Firefly Fluxx

David and I recently found the game Firefly Fluxx and it is just as much fun as one might expect. If you have played any version of Fluxx then you understand the basic mechanics of the game. Part of what is so wonderful about all the versions is the fact that you can just pick it up at any time.

The great part about playing the version based off of Firefly is all of the inside jokes and references. One of the little extra details that is great about the Firefly version is also the fact that there are quite a few ways to steal Keepers from each other; Wash gets Serenity, Zoe gets Wash, Simon gets River, etc. So since there is not much extra to talk about with the game here are some of my favorite cards from Firefly Fluxx.

International TableTop Day 2016! This year’s 12 games!

It’s our 4th International TableTop Day! We have spent each year of this event by recommending 12 games before, so here’s our games from 2013, 2014, and 2015. But it’s 12 whole different games for this year, so you can see all those after the jump. A couple of words about each, and if you have any questions, you’ll find some TableTop videos or you can ask us questions in the comments!

Gaming when you’re not Gaming

I love my games. I love the social time of playing a game, for sure. And the challenge while playing, for sure. But there’s more than that for me.

I love my game systems.

I love my deck building, my RPG builds, my character creation, my army building. For many games, maybe for most that have this sort of external component, I spend as much or more time on these aspects than I do actually playing the game.

My early experience was probably just in playing party-based video game RPGs. Figuring out which party would be best, creating the characters, playing a bit… then deciding there was something missing, and heading back to the drawing board.

It carried on into Magic: the Gathering. We would play at lunch at school, and whenever we could sneak a game. So we played most days… and most nights, I was home, changing my deck, or building from scratch. I would rebuild to try to meet my friends’ challenges, or to try out some new card I got, to try some interesting-seeming combo, or just to try to take them by surprise. You change it that often, and you change it for all the reasons you might…

I moved on from Magic to Warhammer, where I was constantly building new armies, new lists. Sometimes, that drove my purchases… sometimes, my purchases led to my army building. Oh, so many of those armies never got played – unlike Magic, I wasn’t getting anything close to daily games. It’s hard, then, to decide what to actually bring to bear when you do finally get a game in…

From there I moved on to MMOs, to Final Fantasy XI and then even moreso to World of Warcraft. In FFXI, you could switch around jobs on your one character, but you also always needed to be working with your party… so I didn’t need to strategize too much, but did some between gaming sessions with friends. In WoW, I did a lot of playing with friends, but also plenty on my own. You played different jobs by playing different characters, so lots of characters… and even more characters that I dreamed up, built skill trees for, and planned out all the way to maximum level. A moving target, as they released patches and expansions and changed the game…

So why am I saying all of this?

Completionism and Board Game Expansions

So when looking on Amazon, and trying to finish an order (used to be for free shipping, now more from trying to round out a gift card…), I usually look back through my ever-increasing wish list of board games and card games. Good stuff – some we’ve seen on TableTop, some we’ve played, some that are recommended.

And then, just a huge amount of expansions.

Expansions to board games is a growing and exploding market. They tend to add a lot to a game – not only in terms of content and new stuff and new rules and options, but replayability. Suddenly there’s so much going on with the game – often a bunch that you haven’t experienced, or haven’t experienced in combination – that it’s always great.

Recently we realized – we don’t actually have a complete game set. Well, maybe for Miskatonic School for Girls… we got the expansion for that.

Though we haven’t played this expansion yet…

In other words, we have this whole game because it only has one expansion! That’s a really low amount for games anymore. So let me consider a few that we could pursue because we are close or interested – then I’d love to know what you think, or if you have any complete games, in the comments below!

Interview: Platypus Con 2016!

The new Platypus Gaming logo (by Pat Race: http://alaskarobotics.com/)

While we haven’t been able to do as much this year with Platypus Con as we did last year (just going to throw the Geek Baby under the bus here and blame her…), we’re still excited for the convention – and it’s this coming weekend! The busy event organizer took a few minutes and answered some questions about the Con, now in its second year.

You can find more about Platypus Con on their site, Platypus Gaming, and you can buy tickets here.