Fluxx from Looney Labs is a lightweight card game that plays quickly, is easy to learn, and is a blast at parties or any other group setting. Starting from the Basic Rules of “Draw One, Play One”, each player can affect the game in several different ways:

• Playing a New Rule card changes the rules of the game. This may include drawing additional cards, playing additional cards, or any number of other effects. New Rules that contradict previously-played New Rules trash (eliminate) the older card.
• Playing an Action card lets the player perform the action stated on the card. Pretty simple, no?
• Playing a Keeper card gives the player something that (s)he keeps. Why would you want to keep them? Well…
• Playing a Goal card lets everyone know how to win the game. There can only be one Goal in play; any new Goals trash a Goal already in play. Goals most often involve one or more Keepers (which is why you want to keep them). The game ends immediately if anyone meets the requirements of the current Goal, either because they obtained the correct Keepers or because they already met the conditions of the Goal card that was just played.

Between the ever-shifting Rules, constantly changing Goals, and chaotic Actions, it’s easy to see how Fluxx got its name. In case that’s not enough, Fluxx Blanxx offers you a set of blank cards to further add to the craziness. The game also exists in themed versions like environmentally-friendly EcoFluxx or the aptly-named Family Fluxx.

Clearly, what the Fluxx family needed was an army of brainless zombies.

Zombie Fluxx introduces two new card types that stand between you and achieving your Goal. The first type are Creepers, which represent the Zombies that give this version its name. Whenever someone draws a Creeper, they must play it face-up in front of them and draw another card to replace them; this continues until you’ve drawn the number of “normal” cards you were supposed to draw. There are four different types of Creepers, each depicting an increasing number of Zombies:

• Regular Creepers are just a single Zombie with no special abilities.
• Pairs of Zombies run away from you if you trash another of your Creepers on your turn (there are certain New Rules and Keepers that allow this), winding up with the player of your choice.
• Zombie Trios don’t die like the others. Instead, when you trash them they move to the player on your left or right, depending on the arrow on the specific Creeper card.
• The Zombie Quartet keeps coming back from the dead. When it gets trashed, it goes to the top of the deck instead of to the discard pile.

Some Goals require you to have Creepers in your possession, and others require you to have none; one Goal actually cares about the number of Zombies (not necessarily the number of Creepers) that you control. There’s also the other new card type: the Un-Goal; this card is treated like any other Goal, but if its conditions are met, everyone loses as the Zombies take over! Why would you play this? Well… sometimes you don’t have a choice (it’s the only card in your hand, for instance), sometimes it doesn’t matter, and sometimes you just play it to be spiteful!

With all the cheesy humor of a classic B-movie, Zombie Fluxx is a great way to spend some down time with up to six friends. Zombie Fluxx also contains rules for playing without the Zombies, in case you have any first-time Fluxxers in your group. I would definitely recommend playing “full” Zombie Fluxx once everyone knows the basics, however, as the Creepers add an interesting element to the game that isn’t present in other versions, but don’t get in the way of the fast-paced Fluxx gameplay.

Reiner Knizia: famed designer of timeless games of strategy including Tigris & Euphrates, Ra, and Blue Moon City, among many others. Twilight Creations, Inc.: publishers of fun — if generally lower-quality — games that often feature a zombie theme, particularly Zombies!!! and its various expansions. Zombigeddon: the unlikely intersection of the previous two entities.

Zombiegeddon pits you and your opponent(s) in a scramble for supplies just before Armageddon. 112 “pre-bomb” disks are randomly distributed to the empty hexes on the board; these represent food, provisions, weapons, barricades, sewer entrances, and even a few “enemy” humans. Your four pawns begin at four white “pre-bomb” shelters spaced around the board and you receive four “supply tokens” to deliver to other shelters.

On your turn, you get two actions/moves. You can either move one pawn twice or two different pawns once each; alternately, you may also remove one of your pawns from the board (because it can’t move anywhere else). You can only move a pawn onto an un-occupied space containing a disk, with the exception of manholes and shelters (which can hold more than one pawn) or if you use both actions to move past an opponent’s pawn. An action can be spent to move a pawn from one manhole disk to any other manhole disk, and no pawn can move on to a barricade disk. When you move your pawn off an unoccupied (non-manhole) disk, you add it to your collection face-down, unless it is a weapon (which are kept face-up until used). You cannot move on to an “enemy” disk unless you discard a previously-earned weapon disk. Moving a pawn into one of the red “post-bomb” shelters allows you to deliver one of your supply tokens.

Eventually, it will become apparent that only one player can “claim” certain disks. Once all remaining disks can be “claimed” in this manner, the “pre-bomb” round ends and those disks are collected by their respective players with the unclaimed disks being discarded. Then the 88 “post-bomb” disks, which include a fair amount of “enemy” zombies, are distributed to the remaining empty spaces (manholes and barricades don’t leave the board), and then you place one pawn in each shelter to which you delivered a supply token (the remaining pawns are lost — plan ahead!). Round two then proceeds pretty much the same way as round one, with supply tokens delivered back to “pre-bomb” shelters earning five additional points each at the end of the game.

