How well did you know the Original Writer’s work?
Let’s see how we did.
All 6 correct) Like Moore you’re an OW. Now you just have to work on your beard.
4-5 correct) Remember, remember the Fifth of November…you’re a little early this year but you don’t mind waiting.
2-3 correct) Have you ever had a really bad day? Besides today that is.
0-1 correct) Good news: you always keep a smile on your face. Bad news: there’s a bullet hole in your forehead.
Designer: Andrew Looney
Publisher: Looney Labs
Date Released: 2007
Number of Players: 2-6
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: none
Play Time: 10-20 minutes
Game Mechanics:
Hand Management
Set Collection
Take That
Game flow and Review:
Zombie Fluxx is part of the Fluxx series of card games with ever-changing rules. So essentially, it’s zombie flavored Fluxx. But it has the most interesting card type: Ungoal. The players don’t win. The zombies win.
If you haven’t played Fluxx before, it’s a fast-paced card game where the cards themselves determine the current rules of the game. Each game starts with the following rules: draw a card and play a card. But you add to the rules as you go. One player may add play three cards a turn, another may have you draw five cards instead of one, and another still may place a hand limit on all players.
There are six card types: new rules, goals, actions, keepers, creepers, and the type unique to Zombie Fluxx, the ungoal. I explained the new rules already, so let’s get to the next card type, goals. Goals are cards that allow you to win the game. All you have to do is meet the conditions on the card—usually these conditions are what cards (keepers and maybe even creepers) are in front of you at the time—and you win.
Action cards are fairly straightforward. You play the card, do what it says, and then discard it. But these cards can be very useful. Some give you more draw power, grant you the ability to steal a keeper, or allow you to play more cards than your limit for the turn, which in turn gives you more opportunities to play goals, new rules or keeper cards.
You play keeper cards in front of you. Most of them don’t have any special effect—they just count toward your keeper tally when a goal is in play—but some do have some effects. Weapons like a fire axe can be used to kill off zombies. And there are plenty of zombies in this game.
In other versions of Fluxx, creepers can be any nasty thing you don’t want around, but since this is Zombie Fluxx, all the creepers are zombies. When you draw into a creeper, you have to play it immediately. The creeper doesn’t count as a card you drew this turn or a card you played, so you’ll have to draw and play another card to make up for any creepers.
There are some goals that allow you to win with a creeper (zombie) or two, but you have to be careful in this game. Zombie Fluxx has the aforementioned ungoal. When you draw into the ungoal, you have to play it immediately. If there are a certain number of zombies on the table, the zombies win.
Zombie Fluxx takes the manic pace and quirkiness of the original Fluxx and gives it a zombie twist. Classic horror and zombie movie tropes appear throughout the game. One type of keeper you can play into is the friend, but your friends can get infected. There is an action card entitled “if I ever turn into one of those things, shoot me” that allows you to discard your zombified friend.
As with most Fluxx games, Zombie Fluxx moves too fast to have a true strategy to win the game, but that’s not the point of the game. Like the zombies it emulates, Zombie Fluxx is mindless fun. My father played this game and since he’s contrary by nature, he played so the zombies would win. That’s another way to play this game too.
Verdict: You may not have to show off your big “brain” for strategy, but you’ll have fun with this quirky, zombified adaptation of Fluxx.
Designer: Steve Jackson
Publisher: Steve Jackson Games
Date Released: 2010
Number of Players: 2-6
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: none
Play Time: Less than10 minutes
Game Mechanics:
Dice Rolling
Game flow and Review:
You’re a cultist serving Cthulhu, and life’s good. It’d be great if you didn’t have to worry about all those other pesky cultists out to get your marbles.
You have to be the last, sane man standing, and you can lose sanity real quick in Cthulhu Dice. There’s no set-up what so ever. You get one beautiful custom 12-sided die, engraved with tentacles, Elder Signs, and even the visage of Cthulhu himself.
Each player starts this lightning-fast game with three glass marbles, representing their sanity, and then each player challenges another player, rolls the Cthulhu die and takes an action determined by what they rolled.
If you rolled a yellow sign on your turn, your target player loses 1sanity to Cthulhu (they have to push a sanity marble to the center of the table). If you roll a tentacle, you steal a sanity from your chosen player. Elders sign: gain 1 sanity from Cthulhu (if there’s one to grab). Cthulhu: everyone loses 1 sanity. And the all-seeing Eye allows you to pick your result.
