluxx isn’t just chaos, it’s also a virus. A strong virus. The rules given above are for vanilla Fluxx, of which I’m reviewing the fifth edition, although it’s probably in its 10th by the time this is published because Fluxx has a way of reinventing itself: there are a lot of themed sets. A lot. Adventure time, Zombies, Pirates, Cthulhu… pretty much everything has a Fluxx set with themed cards and new rules, including the Creepers which are beloved, get in the way of other players by directly harming their operations, and are not currently in the basic set.
You might wonder why anyone would actually buy vanilla Fluxx when there’s so much flavour out there and no need to have a ‘starter’ kit, but I thought playing the original was a good idea before spreading out. In hindsight, just start with what you fancy. You only need one deck, as this definitely isn’t Magic the Gathering (a very good game if you don’t like money).
The mass of versions might be one reason why Fluxx gets criticised a lot online. It’s not a ‘serious game’ that rewards being clever, and for many people that’s a reason to reject Fluxx along with a host of other games. But we’re talking about a small box that’s easily carried, costs little, can fill a spare twenty minutes with plenty of crazy fun and can last a good many plays if you accept the chaos and play along.
It’s not Feudum, but it’s not meant to be. Of course, there’s a rather large problem, and that’s the way you can easily get tied up in knots with the rules. FAQs are out there, but essentially every new pack has a few ‘we don’t know how this clash resolves and there’s basically no guidance’ issues.
I know full well that some of you reading this review will hate Fluxx with a passion and consider it a waste of card because this is a very divisive game. But my advice is find a theme you like, pay a few drinks worth of cash, and have a little fun while you wait for your group to arrive.