Once round two has ended, usually after less than an hour of play, scores are totaled. Food and enemy tokens are worth their printed value; provision tokens, which come in four different “flavors” (two pre-bomb, two post-bomb) are worth points based on how many of each type you’ve collected. The highest score wins, with no tiebreaker provided; I’ve yet to need one thus far, but my last game was literally decided by a single point.

Zombiegeddon features classic Knizia strategic gameplay; other than the distribution of the disks, there is no randomness and all information is (initially) public, creating a game of “perfect information”. However, the presentation of the game is slightly less than perfect. The artwork, while detailed, is initially confusing as the disks all look very similar at a casual glance. Representatives of Twilight Creations, Inc. have stated that if they issue a second printing of the game, they will correct this problem by “ringing” the disks to better distinguish them. Still, most players will learn which disks are which within their fist play or two, so it isn’t exactly a game-breaking problem.

What may be a game-breaking problem for some is the fact that this really isn’t much of a “zombie” game. If ever a game could be justifiably accused of having a “pasted-on theme”, Zombiegeddon is that game. While the “zombie apocalypse” theme does work within the mechanics of the game, it’s really not necessary and doesn’t actually add much as you are never in any danger from the zombies — you simply can’t enter their disks if you lack a weapon disk. But at the end of the day (or world, as the case may be), while a good theme can sometimes enhance an otherwise mediocre game, a game with rock-solid mechanics can get by with just about any theme the publishers want without being dinged too hard, and Zombiegeddon‘s mechanics are as solid as any other Knizia design. It’s an unusual title to have sitting on your shelf next to your other Eurogames, to be sure, but once it’s on the table the strategy takes over and that’s when real games shine.

Nothing screams “excitement and fun” like turn-of-the-century archaeology: the weeks of research, the sitting through interminable lectures at congresses, the painstaking sifting through sand-covered ruins only to come up with handfuls of worthless debris… Well, ok — I know that sounds duller than dishwater; even Indiana Jones couldn’t make a decent movie out of just pure archaeology. But that is in fact the theme of Thebes, designed by Peter Prinz and published by Queen Games in 2007, and it is actually much more entertaining than it sounds.

Depending on the number of players, Thebes plays out over a span of two to three years, represented by a 52-segment scoring track ringing the board. Every action requires a given number of weeks to complete. The active player is whoever’s marker is earliest in the current year (in the event of a tie, the most recent player to move his marker to that week’s space goes first), thus creating a strategic trade-off: the more time you spend one a given action, the better your (potential) rewards, but other players might be able to complete more actions in the same span of time and gain an advantage through sheer numbers.

Four cards are dealt face-up to the board at the start of the game, revealing research opportunities to increase your general or specific Knowledge and other preparatory actions (research assistants, congresses, tools, cars, rumors, etc.) available at specific board locations; each card lists how much time it requires to claim its reward and is replaced from the deck immediately after claiming it. Other actions include moving around the board, consuming one week per segment of your trip. One week can also be spent at a specific location to discard all four cards and refresh the choices. Later on in the game, special exhibitions will emerge from the deck that will allow you to spend time to earn more points if you have collected the corresponding numbers of artifacts. Finally, you can travel to one of the Ancient Civilizations and dig for as many weeks as you want to spend.

In order to determine that, the game provides each player a dial that indicates your level of Knowledge with the civilization you’re excavating, from one to twelve. Dialing in to your level gives you a list of numbers lined up to an index of weeks. Spending a given number of weeks allows you the displayed number of “pulls” from that civilization’s bag. Each bag contains a dozen artifacts* of various values (these values and amounts are public knowledge, indicated on special cards kept separate), two special Knowledge tokens, and twelve blank tokens representing worthless debris (my group calls these “sand” for shorthand). If you pull out one of the good tokens, you get to keep it and earn its points or add its Knowledge to your base; if you pull out debris, it goes back in the bag when you’re done to be pulled out again later! The first player to “break ground” in a given location receives a guaranteed 1-point artifact in addition to whatever he actually pulls out of the bag. You can only excavate each location once per year, so plan carefully.

The game ends once all players have completed the year 1903; you cannot spend any weeks beyond the end of that year, so you might end up sacrificing the last few weeks due to having no productive plays available. Each player totals up the value of his discovered artifacts, congress cards, and exhibition cards; additionally, whoever has the most specific Knowledge of a given civilization earns a five-point bonus (per civilization). The most points wins, although there is no given method for breaking ties.

Thebes is loaded with strategic choices, mostly revolving around the very limited amount of time you have. The key to the game, unfortunately, is the random chance of what you pull out of the “dig” bags. Even the best-laid plans can wind up with you effectively stranded out in the middle of the desert if you randomly pull out a bunch of trash despite the odds. While the randomness can be a nuisance, Thebes is an otherwise-solid strategy game that can be enjoyed in about an hour by up to four players.