This game is so easy to learn with very few rules, that anyone can play and enjoy it. If you’re looking for something more substantial, you won’t find it with Cthulhu Dice. But if you’re looking for a great, casual game with a fantastic theme and no set up, Cthulhu Dice is your game.
Verdict: You won’t lose your marbles trying to learn this game, but the quick play and easy to learn rules will have you robbing your opponents of their marbles in no time.
Constantine
Kyle’s Review
Constantine drops us in the middle of the story, which is something that’s missing from a lot of this year’s new shows, and I like the move. We do get a lot of exposition, mostly from the angel Manny (played by Harold Perrineau of Lost fame). In fact, Manny feeds us so much exposition with his dialogue that it’s safe to call him the Archangel of Exposition. Still, he’s a likable character, and I dig his wings.
Matt Ryan does a great job as John Constantine. It makes sense that the hellblazing, conman/occult detective would have an English accent. Sure, he has some hackneyed dialogue, but he pulls off the character well enough because we see him as flawed, and that’s always more interesting than someone who has their act together. And we see enough of the character in action to get a sense of what makes him effective—complete with a few instances of fast talking, quick thinking, and swindling.
My only real issues with the Constantine character so far is that he’s supposed to be a smoker, but television doesn’t allow smoking on a primetime show, so this really isn’t an indictment of the show.
But Constantine still carries a cigarette lighter. I guess he keeps it handy so he can set things on fire. I just hope they don’t use the John Constantine has lung cancer story arc. It won’t make any sense. John does drink like a fish. Perhaps they’ll make him contract liver disease. Oh, and I don’t get why Constantine would need a business card for what he does except to spawn more exposition about who he is and what he does.
The rest of the supporting cast does a fine, if not a bit shaky, job. Charles Halford as Chas is solid, but Lucy Griffiths slips into her British accent from time to time as Liv Aberdine, when Liv is supposed to be from Atlanta.
And I’m not as sure of Atlanta as the setting. Constantine travels the world, so most locations make sense and I can see why you wouldn’t want to set the show in London (there’s a long line), New York (too many shows), or Los Angeles (it’s all about the Benjamins), but I can’t help but think that they chose Atlanta because The Walking Dead has done well in Georgia so far, so let’s do what they’re doing. Still, the setting works for the most part.
The pilot works for the most part. It’s enjoyable. Unlike The Flash, Constantine’s flashbacks are smoother. The special effects are top notch—but we expected that—and I love the Easter eggs throughout the show. Minor spoiler: we get a hint at Dr. Fate. Constantine bought my attention for the foreseeable future.
Verdict: A solid pilot for a show that exhibits promise.
Grimm
Kyle’s Review
I was skeptical of the new season of Grimm given how last season ended, but they pulled off an okay show. Nick (played by David Giuntoli) actually had to use some detective skills. He didn’t do as much in this arena as I would’ve liked, but he did concoct a way to work around his lack of Grimm abilities. But I loved how Juliette (Bitsie Tulloch) drew attention to the fact that Nick used to be a good detective and he needed to get back to doing what he did best.
Trubel (pronounced trouble and played by Jacqueline Toboni) is the only Grimm in town, and she isn’t as annoying as I’d thought she’d be this season as the substitute Grimm, but I still don’t think she’s long for the show. As soon as Nick gets his Grimm on, she’s out the door or the cell.
I had forgotten that Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz) was shot last season. His character had been relegated to window dressing and as soon as the royal story arc ends, I’m not sure he continues with the show. And I got a lot of “he or she won’t be on the show much longer” in this episode, so I fear that the creative team will shake up things with a dreaded line-up change after a less than stellar season last year.
And speaking of last than stellar, I’m not buying a lot of things in this episode. Sergeant Wu’s (Reggie Lee) story arc about him learning about the supernatural doesn’t interest me. There are far too many characters who already know about this “other” world, and Wu hasn’t been the same character since they took him from the realm of comic relief to a brooding police officer. I get why Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) and Rosalee (Bree Turner) would cancel their honeymoon, but the entire exchange felt forced, and I don’t know how to gauge Juliette’s response to Nick sleeping with Adalind (Claire Coffee). Again, I could see how she would, but there was a least one moment when I though Juliette was actually Adalind in disguise.
There was a new wesen this week, but I appreciate what they did with the octopus man, a dude with an octopus for a face. His power to suck memories from people actually comes with a price. After dining on a male victim, sapping his memories from him, the male victim’s girlfriend enters the house. Octodude tells the woman that she shouldn’t have been back from her vacation yet, and he looked upset that he’d have to take her life; so apparently, Octodude gained more than his victim’s memories. He gained fondness for the man’s girlfriend as result of the memories he took.
