Martian Fluxx
The Martians are attacking! Normally, this would be an issue here on Earth. It’s a good thing that Looney Labs has put you in the Tripod driver’s seat in their newest game, Martian Fluxx. Through standard Fluxx cardplay, with a few special bits thrown in, you battle with your fellow Martians to destroy the puny Earthlings, be the first to reach the goal and conquer the pathetic planet!
Few games have the durability of Looney Labs’ Fluxx. It has lasted through six main editions, three expansions and six variations, maintaining the same basic rules and mechanics in each while finding new themes and devices to spice things up. Martian Fluxx is the newest example of the everlasting Fluxx formula. It takes a fun twist on the standard idea of Fluxx, but incorporates many classic Looney Labs ideas.
Gameplay is, honestly, almost exactly the same as previous iterations. The game begins with one Rule card in play: “Draw One, Play One.” Players take turns adding and changing the Rules, adding and changing Goals, playing Keepers and avoiding Creepers, all in an attempt to win. A new concept for Fluxx, recently introduced, is the Meta-Rule. This is a Rule that will always be in play during a game and cannot be removed. The Meta-Rule that comes with Martian Fluxx imposes a hidden time limit on the game. At the end of the time, anyone who can claim partial victory based on the Goal wins the game. With experienced and dedicated players, Fluxx can take quite a while. The Meta-Rule solves this problem and adds a sense of urgency to everyone’s plans.
The beauty and frustration of Fluxx are the ever-changing Rules and Goals, which shift and fluxuate simply by playing a new Rule or Goal card. Most Goals cancel previous ones, but many Rules stack on top of each other, making things quite interesting as the game progresses. A bonus Rule card I received with Martian Fluxx allowed players to draw extra cards if they used and maintained a Martian accent while speaking. This Rule quickly became annoying, so we tossed it in favor of not murdering each other in pure, raw hatred. Goals normally involve collecting two Keepers that are somehow related. In earlier Fluxx games, the Goals consisted of things like “Milk and Cookies.” Martian Fluxx has more topical Goals that you could easily imagine Martians actually caring about: “The Grand Entrance” uses the Mothership and the City Keepers, “The Cities of Mars” uses the Pyramid and the Canal Keepers, “Two All-Beef Earthlings” uses both of the Cow Keepers, and so on. In a nod to one of Andy Looney’s earliest creations, the “Martian Chess” Goal requires the Pyramid and Mars Keepers. One final twist on Goals is the inclusion of an Ungoal. This single card could cause everyone to lose the game if its conditions are met. While this is generally unwise to shoot for, some people are just that way.
Keepers and Creepers make up much of the remainder of the game. Keepers are standard for any Fluxx game – the nouns of the Fluxx universe. Any item, artifact or general thingy that you could use is a Keeper. Keepers are played in front of a player and can be moved, stolen, shifted or lost at any time depending on Action cards played. Keepers in this version of Fluxx include some very fun items like “The Tentacle,” Abduction Chamber,” Humans in Black,” and the “Tin Foil Hat.” Creepers, on the other hand, are the undesirable element in newer Fluxx games, beginning with Zombie Fluxx. In Martian Fluxx, all the Creepers are filthy humans. These cards must be played immediately when drawn and are stuck in front of a player, preventing her from winning the game, until moved by an Action card. Some Creepers are necessary for Goals, however. “Human Leader” helps complete the Goal “Target City: Washington D.C.” “Mars Needs Women!” is a Goal that requires two female Creepers and “Humans Without Hats” simply needs at least two humans without any headgear. In typical Martian fashion, however, Germs are a constantly moving Creeper, threatening all that they touch, or at least, keeping them from winning.
The final cards in the deck are the Actions. Like any card game, these serve to move the game along, screw up careful plans and generally annoy people. While some of the card titles are unique to this version, none of the mechanics are anything new. Most involve moving Keepers around the board, taking cards from other players or taking an additional turn.
Fluxx is a difficult game to simply like. Most people are divided into two camps: the “God, I hate that game and curse all the hippies who play it to an eternity of soap-filled torture” camp and the “Let’s play Fluxx while we’re waiting for the Pope to come out and shake our hands” camp. Some will never want to play this game, no matter the context, and some own every version four times over. Zombie Fluxx brought me back towards enjoying this game with the addition of an overall theme and Creepers, and Martian Fluxx has continued the thematic iterations of Fluxx quite nicely. I would easily recommend this game to those who have played Fluxx before and been turned off by its lack of structure. Anyone who already enjoys Fluxx has probably pre-ordered their copy and awaits the days of mass human destruction with baited breath.
No Martians or Hippies were harmed in the writing of this review.