*These artifacts are depictions of actual museum relics from their respective civilizations, such as King Tut’s Mask. The manual provides a brief description of each, for a nice educational bonus.

Race for the Galaxy & RftG: The Gathering Storm

Until late 2008, the #1 ranked game on boardgamegeek.com (BGG) for some time was Puerto Rico. A couple of years after Puerto Rico‘s release, a spin-off called San Juan was put forth, containing themes similar to Puerto Rico‘s with exclusively card-based mechanics. While it was the original designer of Puerto Rico, Andreas Seyfarth, who would ultimately come up with San Juan‘s design, he collaborated with another game designer working on his own San Juan prototype, Thomas Lehmann. Lehmann took his design and shifted the concept from colonial Puerto Rico to a Star Wars-like sci-fi setting, ultimately giving birth to Race for the Galaxy (RftG).

During each round of RftG, each player secretly selects one of his seven phase cards and then all are revealed simultaneously. All players will execute only the phases chosen by the group, with the player who chose each specific phase receiving a bonus for doing so. These phases and their bonuses are: Explore (look at additional cards and/or keep additional cards); Develop (receive a one-card discount on your Development); Settle (draw a card after placing a World in your tableau); Consume (either trade a good for a number of drawn cards based on its type or receive twice the point chips for consumed goods); and Produce (produce a good on any one windfall World, which normally do not replace their consumed goods). Costs for playing Developments and settling non-military Worlds are paid by discarding other cards from your hand; military Worlds are simply conquered if your combined strength is equal to or greater than their defense. At the end of the round, anyone with more than ten cards in their hand discards down to that number and then phases are selected anew until one of the end conditions has been met. In a two-player variant each player selects two phases, and it is possible to select the same phase twice in most situations.

The goal of RtfG is to amass the most victory points (VPs) when the game ends; this occurs either when one player has placed his twelfth card in his tableau or when the pre-set pool of point chips (12 per player) has been exhausted. Cards in your tableau are worth the number of VPs indicated on them (with some being variable based on other cards in your possession), and each chip is worth one point as well; ties are broken by produced goods and cards in hand, so the entire last round is finished even if someone meets an end condition before all of the phases are selected.

RftG utilizes a kind of passive/parasitic interaction between players that gives it a “confrontation-less” feel. Cards you have in your tableau usually provide additional bonuses and/or abilities during one or more phases, whether or not you were the one who selected the phase. For example, if you have cards in play that give you additional benefits during Explore phases, each time an opponent chooses to Explore for his own reasons you essentially leech off their choice to your advantage while still getting your own choice in the round. This interaction is so subtle, however, that many players have branded the game as “multiplayer solitaire”, which is true of most races when you think about it but also sort of missing the point. Successfully guessing what phases your opponents will select allows you to make a different choice and maximize your turn; conversely, you can sometimes hamstring a rival by choosing a phase other than the one he expects you to select. Then again, you could just ignore your opponents completely and just try to plow through to an end condition, hoping that your blitz has caught them in the middle of their potentially powerful yet inherently slower strategies.

While a group of experienced players can blast through a session of RftG in under half an hour, the tricky part is becoming an experienced player. RftG uses a seemingly-baffling array of symbols as shortcuts for the various cards’ costs and powers that can and will overwhelm first-time players. The symbology does follow an internal logic, however, and once you “learn the language” you won’t even need the reference cards included with the base game. This also provides the unintentional reward of no longer needing to tote around the game’s ridiculously oversized box; a game that is comprised of less than 150 cards and a few dozen cardboard chips comes in a box approximately the dimensions of a thick textbook due to the width of the reference cards and rule book. Once you’ve passed the need for those things, everything can be contained in a much smaller box, such as the one containing the first expansion, The Gathering Storm (TGS).

Expanding the playability of RftG up to five players, TGS shores up some intentional balance issues with the core game. In order to teach players all of the various strategies involved in the game, a few tactics in RftG were a bit lacking to prevent them from dominating play; mostly this consisted of the blitzing military strategy I alluded to earlier. These “restrictor plates” are removed with the addition of TGS, although the slower production strategies also have some powerful new tools at their disposal. Additional scoring opportunities are also introduced, offering bonuses for both the first player to meet a specific goal (e.g., settle three Alien worlds) and for whoever has the most of a specific type of card (e.g., four or more Development cards) at the end of the game. Finally, TGS also comes with rules (and specialized dice…) for a solitaire variant; while not quite a perfect recreation of human opponents, the “cardboard AI” is still quite challenging and worth checking out if you have the down time. A second expansion, Rebels vs. Imperium, is due later this year and is rumored to feature more direct interaction between players.

With or without its expansion(s), RftG is a fun, fast-playing game suitable for most ages (suggested 12+ due to the intense learning curve) that will probably see repeated play, often in the same gaming session. Scaling effortlessly from 2-4 players (or more with expansions), it should pay for its cost in sheer volume of play time within a month.

Images by GamerChris