Family Game Night – Oz Fluxx

 We haven’t exactly formalized it, but Thursday evenings seem to be the night of the week when one of us says, “Hey, why don’t we play some games tonight?” Last night was no exception.

Shortly before I got off work for the day, I got a text from my wife, Michelle, saying that she wanted to play some games (and for me to make her a raspberry mojito) after our youngest son went to bed.  I stopped by my local game store on the way home just to see if there was anything new that I needed and discovered that there was a big Magic the Gathering event going on. Since the store was so busy, which is actually pretty awesome, I decided to head home and play with the games we already own.

With dinner cleaned up, and our toddler in bed having dreams of adventures in a red rocketship, Michelle, Jackson and I sat around the table and started in on a game of Oz Fluxx.

Fluxx is a seriously addictive game where you start out with a simple game of draw one card and play one card each turn. As the game goes on, addition rule cards are played that change the number of cards drawn the number of cards played and the number of cards you can have in your hand, and that’s just naming a few. At one point last night, we were drawing five cards and playing three of them on every turn. There are goal cards that are played to determine which “Keepers” a player has to have in play in order to win. Those goals normally change pretty often. It is a really fun game that seems complicated, until you start playing; then it’s just a lot of fun.

Oz Fluxx is a Wizard of Oz themed Fluxx deck. But it’s definitely not just original recipe Fluxx redressed to trick you into buying the same game twice.  There is a new category of card added called ‘Surprise!’ cards that can be played out of turn and do fun things like cancel a new goal that was just played, or swiping a “Keeper” that has just been played. There is also a card that lets you draw an extra card and play it immediately, but you have to click your heels together three times first.

Our game last night was, unsurprisingly, a lot of fun. About fifteen minutes into the game, Jackson put down a goal that had effectively won him the game, but Michelle had the “Canceled Plans” surprise card and the goal he had played to win went directly to the discard pile. After a few more close calls and about another thirty minutes, I managed to win our game of Oz Fluxx with the Wicked Witch of the West and her broom. Duh-nuh-nuht-nuh-nuh-nuh!

Oz Fluxx is a great game for enticing non-gamers, particularly those of the female variety, to come to the table and play. It’s not overtly nerdy with its lack of dragons, zombies or even alien spacecraft. I knew when I bought it I’d be more likely to get Michelle into a game of Oz Fluxx than Zombie Fluxx… I’m pretty sure I was right, since this is the first game Michelle requests when we sit down to play games.

We did go on to play a few more of our favorites, including a game of Poo wherein Jackson assaulted Michelle with a relentless barrage theoretical poo as revenge for canceling his win in Oz Fluxx. Also two games of Seven Dragon that were both won by my brother-in-law, Mike who joined us after the first game of Oz Fluxx. I’ll go over each of these games in future posts.

If anyone has a favorite variety of Fluxx that they’d like to share, I’d love to hear about. Comment on this post or email me at whatboardgame@gmail.com.

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