The idea of adding dice chucking action to Fluxx sounds fun, that is… until you play it. This expansion is comprised of 2 dice (each with draw and play numbers) and five cards. Of the five cards 2 aren’t shuffled into the deck, so effectively you’re only adding 3 cards into the mix and one basic rule. The final card is a “meta rule” and is fairly worthless.
The core of this expansion is that at the start of a turn, a player rolls to see how many cards to draw and play. This simple act shifts the game much deeper into the luck space, so much so that it plays like a broken game: a good roll can let you can rack up the Keepers and actions, a bad roll and you’re toast.
With this expansion, standard Fluxx draw and play rules are transformed into actions, a move that really un-Fluxxes Fluxx. I often use draw and play rules as a core tactic in the game, here they are relegated so that they no longer impact other players (as they are discarded after your turn like any other action).
With 3 cards added into the pile of 100, the odds of the expansion cards coming up are pretty slim, and when they do, they tend to heavily imbalance the game. The expansion Creeper “Bad Luck” sets your play to one card while the “Lucky Charm” keeper lets you increase your lowest roll by one.
The expansion is priced as much as the base Fluxx set, which is tough to swallow considering how little you’re really getting. There’s a lot of interesting things Loony Labs could have done with an expansion, and this Dice expansion just doesn’t work. Ultimately it takes away something I really enjoy about Fluxx and replaces it with luck. Perhaps a better name for this expansion is Luxx!
Publisher: Looney Labs
Price: $13
