July 27, 2012
Volume 5, Issue 2
Feature Article
Introducing Cthulhu Fluxx
The newest Fluxx is about to hit stores and it’s something fans have been requesting for a very long time: Cthulhu Fluxx!
Cthulhu Fluxx will be in stores August 17, 2012 so get your copy on order today - preorder from your local gamestore or order from us online!
This version of Fluxx has been slow in coming because Andy was never particularly big on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. And we didn’t want to just slap the name of Cthulhu onto Fluxx—we wanted it to be worthy of the genre. So we called in Andy’s lifelong friend Keith Baker to help, since Keith IS an expert on Cthulhu and also a game designer himself (most known for Gloom and Eberron). Keith took the ball and ran with it, and with Andy’s help, the game quickly took shape.
Cthulhu Fluxx is the most complicated version of the game yet, but Keith did a great job of distilling the essence of the Lovecraft experience down into a set of 100 Fluxx cards. Part of the challenge was to make good use of the source material without alienating players who haven’t read any of Lovecraft’s works.
Because the coming of Cthulhu heralds the doom of all humanity, Cthuhlu Fluxx is heavy on the Ungoals and includes a new mechanism called Doom points. Cards that bring us closer to Inevitable Doom are marked with one (or as many as 3) hourglass icons, each denoting a point of Doom. (A few items, such as the Cat, actually reduce a point of Doom.)
The artwork for Cthulhu Fluxx was done by Derek Ring, our most frequent illustrator. We’ve been delighted with everything Derek has done for us, from Pirate Fluxx to Star Fluxx to Back to the Future, but not since the first game he did for us, Zombie Fluxx, have his talents seemed as perfectly suited to the task as for this game. His illustrations are simply fantastic!
For more sneak peek details on Cthulhu Fluxx, go watch the wonderful preview video put together for us by our friends at Pulp Gamer, then go play the Guess The Goal game, in which we’ve been showcasing a few new cards every week along with a quiz question about Lovecraft.
Lastly, if you’ll be attending GenCon, Pax Prime, or DragonCon, look for us or our representatives! We’re making a special bonus promo card to celebrate the coming of Cthulhu: The Horrifying Sculpture! It’s a convention exclusive, so if you can’t make it to one of these summer conventions, ask someone you know who’ll be there to pick up a Horrifying Sculpture for you!
Preorder your copy of Cthulhu Fluxx today!
(P.S. Also... a much simpler version of Fluxx is going into Target stores nationwide next week!)
Trivia Question
Which character is depicted as Lovecraft himself?
Scroll down to see the answer.
Ask Andy
Q: How did you meet Keith Baker?
Andy's answer: "The year was 1985. I was among the first to start playing, running, and even creating a new type of gaming event, which has come to be known as LARPing. Technically I first encountered Keith in February of that year, at a game we both played in Boston called Rekon-3; but that was a crazy-big game with over 200 players and I don’t remember meeting him there. But the following summer, I co-wrote and ran a time travel themed game called Reklone 3: The Road to the Future, and Keith was among the 75 players who signed up to play our game, which we held at a long defunct sci-fi convention called Unicon.
As it happens, I still have the application form he sent us in my filing cabinet. So I can tell you exactly what some of the first things he ever communicated to me. He wrote: “I would prefer to be non-human (not necessarily different in appearance, just non-human).” and “I would like to be working for a purpose… to have a reason for what I’m doing.” His age at the time was 16.
As I recall, he signed up fairly late in the registration process, after we’d already given out all the best characters, and we were kind of afraid that the persona we assigned to Keith wasn’t really interesting enough—that is, we worried that his custom identity wasn’t caught up in enough other plotlines. (His character was actually so thin that I eliminated the character completely from subsequent runnings of that game.) But Keith started with that shell of a character and it took him to places we never imagined he could go. He had an incredible weekend as Thomas Paine Bartlett from the year 2126, and it was the start of one of the most important friendships of my life."
Survey of the Month
What is your favorite Lovecraft Story?
Take the Survey! We'll post the results in our next newsletter.
Results of Last Issue's Survey
Here's what the 107 people who responded to the last survey on Oz Fluxx said:
"Which gift would you choose?"
33.6% - more Courage
24.3% - a balloon trip to Kansas
23.4% - more Brains
18.7% - more Heart
Trivia Question Answer
The Dreamer Keeper in Cthulhu Fluxx is named Randolph Carter, and he has the power to face nightmares and triumph. We chose to give him the face of H.P. Lovecraft himself, for many consider Carter to be Lovecraft’s literary alter ego. He is a man of good birth, a writer whose fantastic works have received little recognition, and a lover of cats. He is driven by his remarkable dreams, and the fantastic visions and adventures he has in those dreams. He appears in a number of Lovecraft’s stories, three of which are particularly tied to the exploration of dreams: “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”, “The Silver Key”, and “Through The Gates Of The Silver Key.”