Nature Fluxx the Card Game
Designed by Andrew Looney and Alison Frone.
Illustration by Derek Ring and Alison Frone.
Publisher Looney Labs.
Player 1-6 Ages 8+ Time to play 10-40 minutes.
Nature Fluxx is an ecology-themed variant to the popular card game Fluxx, published by Looney Labs and released in 2015. This is a much smaller game than Wingspan and comes in a very compact 10 by 13cm box with 100 cards and 1 sheet of instructions. If you are looking for that stocking filler for Christmas this might be the game. It also comes with a disclosure that 5% of proceeds are donated to environmental groups!
It’s a very easy game to pick up - shuffle the deck and deal 3 cards to each player. Put the basic rules card on the table and then pick a player to go first. Their first task is to draw 1 and play 1 and that’s where the fun starts. It’s a game that quickly turns into this chaos where the rules are forever changing. The objective of the game is to meet the current goal using your keeper cards, but nobody can win unless there is a goal played. The goals also constantly change, and the next rule change or action might determine whether you win or lose. But beware there are creepers in the deck which can prevent any player from winning not just you!
Summary
Nature Fluxx isn’t just a game—it’s a clever celebration of ecology and the unpredictability of life. Every card feels purposeful, echoing the intricate balance of a real ecosystem. You’ll juggle biotic and abiotic elements, carve out niches through biomimicry, and manage resources with composting and recycling—all while navigating the ripple effects of an ever-changing environment. Catastrophic events loom, biodiversity hangs in the balance, and yet, from the chaos, hope and victory can emerge. This chaotic flux isn’t a gimmick; it’s the soul of the game. Fluxx’s dynamic rule system perfectly mirrors nature’s unpredictability, making each playthrough a fresh challenge. Yes, you might hit roadblocks, but that’s part of the charm—it reminds us of life’s complexity and resilience. Nature Fluxx is more than fun; it’s a thought-provoking experience that shuffles the essence of life into a deck of cards.
Interested in learning more? – please read on….
Cards included in the deck:
Keepers (25): Examples - Insects, Flowers, Water, Sunshine, Leaves, and Cave.
These need to be played in front of you throughout the game to win the game.
The art on these cards is colourful but simplistic and show a mixture of biotic and abiotic factors. The components of a functional ecosystem, the biotic plants and animals and the abiotic factors, the non-living physical and chemical elements. ‘Dirt’ is an interesting one, I might have named it soil, it’s one of the cards along with water which forms the goal ‘Mud’.
Goals (33) Examples – Metamorphosis, Hibernation location, Pollination.
Cards showing combinations you need to attain to win the game, see below.
These are likely to change constantly within the game, sometimes within the same turn.
There are several biological goal cards represented from ‘Pollination’ to ‘Metamorphosis’, and one called ‘Mighty Oaks from Tiny Acorns Grow’ for which you need seeds and trees in front of you as keepers. Predator prey relationships are reflected in the Eats goal cards eg ‘Bat Eats Insects’, so you need insects and bats as your keepers.
Creepers (3) Forest Fire, Drought and Flood.
These simulate the natural disasters in the game.
I seem to recall there are more creepers in the other versions of the Fluxx franchise, so only 3 in this game seems a little low. The twist from these cards is that nobody can win whilst these are in play, so other players will be keen to get shut of them as much as you. For example, the ‘Flood’ if still in play at the end of your turn forces you to discard your entire hand and give it to the next player, as if it was washed away downstream. I like that that concept.
New Rule (19) Examples - Composting, Recycling and Camouflage.
These cards expand on the initial rule of draw one and play one.
These cards can be categorised into – Play (more cards than the initial 1), Limit (how many cards you can have in your hand at the end of the turn), Draw (allow you to draw more than your initial 1). ‘Camouflage’ is a neat little touch giving you the ability to hide a keeper, which depending on the memory of your opponents might provide an opportunity to win. The ‘Recycler’ lets you discard a keeper and draw 3 new cards, so if your keeper has suddenly become redundant, due to a change of goal, this can be recycled. I like that nuance.
Action (19) Examples - Mass Migration, Extinctions, Pollution, A Change in the Weather.
Provide you with a one-time special action on the turn you play them.
Most cards encompass the phenomena of the biodiversity crisis we find ourselves in and provide the chaos element of the game - cards such as ‘Pollution’ forcing all to discard air, water and dirt keepers in play, whilst ‘Mass Migration’ forces you to move one of your keepers to another player, and ‘Extinction’ can get you to remove a living thing on the table.
You will either love or hate this game, it all depends on if you can embrace chaos. If you like to play a strategy, this isn’t the game for you, and you will soon find it frustrating maybe even regard it as pointless. But if you can ride the winds of chaos and treat it for the interactive game it is intended to be, playing with a nice group of friends it can be loads of fun. I play this game with no intention of winning and if you embrace this you may learn to love it for what it is.
I only wish there were more cards reflecting ecological concepts, it would have been fun if more had been included. A lot of the cards are the generic ones found in any standard Fluxx game.
Who it would appeal to:
Those that like player interaction and replay-ability.
Those that prefer easy to play board games, no need to spend hours reading rule books or watching how to play videos.
Those people who often lose games as there is no way to master it.
Downsides of the game:
To win a game simply comes down to luck, and as such games could be short or long.
The randomness of the game can be great fun for some individuals, but for others it can be stressful and annoying.
Sometimes the number of rules and actions can make you fall into to the trap of how best to play the card, so you can get tied up in interpretation. There are FAQs both on the sheet of instructions and on the website which may assist, but in my opinion its best not sweat-it and instead come to some amicable agreement of a solution and play on.
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