Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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Out of the two kinds of people in the world, those who love Fluxx and those who hate Fluxx with the fury of a thousand charging rhinos, I belong to the former category. Fluxx is one of my favorite light, random games. Fluxx often ends up in my coat pocket or in my satchel and I have played it everywhere from churches to movie theaters to hospitals.
If you are not familiar with Fluxx, it is the card game of every changing rules. When the game begins, there are only two rules. Draw a card, play a card. There aren’t even any winning conditions for the game. Additional rules and winning conditions are on the cards, which will be played and changed through out the game.
If you really don’t know how to play Fluxx, look at either my review of Fluxx or my review of Family Fluxx. This review is going to be less about how to play EcoFluxx and more about how it is different than the other flavors of Fluxx that are out there. If you don’t like Fluxx, you’re not going to like EcoFluxx, plain and simple. Instead, I am going to try and answer the question “If I like Fluxx, will I like EcoFluxx?”
Okay, with my rambling preamble out of the way, let’s talk about EcoFlux.
EcoFluxx is an ecological version of the Fluxx game. The artwork, the keepers, the goals and some of the actions all reflect this. While I can easily guess what Looney Labs philosophy is on the environment, the game is not very preachy. Instead, it serves to present a model of the way the environment works. If that sounds a little strange for a version of Fluxx, well, to be honest, it is.
The keepers in EcoFluxx have line drawings of animals, plants and environmental aspects like air and water. Unlike the 70s pop-art style of regular Fluxx or the Highlights for Kids art style of Family Fluxx (NOT a putdown of Family Fluxx’s art! I think it looks really cool!), the art in EcoFluxx looks very realistic. In fact, it looks like the sort of drawings you might find in a text book or a field guide.
Some of the action cards and virtually all of the goals serve as miniature lessons in ecology. For example, one of the goals is Clouds, which is a combination of the keepers Air and Water. Another is Decay, which is a combination of Worms and Mushrooms.
There are also some goals which actually have some effect on the way the game is played. I call them “Foodchain Goals” but that’s just my personal name for them. They will state that one the keepers eat another keeper. Rabbits eat Leaves, for example, or Spiders eat Insects. If someone has the keeper that is doing the eating, they win as long as anyone has the food keeper out on the table.
This isn’t the first time a goal has included the state of the entire table as part of the goal. For instance, there is Peace, no War in regular Fluxx. However, this is the first time that playing a keeper could let someone else win. It’s not much of a change, I admit, but it is a change and an added consideration when you play a keeper. There is a Poison keeper, though, that will prevent your keeper from being eaten, but that’s just one card out of the entire deck.
Apart from that, EcoFluxx really is just played like regular Fluxx.
However, EcoFluxx does have a different feel compared to the other Fluxx games. I found that when we played it, we became more serious. It wasn’t as funny as the other versions. Instead, we became thoughtful and began discussing the mini-lessons that cards were showing us. I found myself remembering my rural childhood in the woods, old issues of Ranger Rick and scouting. Maybe it was just inside my head but EcoFluxx really felt different to me.
All that might sound a bit harsh but it’s not. For me, regular Fluxx is a party game while EcoFluxx is an educational game and an enjoyable one at that. In fact, I am impressed that the framework of light and fluffy Fluxx can be stretched to make a game that really does have some educational value. In fact, I am curious to see what other ways Fluxx can be used. A historical Fluxx might be very interesting, although Looney Labs has kind of already done this with Chrononauts.
EcoFluxx is not the first version of Fluxx I’m going to reach for when I need a light card game. However, I am very glad that I own and I know that I will play it again. In fact, I think it would make an excellent game for the classroom, a youth group or a scouting pack.
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Travis Jones
United States
Ohio
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I understand what talking about when you say Eco Fluxx has a different feel than the original, but my friends and I still play Eco Fluxx light-hearted and silly. In a recent game, my friend had Water and Poison, so I turned my Fish upsidedown and said it was very sick and the Bears should avoid it.
I've played the original Fluxx, Eco Fluxx, Family Fluxx, and Zombie Fluxx and I like the original and Eco the best!
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