Episode: 2136
Title: HPR2136: Fluxx Tabletop Game
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2136/hpr2136.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 14:48:03

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This is HPR episode 2,136 entitled Flux Tabletop Game.
It is hosted by Klaatu and is about 18 minutes long.
The summary is Klaatu Reviews the card game pirate Flux.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
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You're listening to our proposal for the radio, this is Klaatu episode 3 or 4 of my Tabletop gaming series.
Today I want to talk about Flux, specifically pirate Flux, but mostly Flux as a card game.
And Flux, if you've not played it, it's a great way to start with Tabletop gaming.
Flux is like the, it's the game that you should, it should be the first card game anyone gets,
really, like it's just absolutely or non-standard card game.
It's, you know, non-poker deck card game.
It's just, it's the absolute easiest way to get started with sort of like, you know, alternative
gaming possible.
And the reason that it's the easiest way to get started is that the rules are spelled out for you
as part of the game. It's like you draw, there are rule cards, there are cards with rules on them.
You set them on the table and that's those are the rules that you play by.
And as a consequence, the rules are constantly changing because there's not just, you know,
two rule cards, there's like several cards with rules on them.
So you, you can draw a card as part of your hand, which introduces a new rule.
And then you put that rule on the table and now the game shifts such that the goal of the game
or, or the sequence of play is different.
So Flux, it's, it's called that, I guess, because the, the rules are constantly fluctuating.
It's completely, completely variable, completely dynamic.
So the, you know, when you get the game, it's a very small, it's a smallish deck.
It's probably again, about 100 cards comes in a small little container, not, not a,
not a, not a big purchase, you know, it's like something that you can again kind of just throw
in a backpack and just take with you wherever. But you, you open up the box and the rule sheet is
like maybe one piece of paper, you know, like a postcard sized piece of paper. And it's, it's,
I mean, there were very few, it's, I think, maybe it's a bigger piece of paper. Either way,
it's a really easy way to get started. You just, you read the instructions. It's like, yes,
shuffle the cards, draw, draw two cards, or, you know, put, put the rule on the table and then
start playing. Like, that's it. There are, there are some, there are some subtleties.
There are some different kinds of cards that you, you want to get and, and little, little things
that you do have to do, but, but generally speaking, it kind of, it, it, it creates its own
gameplay as you play. Super easy to get started. So, okay, that's, yeah. A good game to start with
is what I'm trying to get across. The cool thing, the fun thing, maybe the silly thing about flux
is that there's a bunch of flavors of, of flux. So, if, you know, it doesn't matter what you're,
what kind of, what kind of fandom you are a part of as it were, there's going to be a flux
flavor for you. There's space flux. There's pirate flux. There's cthulhu flux. Lots and lots of
different fluxes. So, it doesn't really matter what, what kind of scene you're into. Like,
there's probably, at this point, there's probably a, a skin of a flux that will appeal to you.
The, the thing that, that me and my girlfriend were, we got the pirate flux one, and we got it
exclusively because it was a two-player game, or it could be a two-player game, and twisted fate.
It turns out that the first time we played it was with four players because we happened to be
at a bed and breakfast down on the South Island. And in the evening, we invited the, the bed and
breakfast owners to a card game and played flux. And it was a lot of fun. I mean, like, it was just
riotously entertaining. It was just, none of us had ever played it before. And I don't even think
we'd really played that many sort of themed card games before. Like, so it was, it was a very new
experience for everyone. And we read over the rules, kind of got the hang of the different kinds
of cards that there were. And I think there's like three different kinds. There are keeper cards,
there are surprise cards, and there are goal cards and rule cards. That's four different kinds.
And in a pinch, you don't even have to read the rules. Like, you can, you can almost just start playing
the game. So the typical gameplay is that the base rule card is placed on the table. And that's
always the same. It's draw one card and then play a card. Draw one, play one. That's the base rule set.
