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Jan. 19th, 2003 10:27 pmTwo truths, at the end of the day:
a) I love to play, teach, think and talk about games. I felt a little cranky going into the con, but as soon as I submerged myself into its culture, I found that I could easily spend the weekend in that mode.
b) There's not much else I like about sci-fi cons. I think that if I spent more time in fan-land as a yoot I'd feel as home there as many of my friends do, but... eh.
The dominant Looney game this year was Fluxx... that is, one could look around the Stanbro room at just about any given time and see Fluxx pick-up games involving no persons wearing lab coats. In previous years, Chrononauts and Zendo have enjoyed this distinction. It seemed a little weak this year, though, because Fluxx has always been a con favorite, and the Looneys' 2002-release card game, Nanofictionary, didn't seem nearly as popular. (Understandable, given the theme and crowd. Nanofictionary is a party game, while Chrononauts is a game-game.) On the other hand, Fluxx 3.0 was quietly introduced only last month, and people have a right to be enthusiastic about it.
Fluxx 3.0 is pure genius. Dopey as it sounds, it's let me rediscover the game; Andy has succeeded in greatly improving the last version, and it's just different enough from its previous incarnation (same basic rules, but about half of the cards tweaked or replaced) to fully deserve the major-version increment. I played it many, many times on Saturday, with many different people. When one game finished, one or two players would swap out while the rest of us would shuffle and deal out fresh hands, over and over again.
The deck hasn't changed so much to prevent my favorite Fluxx maneuver, which I pulled off during one of this weekend's games: During a Play (N>1) rule, play Draw Two and Use Em, and then Draw Three, Play Two. This effectively adds two levels of recursion to your hand, for a little while. (And it just occurred to me that I don't recall ever seeing Pilfer the Trash (or a similar card) ever used as the first of the cards played from the final pair, which would let you play Draw Two and Use Em again, giving you four levels.
I have been asked if I have plans for Vericon this year. Mm, unlikely, given the events scheduled. I don't recognize any of the names, and the Boston Warren's not going to have presence there this year. I'm a little curious about how the live-action Fightball will possibly work, though.