Just Desserts is no Fluxx

 My journey with Just Desserts is more interesting than It has any right to be.

You see, at some point, Looney Labs was selling or giving away beta copies of the game. I want to say 2008 but I’m honestly not sure about that. It came as uncut sheets of cards.

Now, if I were to get something like that today. I would get out a paper cutter, cut everything out and laminate the lot. But when I got those sheets, that was completely outside my wheelhouse. So I just hung onto the sheets. I might even still have them somewhere. 

So it’s a game that I’ve been aware of and been interested in for a while. But it took the solitary option on Board Game Arena for me to actually try the game out.

The game consists of two decks of cards. One deck is deserts that each have one to four symbols. There are ten different symbols and are things like chocolate and nuts and spices and so on. The other deck is customers who each have specific symbol requirements, including sometimes having restrictions. Some folks are allergic to peanuts after all.

It’s a game about delivering orders. While every customer has a favorite desert that fills all their requirements, you’re usually going to have to use multiple cards to serve one customer.

I’m not bothering to go into much details it’s honestly a game that you can figure out how it works just by looking at the cards. 

I’m honestly of two minds about Just Desserts.

On the one hand, I think it has some legitimate mechanical issues. Ten symbols are a lot to juggle, particularly in a game this light. Ten symbols makes hand management mostly guess work. Being able to serve a customer becomes very luck based.

Comparing Just Desserts to Looney Labs’ flagship game Fluxx, a game famously random, I feel Just Desserts is more random with meaningfully less strategy. (Admittedly, one of the major strategies of Fluxx is churn through the deck but that’s still a strategy)

On the other hand, I do enjoy the process of the game and I like how intuitive the game play is. And I also like the card art. The game just has a good feel.

I will go back to it on BGA but if I were buying a Looney Labs card game, I’d pick a flavor of Fluxx I don’t have. That would have more success at the table.

Converge, Fluxx and design structure

 I’ve been teaching myself Converge via the Aspects of Vision solo module, a process that has been both simpler and weirder than I expected. I don’t know if two-player or one-player is better but I am sure two-player is more intuitive.

So the cards are multi-use. Basically, you can play cards in front of a player as part of a tableau, in the middle as a goal and discard cards to do an action. And it felt so familiar, like a framework I knew well, but I couldn’t figure out why.

Then I realized that that Converge follows a very similar structure to Looney Labs’ Fluxx! You lay out keepers like you add to tableaus. Action cards are the same as  discarding for an effect. And goals are, well, goals.

There are clearly significant differences. There is no equivalent to New Rule cards in Converge, which is honestly the distinct element of Fluxx. The goals of Converge are much more structured. Converge is its own beast, not a reskin of Fluxx, obviously. But it did give me a hook to understanding the structure of Converge.

(I do think Fluxx is underestimated. There is a tight structure to that chaos. Then again, it’s remained in print for over twenty years and has more versions than Baskin Robins has flavors so it’s doing pretty well)

It will take a while for me to process Converge, largely due to its publication structure. There are three sets, each with three factions. (Every card in a faction has the same discard power) A game uses three factions but it can be a mix of any three factions.

Are the factions bundled together in preferred combinations? With only three actions in a specific game, are there going to be combinations that are particularly strong or even unbalanced? Will I play it enough to find out?

I backed the Kickstarter so I have all three sets, plus the solo module. I made a copy of Catalysts of Change since it seemed to be the base set to try the system out. After that, I have decided to make the other two sets. Even though I haven’t decided if I like it or not lol.

Converge is an interesting enough idea that I want to see how much long term value it has. I’ve gotten close to twenty years out of Fluxx.

Was Eco Fluxx the shape of things to come?

It’s been a while since I’ve bought a version of Fluxx. Since I have at least six different versions, I already have more than enough ways of playing Fluxx, barring special occasions. However, in a couple years, I know I’ll hopefully be buying some more versions of Fluxx, the educational ones.

Out there, threatening to combine education and entertainment and chaos are Math Fluxx, Chemistry Fluxx and Anatomy Fluxx. If our now-in-Kindergarten son shows the slightest interest in Fluxx when he’s older, I am so getting them. In particular, I am quite curious about Math Fluxx since the Fluxx format seems ripe for fooling around with arithmetic.

However, a good twelve years before any of those games came out, Looney Labs put out what was a precursor for the other educational versions of Fluxx, Eco Fluxx. Which is now known as Nature Fluxx. And I feel like I should revisit it.

I have the original 2005 version. As I understand it, there was a second edition of Eco Fluxx which became Nature Fluxx that added more cards, including creepers which hadn’t been released when the original version came out. Which sounds really cool but I have the original version so that’s the one I’m going to try and get back on the table.

At the time, one of the defining traits of Fluxx was the retro art. While I will argue that Fluxx isn’t about funny cards but funny processes, that art gave the game a definite feel. Eco Fluxx broke away from with more realistic art of plants and animals. And that realistic art of Eco Fluxx gave a more serious feel.

And the goals also reflected that more serious tone, using food chains and weather and other natural processes to provide examples of nature at work, albeit in a very simple way.

And you know what? The game still worked. It had a different mood and the few times I played it were more serious but it was still a good experience. 

I expect that if and when I try the later educational Fluxx games, I’ll find them a bit more educational and focused. However, looking back, Eco Fluxx showed that the format could do more that just be goofy (but fun) pop art.

Fluxx goes to school

While I appreciate Fluxx and I continue to play Fluxx, I haven't been inclined to buy a new version in quite a few years. It is interesting when they throw in some new mechanics but lets be honest. The structure and the system of Fluxx pretty much remains the same.

In fact, the two versions I've played the most, other than the original deck which I bought and played until it practically fell apart are Family Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx. Family Fluxx is the simplest version with the smallest deck so it's the easiest way to make sure you get in a quick game. Zombie Fluxx, which introduced Creepers, was the first one that really felt thematic for me.

But two of the upcoming versions of Fluxx really interest me. Math Fluxx and Chemistry Fluxx. Versions of Fluxx that are specifically designed to be educational.

(Looney Labs is also reprinting Stoner Fluxx and coming out with Drinking Fluxx under their new imprint that is specifically for older players. While neither of those topics offend me, I do like that they are under this new Fully Baked line. That seems very responsible to me and respectful of their audience)

I am very curious to see how this plays out and how well it does teaching either of these topics. Chemistry in particular. Any time you look at a game that's supposed to be educational, the two questions that you have to ask are "Is this a game I would ever want to play?" and "Does it really teach anything?"

And, yes, I'm going to wait and read reviews before I get either of those games. Although I was planning on buying no new games in 2017 so I'd be waiting until 2018 anyway.

I really am curious. While it had a reputation about being random, Fluxx really isn't a random game per se. It's not a game where you are making up rules. It is definitely not Nomic, which is _the_ game of creating rules. Instead, Fluxx has a very distinct framework and playing the game is using that framework. So it definitely has the potential to be educational.

Mind you, Nature Fluxx already tackled being educational back in 2005. I found it interesting but it didn't challenge Family or Zombie Fluxx for plays. But I think Math or Chemistry might be more suitable for Fluxx's framework.

Of course, I'm a dad now. My son is still a toddler, which means he's not ready for Fluxx. After all, you have to be able to read :P But will games like Math Fluxx or Chemistry Fluxx be educational and fun to him in the future?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/8/fluxx