So on your turns, you draw a card from the deck and then you play a card. That is, that's it.
Now, a card can be, I guess, like I said, four different types. So there's a rule card, which
you can set down and create a new rule. Like, instead of drawing one, you draw three, or you draw
four, or you plunder a card from another player at the end of each turn, whatever. It could be a
goal card, which tells you how, what conditions there are to win. So maybe you need to collect
a ship, a pirate ship card and an ammunition card. Or maybe you need an island card and a
robot card, you know, like different, different conditions that say, oh, this person just won the game.
That's the goal card. There's a keeper card, which is like your treasure, essentially, or sometimes
it's a curse, but usually it's like treasure, something, something in your hand that you put down
on the table, face up, and that's what you have in your stash. And ideally, you'll eventually get
the right combination of keeper cards that matches up with the current goal of the game, and you win.
It's not always that easy, but that is essentially the goal of the game is to, to collect the
right number, the right combination of keeper cards that will end up making you the winner.
And then the other kind of card is a surprise card or an event card, and that lets you do something
extra, like maybe you can discard your entire hand, or maybe you get to cancel something that
another player has just attempted to do, or, you know, whatever. It's generally an out of turn,
you know, you get to spring it whenever you want to, kind of card. So the initial gameplay is
a little bit slow sometimes. So one of the things that me and my girlfriend do is that we
we instead of playing drawing one playing one, we draw two and play two straight away.
That gets the game going a little bit faster, because especially with two players,
just drawing one and playing one sometimes is just kind of like,
each player is drawing a bunch of keeper cards and just kind of like waiting for something to happen.
So speeding that initial rule up helps. But once the game kicks into gear, it's really fun,
and it's really frustrating, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat, because
everything's always changing. The rules are changing. The goal is changing. You know, you might
you might be playing to get whatever, like a ship and a Jolly Roger flag. Like, that's your goal,
right? Everything seems to be in place, and then suddenly your opponent plays a new goal,
and now you need a barrel and a bottle of rum, and everything that you've been trying to build up
completely falls apart. You've been stealing all these cards, trying, you know, set yourself up
for this one thing, and now all the it's completely different. And it's it's not all just changing
rules and goals. I mean, there are elements of surprise because there are these event cards where
you can force a player to walk the plank, which is just fancy pirate flux terms for discarding
their entire hand. And that could screw them over, because if they've got a hand and they've
been saving this one special card, you know, for the right moment, now you're forcing them to
discard it, that could screw up your opponent's strategy, or you might be able to draw cards and
then distribute them to other players, or you lose all their, you know, you force a player to lose
all their treasure, their keepers, all kinds of extra little event things. And there's like a captain's
hat, which grants the player a few privileges under certain conditions, and a treasure map that
permits players to sort of hide and protect their some of their keeper cards. So yeah, there's
there are a couple of little mechanics in there that get thrown in to make the game more than
just kind of a go fish with changing rule game. It's, there's some strategies in there that you
get to, you get to explore. With pirate flux, also, there's probably the best things that talk like a
pirate rule, which is if you talk like a pirate for one round, then you get a bonus draw at the end
of your hand. I don't know if there are equivalents to that kind of wacky rule in the other
flavors of flux or not, but it was definitely a fun rule to get played in a in a four-player
setting that was pretty hilarious. So it's a good fun game like it it encourages people to
just kind of be silly and to and to really just kind of get into the game.
