"Amidst big releases, flashy packaging and full-page advertisements, it is often easy to miss a decent product released by a smaller company. Fluxx is one of these "sleeper" titles. Packaged in a black-and-white box and featuring rather cheesy card art, Fluxx still manages to provide as many hours of fun for your money as some of the bigger products.
"The main selling point of the game is its simplicity. Fluxx is playable right out of the box and all of its rules can be learned within five minutes. There are only four variables that change throughout the game--the number of cards you may draw, play, hold and keep in play each turn.
"Everything else--pardon the cliché--is in the cards. Play begins by laying down the Basic Rules card that sets the number of cards you can draw and play per turn to one and presents no other restrictions. Players take turns to pay their cards. New Rule cards alter one of the four basic rules of the game. For example, it may allow players to draw three cards per turn instead of the initial one per turn. Goal cards change the current victory conditions. A Keeper card does nothing by itself, but controlling certain Keepers will satisfy or negate many of the possible victory conditions. Finally, Actions are one-shot cards that may allow a player to steal one of his opponent's Keepers, redraw his hand or do several other tricks. The game ends as soon as the victory condition on the current Goal card is satisfied.
"While the rules sound more than simple (and remember, that's the whole point), the game strategy has a certain depth to it. One can do much better at Fluxx by keeping track of what cards have been played and what strategies other players seem to pursue than by playing chaotically. Playing Fluxx gets increasingly more interesting with more people involved (it has been designed for 2 to 6 players, but more than 2 are necessary to get an interesting game going).
"Fluxx is a worthwhile investment for the players that enjoy games that break their own rules. Overall, it's an excellent effort from the small company that published it.
-- Alex Shvartsman "
