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Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Notes From The Lab #4 2008 Pumpkin Gallery

Comic Worth Reading reviews MPF The Armchair Critic reviews MPF

In Monty Python Fluxx, what happens if the Goal is The Cheese Shop and someone plays the Action Bring Out Your Dead?

As those who've read the most recent issue of Notes From The Lab have already heard, we are on the brink of releasing an updated version of Fluxx! Yes, Fluxx version 4.0 is now at the printer! It'll be out in time for the holidays!

Here are the details of what's new in Fluxx Version 4.0:

• Colorized and Improved Artwork: Under the direction of Todd Cameron Hamilton (who did the artwork for Monty Python Fluxx), my classic line drawings have been given a great new full-color look. Three of the Keepers -- Dreams, Money, and the Moon -- have been redrawn entirely. Dreams has a clearer vision, Money now has better-looking coins and a cost of living increase (it features a twenty now instead of a $5 bill), and the Moon has gone from a simple crescent to a really cool looking cratered sphere.
• More Cards: As with Zombie and Monty Python Fluxx, version 4.0 will include 100 cards (instead of 84).
• New Cards: Some of the cards being added with this upgrade have been available in other ways before, such as the Party and the Radioactive Potato (which debuted in the 10th Anniversary Party Pack). The set also includes some previously retired cards, like Taxes and the Eye, and some totally new cards, like a Keeper called the Cosmos and a New Rule called You Also Need a Baked Potato.
• Creepers: Fluxx 4.0 will include 4 Creepers (and some other little changes to help you cope with them). In addition to the ever-popular Radioactive Potato, 3 classic Keepers have been reclassified as Creepers: War, Death, and Taxes. In retrospect, those concepts really aren't good material for Keeper, making much more sense as Creepers, but we didn't have any other way to represent negative stuff until the Zombie uprising. Now it seems obvious that these cards should be Creepers, and in their new incarnations, they each have special properties. (You can't have Peace if you have War, i.e. you get to push War to another player if you have Peace; Taxes destroys Money if you have them both on the table, but goes away in the process; and Death is now killing machine which destroys itself after it kills off all of your other Keepers & Creepers, one by one.)
• New Packaging: Fluxx 4.0 will be sold in the same newly-styled two-piece box Monty Python Fluxx comes in. The new box features a purple starfield background and bold cosmic-looking front cover artwork. The back of the box features a great new cartoon of three people playing Fluxx.
• New Rulesheet: The bigger box also allows for a bigger rulesheet, with a great new Frequently Asked Questions section.
• New Type of Card: As you may already know, I thought of another new type of card a few months ago: the Meta Rule. This special new type of card is like a formalized house rule: assuming everyone agrees, Meta Rule cards are placed on the table with the Basic Rules card, and they stay in force throughout the entire game. We're saving some of my crazier Meta Rule ideas for a future release, so Fluxx 4.0 will launch the concept with just one Meta Rule, called Rules Escalation (which we've been using during Tournaments since Keith Baker ran them for us at our first Origins, in 1997).