Are there problems with the game? There are some issues with the game design I would I would
hazard to say. First of all, the the card game itself burns through cards pretty fast. I mean,
especially if you've got something like draw for or play for in play, you go through a deck that
you're rotating through the deck really, really fast, especially with like four players. It just,
it goes by in no time, which means that you're going to start to see repetition and there are
expansion packs and I think there are blank card sets so that you can invent your own rules,
little things like that, but that is a danger, I guess, of just kind of like the basic game
on its own. It's it's kind of, it goes through cards really, really quickly, potentially,
and sometimes the freshness does not last for all that long. And yes, the rules are changing
all the time, but it's it's not really changing all that much if you really think about it. I mean,
there's really only a couple of different variations that you're going to see. You know, it's like,
do I draw one or do I draw three or draw four or draw whatever? You know, it's it's like how many
are you drawing? How many are you playing? And that's really kind of the honestly, that's that's what
it would boil down to on almost every rule change. I mean, even things that are like you get the draw
and extra card at the end of your turn. I mean, that's that's great, but again, that's kind of like
that's another variation on the theme of how many cards do you get to play? So yes, the rules change,
but after a while you start to kind of get the feel for, you know, the rules don't really change. Now,
the goals, you know, technically, they do change, but again, it's it's usually the same thing as like
instead of these two items, you need these two items, you know, that kind of stuff. So it's yeah,
the rules and the goals change, but it's all within the same vein. I don't know what the answer
to that is, like, I don't know of a of a very of a I don't know how to make that better. It's just
something to look out for in terms of when you're playing, especially with two players, that's I think
that's when the repetition in a card game really becomes apparent as we boil it down to two players
because it's just, you know, there's there's there's almost a lack of randomness there. It's just like
these two players that you know, and you know that every con everything that's going to be played
negatively is going to be against you and everything that's going to be played positively is going
to be on them. And it's just it's very sort of like it's yeah, it starts to there, there's no
entropy there, you know, so that's difficult and I don't fault this game really for that. It's just
something to be aware of. Penalties are sometimes some something that aren't really
there and I keep trying to think of some way that incorporate a penalty into the game kind of like
what if you had to talk like a pirate under certain circumstances or maybe you have to
you know, you have to do some act at some point during the game or else something happens,
you know, something bad happens to your hand. That there's not really ever any
any consequence really. I mean there are some cards that you can draw that that do hinder you.
There's a curse or scurvy I think is what it's called and you can't win if you are holding
the scurvy card you need to get a citrus card in order to cancel out your scurvy or something
like that. So I mean there there are things that that sort of go into the negative but it's just
a couple of things here and there and it feels like there could be more there's a potential there
I think for something a little bit extra little bit something something to throw some some some
negative effects into the into the gameplay but again I haven't actually figured anything out
yet. It would also be interesting I don't know if anyone's done this before and I don't even know
if it's even possible but I would I would kind of just wonder if you could possibly mix flux deck
decks like flavors of flux like could you play for instance the pirate flux with the cthulhu flux
deck you know could you could you mix the decks and have something even wilder and crazier
something that maybe blank cards could also basically be a substitute for but but it would be
kind of interesting to see if that was a possibility but I only have pirate flux so I don't know if
that's even a I don't know how similar they are or how compatible they are but I mean those are
just critiques that I kind of had to come up with in the interest of coming up with ideas that
you know maybe ways to make it better overall the games a lot of fun and as a two player game
it works quite well it's a lot of fun I have no you know nothing really against it it's something
that that I still play very frequently with my girlfriend and we've had it for like a year it's
it's you know it's it's one of those that we we come back to very frequently so it's it definitely
doesn't break with two players it's I'm gonna say it is better with four but but it it totally
works as two player game it's a lot of fun it's really easy to get started with and it's also one
of those like it's simple enough that if you're in a group situation and you're not necessarily
you know people aren't necessarily like hey what should we we should all play a game now what should
we play it fluxes a pretty easy one just sort of spring on people and and say hey you guys want
to play a card game this is like really fun and really wacky and and easy and it's you know it's
kind of like I don't know a safe card game to to start with you know it's kind of like non-threatening
it's not too geeky you know it's it's it's easy it's fun it's just a wacky party game don't worry
about it so yeah it's flux I highly recommend it's if if you're new to tabletop gaming or if you
just want something simple and kind of easy to get started with flux is something to look at
so go look for a flavor that appeals to you and try it out
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