All of this is starting to make me think how the basic structure of Fluxx is pretty malleable in terms of its use, almost like a set of pyramids (or dare I say playing cards?) in terms of themes and additional mechanics. I think there are so many GOOD ideas for Fluxx variants that really wouldn't work unless they were an entire deck rather than a smattering of themed cards that there must be a good way to make use of this idea without encountering "munchkin syndrome".
Here is what I thought of off the top of my head. What if instead of producing this many new decks of Fluxx, the Looney's offered an entirely blank deck at a standardized cost, and on "
Fluxxgames.com" or some such thing they offered complete digital decks to be either printed out on stickers and stuck on, or printed out on paper and pasted on, or even just sharpied on.
Even if it were undertaken as an "open source" project like the Home brew fluxx sites already, it would be nice to have a nice full blank deck to start from rather than having to purchase a pile of blanks at great cost.
Additionally, I think that Fluxx is able to avoid "munchkin syndrome" by making (as stated before) variants that appeal to totally different subsets of people. All versions of Munchkin really appeal to gamers on a fundamental level and you don't see it sold in many places besides gamestores. However a full deck of Jewish educational Fluxx, or Bible Fluxx, or Chemistry Fluxx could be sold in an entirely different venue than a game store and quite successfully if I don't miss my guess.
On Jan 28, 2008 3:37 PM, David Artman <
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: "Melissa Parish" <beautifulfool@xxxxxxxxx>
...
> It's still the same game, just with a different theme. After some point, it
> just gets ridiculous.
I beg to differ. Yes, the core gameplay is often similar; but every new
genre and expansion within a genre has included a new mechanic or card
type (much like Creepers in Fluxx or "off-table player activity" *ahem*
in Stoner).
Furthermore, some folks wouldn't touch Munchkin (D&D) but jump all over
the Cthulhu or Spy or Supers themes (like me: I only own Super and Fu).
So if some folks look at Fluxx and think "weird mishmash of themes,"
they might jump all over NASA or Cthulhu or Chemistry or whatever (like
me: I only own Stoner; and I would only give it or Eco as a gift, though
Zombie *is* tempting at times).
So you get mechanical variants and different moods and aesthetics. Seems
good enough for me... but in the end, the market decides what "works."
(And FWIW, the market seems to think Infinite Munchkin is A-OK.)
Not to be too much of a SJG fanboy... *blush*
--
Sam Zitin
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Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity
Office:317-876-1913
Cell: 317-710-0925