It was an uneven show that posed more questions than answers, but Grimm did cut out a lot of soap opera elements that dragged down last season. We’ll have to see what’s in store next week.
Verdict: Off to a rocky but interesting start.
Designer: Jason C. Hill
Publisher: Flying Frog Productions
Date Released: 2007
Number of Players: 2-6 (but it works best with 5)
Age Range: 12 and up
Setup Time: less than 15 minutes
Play Time: about 90 minutes
Game Mechanics:
Dice Rolling
Hand Management
Modular Board
Partnerships
Game flow and Review:
You take the role of either a small-town hero or a zombie horde in this survival horror board game.
Each game begins with a team of four heroes—if you have 4 or fewer players, some players will have to play more than one hero—and the zombies are controlled by 1 or 2 players. The players pick their heroes—I prefer a blind draw for this so you get some odd hero choices—or color of zombie horde (one horde’s brown, while the other’s green), and then you choose or draw a scenario.
While there are only five scenarios, each game of Last Night on Earth varies, because you’re playing on a modular board, which changes the layout of the town and start positions of each hero. You may find yourself burning down the barn or escaping in a truck or going berserk and trying to kill as many zombies as you can before the sun rises.
There are two decks—a hero and a zombie deck—that give tactical bonuses to each side. Players resolve combat by using 6-sided dice, but you can find a weapon in the hero deck, and that weapon can modify your combat roll.
The game uses photographic artwork that makes you feel like you’re in a horror movie, and Last Night on Earth draws from as many horror/zombie movie tropes as it can, including a card titled “Last Night on Earth.”
One game I played as Jenny, The Farmer’s Daughter, while my cousin Chris played Father Joseph, Man of the Cloth. My son—playing as the zombies because who wouldn’t want to play zombies?—drew into the “Last Night on Earth” card and played it. It’s effect had me and my cousin lose a turn: we were playing characters of opposite genders, occupying the same space on the board, and according to the card, our characters wanted to spend some “quality” time with each other because “this could be our last night on earth.”
I never saw my cousin turn that red, and my son couldn’t stop laughing.
You’ll find other fun tropes in this epitome of a thematic game. I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of strategy to this game—just a lot of dumb luck—but it doesn’t matter. If you have a love of horror or zombie films, you should give Last Night on Earth a shot.
Verdict: An enjoyable thriller of a thematic game that changes gameplay each time with its scenarios and modular board. The missions may be straightforward, but you shouldn’t care. It’s all about playing in a zombie movie.
We’re running out of catch phrases for this month, so we thought we’d take you back to 1966 and the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman movie. 1966’s Batman had a lot of memorable lines, but you have to love Robin’s Holy Fill-in-the-Blank lines. We compiled a list of these Robin lines. Some of these are lines Robin said in the movie. Some of these aren’t. Can you guess which ones are real?
1) Holy horseshoe.
2) Holy Long John Silver.
3) Holy marathon. I’m getting a stitch, Batman.
4) Holy sardine.
5) Holy heart failure, Batman.
6) Holy Houdini.
7) Holy Polaris, Batman.
8) Holy costume party.
9) Holy nightmare.
10) Wow! Holy bikini.
11) Holy jumble.
Actually, Robin said all of these phrases in the 1966 movie. We can hear your groans from here. Gotta run.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who he is: The Wildman of the Multiverse and a card carrying member of the Prime Wardens who protect the Multiverse from Akash’Bhuta.
Innate Power: Crush: Haka deals 1 target 2 melee damage.
Primary Damage Type: Melee
Secondary Damage Type: Toxic
Nemesis: Ambuscade and The Hippo
Deck Concept: Haka hits things…hard. He’s the prototypical melee bruiser and can absorb a ton of damage. He’s got a lot of card draw too, and he even has a fair amount control, particularly Ground Pound.
Deck Strength: Haka has insane card draw, flying through his deck at least once a game. This ability allows him to draw into his more powerful attacks and can even power up one of his best attacks, Haka of Battle. You’ll want to work your way to Haka of Battle or Savage Mana as they both pack a wallop.
Best Team Support Card: Ground Pound: When this card enters play, discard 2 cards. Non-hero cards cannot deal damage. At the start of your turn, destroy this card.
Best Personal Support Card: Haka of Battle: Draw 2 cards, then discard 1 or more cards. Increase the next damage dealt by Haka by 1 for each card discarded this way.
