Firefly Fluxx Card Game How to Play & Review

Firefly Fluxx is a Hand Management, Set Collection game.

Title: Firefly Fluxx

Year Published: 2016

Designer: Andrew Looney

Publisher: Looney Labs

Players: 2-6

Game Time: 5-30

Set-up Time: ~1 min

Ages: 8+

Theme: Firefly ‘verse.

Mechanism: Hand Management, Set Collection, Take That

How to win: Complete the current win condition.

Game Description

Join Mal, Wash, Zoë, Inara, Kaylee, Jayne, Simon, River, Book, and more as Fluxx enters the ‘Verse at full speed. With the rules constantly changing, Firefly Fluxx is just as unpredictable as misbehaving in space!

Firefly Fluxx Set-Up

Put the Basic Rules card in the middle of the table, shuffle the deck and deal 3 cards to each player. Put the deck next to the Basic Rules card…

If you have any ‘Creepers’ in your opening hand, place them in front of you in your play area and draw a replacement card. (More on Creepers later)

Once everyone has 3 non-Creeper cards in their hand, the setup is complete!

The start player is the person that starts playing first!

Firefly Fluxx Game Play

At the start of the game (most of) the rules needed are printed on the Basic Rules card… Draw 1, Play 1. So for now, draw 1 card then play any card from your hand.

There are 6 different types of cards, New Rule, Goal, Keeper, Action, Creeper and Surprise.

New Rule

These, as you would imagine, add New Rules to the game and are played near the Basic rule card. If a rule already in play is contradicted by this rule, discard it.

The New Rule is in play immediately so if you play a card that allows you to draw cards, do so immediately.

Goal

These give some kind of End Game condition, usually by having a certain combination of Keepers. These are also played in the middle of the table and the rules start that you can only have one Goal card in play at a time so if one is there already, discard it. Goals are available to every player.

Keeper

These are played in front of you and are used to try and achieve the current goal. Some have abilities so you need to have them in play in front of you to use that ability.

Action

Action cards are one use, they activate and are discarded. They all have different abilities that allow you to do a lot of things. Actions include drawing cards and playing some of them, stealing Keppers, discarding rules etc

Creeper

These are the cards that MUST be played and replaced in your hand with a new card when you draw them at any time, even as part of an action card. They prevent you from winning the game so you usually need to get rid of them from your play area before you’re able to win.

Surprise

These are the ONLY cards that can be played out of turn. They are generally ‘Counterspell’ type cards that prevent an opponent from playing an Action or Keeper card but also have other nasty effects.

Once a player has played a number of cards required to fulfil the current ‘Play’ rule, the turn continues clockwise.

If the draw pile ever runs out just shuffle the discard pile into a new deck and keep going.

Players can join the game at any time, just sit them down and give them 3 cards.

Game End

The game continues until someone meets the conditions of the current Goal. That player wins instantly, no matter whose turn it is!

The game doesn’t end until there is a clear winner. If for some reason two or more players meet the winning conditions simultaneously, the game continues until a single winner emerges.

Round-Up

Fluxx is random yes… But it’s a lot of fun just playing it with fun people.

You CAN win by pure luck, you can also win the first turn on an exceptional card draw… But usually, if you win it’s because you played the game well. (Honestly, it’s true!)

Having the Firefly characters etc is great and lets you quote lines from the show.

One card here is annoying though, the ‘I’ll be in my Bunk‘ card…

Just leave the room… having said that I wish a lot of games had one of these cards sometimes!

Overall Fluxx is a big reason I got into the hobby, Firefly is one of my favourite IP so put those together and you’ve got one happy chappie 🙂

Firefly Fluxx Rating

Best in this series. (Helps if you like Firefly :))

I give it 6/10