Week 9

Flux is a card game with constantly changing rules. There are four types of cards in this game. The “keeper” cards are cards you just place in front of you to keep. If your keeper cards match the ones on the current goal card, you win. The “goal” cards display which keeper cards a player must have in front of them in order to win the game. The “rule” cards can change the game's rules from the basic rules, which are to take one card and play one card per turn. For example, the rules can be changed to draw four cards, play two cards, have two goals, etc. The “action” cards allow the player to perform an action. These actions can range anywhere between switching your keeper card with another player or completely erasing all the new rules and goals that have been added to the game and starting over with the basics. All cards are the same size which makes them uniform, as described by Nathan Atlice in The Playing Card Platform “Playing cards, no matter their geometric form, are cut to identical sizes.”

All players circle around a table and are dealt three cards per player. The player who goes first is the player who raises their hand and says “I’ll go first”. The draw pile is next to the “basic rules” card. All new rule cards are played underneath. All goal cards are played beside the new rule cards. All action cards are beside the draw pile, which is next to the discard pile. All the cards are shuffled together and dispersed at the beginning, so all that's making them ordinal as described by Nathan Atlice in The Playing Card Platform as “cards are planar and uniform, they can be grouped into sets, counted, sorted, ranked, indexed, and ordered.” are where you place a card when you play it. In front of you, in the new rules section, in the goal section, or in the discard pile. 

The point of the game is that it’s ridiculous. Part of the challenge of the game is being able to keep up with all the new rules and goals that are constantly being altered throughout gameplay. A player can also use new rules, goals, and actions to help them win the game, although there is a fair amount of luck. This is the kind of game that would be fun to play as a family, but younger kids would likely get lost. 

The “Watch It Played” example I chose is a game called The Lord of the Rings: The Living Card Game. This game is more Spatial described by Nathan Atlice in The Playing Card Platform as “Cards occupy space, [they] require a flat surface for arrangement and display, setting an upper bound for a game’s spatial density and distribution.” than the last game because is has a large number of cards. This game can be played with one or two people. To begin, choose a “quest deck” this is a deck of four cards. Beating the game involves completing the goal written out on the final quest card. These cards are two-sided. The quest that is currently active for you should be face up. Follow the instructions on the card. Each quest card has a red number on it. This is the number of travel tokens you need to progress to the next quest card. Choose any three hero cards. It would be easiest to make sure all three heroes have the same encounter icon (bottom right) as the rest of the cards you will be using in this game because you can only play cards with the same icon as at least one, if not more, of your heroes. Each hero card has a threat number on the top left. Add the total to your threat tracker. If that number reaches 50, you lose. Also, if all three heroes die, you lose. Deal six cards to each player to form your hand. 

Each round of the game is in phases. The first is the resource phase. Give yourself one token for each alive hero, and draw one card. There are allies and attachment cards in your hand, which you can put into play during the planning phase, but you must spend the tokens equal to the value of each card (top left). Allies can be played next to heroes, and attachments are played on top of heroes or allies. Each hero and ally card has health, defense, and willpower number. Defense subtracts the number of damage done to the card. Willpower is how you get travel tokens, which you need to progress. Next is the quest phase. Chose heroes and/or allies to commit to the quest. Then exhaust the card by turning it on its side. You cannot use this card again until the next round. During the travel phase, the willpower of the characters you committed to the quest is how many tokens to put on the quest card. The encounter phase is when you play an encounter card. Follow the instructions on the card. Choose a character you want to defend a card against an attacking card, and exhaust it. Play another card on top of the attacking encounter card. This is the shadow card. Reveal this card when it attacks. If it has no shadow effects, discard it. Otherwise, apply the shadow effect. The combat phase is when your character cards attack. If damage is done, add damage tokens to the card. If the damage tokens match the health number, the card is defeated. In the final phase, refresh all exhausted cards (place them back upright). Add one to the threat counter and start the next round. This is not a detailed look at how the game is played, as the instruction book is 32 pages, but hopefully, this gave you a good idea of how the game works.