Best Attack: Savage Mana: Whenever damage dealt by Haka destroys a target, you may put that card beneath this card. Power: Destroy all cards beneath this card. Haka deals 1 target 2 toxic damage for each card destroyed this way.
Deck Weakness: Haka can’t destroy ongoing or environment cards. That’s a problem. You don’t always need ongoing destruction, but it’s nice to have, so you’ll want Haka to team up with someone with a fair amount of ongoing destruction. He also only deals melee damage which can be problematic when a villain has melee damage immunity. But you can counter both shortcomings by selecting the right teammates.
Worst Card: Enduring Intercession: Any damage that would be dealt to a hero target by an environment card is redirected to Haka. Power: Destroy this card.
Ultimate Team-up: As mentioned before, Haka pairs well with anyone who has ongoing destruction. You don’t have to go full on Fanatic—she can help with her End of Days card—but someone with this ability works nicely. Bonus damage and extra cards always help, but the best thing one of Haka’s teammates can do is weaken villain and environment targets before he finishes them off with Punish the Weak or Savage Mana. We’re talking global damage. Bunker has an interesting combo with Haka. His Ammo Drop allows him to draw a card for every target Haka kills, and this ability could get nuts if Haka pulls off his Savage Mana move.
First Appearance: Sentinels of the Multiverse: Base Game
Who she is: An angel of vengeance and a card carrying member of the Prime Wardens who protect the Multiverse from Akash’Bhuta.
Innate Power: Exorcism: Fanatic deals 1 target 1 melee damage and 1 radiant damage
Primary Damage Type: Radiant
Secondary Damage Type: Melee
Nemesis: Apostate
Deck Concept: Playing Fanatic’s deck is like playing with holy fire. She deals a heap of damage by giving herself damage, but any damage he receives could come back to haunt the villain. You have to save Fanatic from herself with Aegis of Resurrection before getting too crazy with damage cards. She also has some of the most ridiculous control cards in the game. Most notably, End of Days with its power: At the start of the environment turn, destroy all cards in play, except for the hero and villain character cards.
Deck Strength: Damage, damage, and more damage, but she does have some interesting support cards that can help her teammates—my favorites are Chastise and Embolden—that offer control. Even End of Days has its time, place, and perfect team-up. Fanatic’s deck feels like an all-or-nothing proposition. You’re either killing villains left and right or you’re out early game.
Best Team Support Card: Embolden: Play this card in front of a hero character card. That hero may use an additional power during their power phase. At the end of that hero’s turn, either Fanatic deals them 2 radiant damage or this card is destroyed.
Best Personal Support Card: Aegis of Resurrection: When Fanatic drops to 0 or fewer HP, restore Fanatic to 10 HP. Destroy this card.
Best Attack: Wrathful Retribution: Discard 3 cards. If you do, Fanatic deals 1 target X radiant damage, where X = Fanatic’s maximum HP minus her current HP.
Deck Weakness: Fanatic can be her own worst enemy. She almost needs someone who can heal her or can redirect damage from her at times. She also has a single point of failure to her deck. Aegis of Resurrection is an equipment card, and as such she can’t afford to lose it as a result of villain or environment card effects.
Worst Card: Brutal Censure: Fanatic deals 1 target 2 radiant damage. You may draw a card.
Ultimate Team-up: Visionary gives card draw and damage buff with her card Twisting the Ether, so she’s an obvious teammate for Fanatic. Legacy’s another one who works well with Fanatic. He damage buffs naturally, but he can also assume some of Fanatic’s damage, so she doesn’t knock herself out. Ra loves the extra power Fanatic’s Embolden, while Fanatic doesn’t mind the extra damage Ra’s Imbue Fire gives her. Then there’s Unity. Fanatic can play End of Days, destroy all ongoing cards, but Unity’s Bee Bot can discard an ongoing card like End of Days, so you can pick and choose which ongoing cards are destroyed, saving all the heroes’ equipment, while discarding all pesky environment and villain cards.
Taken from the phrase some players utter when they play these types of games, Take That games have holdings, which are often played from a hand of cards or assigned at the game’s start, on the table in front of each player. During the course of play, you must destroy or steal these holdings, while holding on to your holdings. Usually, players choose who their targets are, and you get a free-for-all or last-man-standing style of play.
Fluxx is perhaps the most popular Take That game on the market. You play “Keepers” from your hand and either try to destroy other players’ Keepers or steal them to meet an ever-changing goal.
jkgeekly.com 