Tag Archives: Monty Python’s Flying Circus

PuzzleNation Product Review: Batman Fluxx

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batman-fluxx

The folks at Looney Labs specialize in games with high replay value and dynamic gameplay, and no game epitomizes their gaming spirit more than Fluxx. With its constantly shifting rules, goals, and actions, no two sessions of Fluxx are exactly alike, and with numerous variant games like Star Fluxx, Monty Python Fluxx, Holiday Fluxx and more, there’s no shortage of possible ways to keep the game fresh.

The latest addition to the Fluxx family of games is Batman Fluxx, and between the crafty creators at Looney Labs and Batman’s diabolical Rogue’s Gallery of villains, you AND the Dark Knight will have your hands full.

batfluxx2

[There’s even a rule card that allows you to take advantage
by wearing something with Batman’s iconic logo!]

Now, anyone who has played Fluxx in the past is familiar with action cards, goal cards, keeper cards, new rule cards, and surprise cards. For those unfamiliar with the game, the basic idea is to collect keeper cards in the hopes of completing a goal and winning the game. But since every player can change rules (like how many cards you draw during your turn, how many you drop, etc.) as well as what the current goal is that will allow you to win the game, you have to be on your toes.

And Batman is the perfect theme for one of Fluxx’s most recent and ingenious innovations: the creeper card.

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Creeper cards — featuring many of Batman’s most infamous foes, like The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy — prevent any player (including the player who plays that card) from winning the game, even if they’ve collected the necessary keeper cards to complete the current goal. So, much like Batman, you need to clean up Gotham City and get rid of all those villains before you can declare victory!

It’s a diabolical way to prevent the other players from winning (that is, unless they’re hiding a goal card that requires a villain!) and it surprised several experienced Fluxx players I know when we playtested the game.

And the Batman-flavored Keepers and Goals are not only great fun, but clearly created with fans of the Caped Crusader in mind.

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[Those Wonderful Toys references Jack Nicholson’s famous line in the first Batman film, and The Joker Got Away! is a sly reference to the Batman-fueled variation of “Jingle Bells” that got many a child in trouble back in the day. Myself included.]

With art straight out of The New Batman Adventures cartoon series from the late ’90s, both the style and the nostalgia factor is here in spades. And yes, both Robin AND Batgirl are along for the ride. (No Nightwing, though, sadly.)

Nonetheless, this has quickly become my favorite version of Fluxx yet, and the Dynamic Duo have converted several other card game enthusiasts I know into Fluxx fans as well.

[To check out more Looney Labs games I’ve reviewed in the past, click here, here, here, and here!]

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!

PuzzleNation wordplay = Now radiant puzzle ploy

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[Alternate anagrams include “Puzzle patron, now daily” and “Plow into any rad puzzle.”]

Anagrams are a cornerstone of modern pen-and-paper puzzling.

They make frequent appearances in cryptic (or British-style) crossword clues, and many puzzles and puzzle games — from Anagram Magic Square and Text Twist to Secret Word and Bananagrams — rely heavily on anagrams as an integral part of the solve.

I’ve written about them several times in the past, but for the uninitiated, an anagram is a reordering of the letters in a word to form a new word or phrase. PEALS anagrams into LEAPS, PALES, LAPSE, SEPAL, and PLEAS.

As the old joke goes, “stifle” is an anagram of itself.

But the best anagrams rearrange the letters in a word into something related to that word. Fans of The Simpsons may recall that Alec Guinness anagrams into “genuine class.”

There are numerous examples of great anagrams all over the Internet. Here are a few classics:

  • The eyes = they see
  • Clint Eastwood = Old West action
  • Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one
  • Dormitory = Dirty room
  • A decimal point = I’m a dot in place
  • A gentleman = Elegant man

One of the best online anagram programs out there is hosted by wordsmith.org, and at the top of their page, they remind us that “internet anagram server” anagrams into “I, rearrangement servant.”

You can find some unexpected surprises when you play with anagrams. Did you know that William Shakespeare anagrams into both “I am a weakish speller” and “I’ll make a wise phrase”?

There are entire forums online dedicated to terrific anagrams, some fiendishly clever, others impressively insightful. (Of course, sometimes crafty punctuation makes all the difference.)

Madame Curie becomes “Me? Radium Ace.”

Monty Python’s Flying Circus becomes “Strongly psychotic, I’m funny.”

The possibilities seem endless when you delve into longer phrases. I’m going to close out this tribute to anagrams with two of the most amazing ones I’ve encountered during my time as a puzzler.

The first involves the iconic line as humanity took its first steps onto the surface of the Moon:

Neil Armstrong: That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind

anagrams into…

Thin man ran; makes (a) large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

[I’ve included both what Neil said and what was broadcast back to Earth. Hence, the A in parentheses in both versions.]

The second takes one of Shakespeare’s best known lines and offers some engagingly meta commentary on the play itself:

To be or not to be, that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…

anagrams into…

In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of-tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten.

So whether you’re playing Scrabble or tackling David L. Hoyt‘s Jumble, anagramming is a worthwhile tool that belongs in every puzzler’s skillset.

Do you have any favorite anagrams, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let me know! I’d love to see them!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! You can share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and be sure to check out the growing library of PuzzleNation apps and games!