A: Quite a few! For those who don’t know what Board Game Arena is, it’s an online platform where one can play our games remotely against other people, either friends or strangers.

All our games are available without the Premium paid membership. Games have to be specially coded and go through an alpha and beta testing phase to get up on BGA, so our whole line isn’t there, but we currently have the following:

Just Desserts
Fluxx 5.0
Star Fluxx
Homeworlds
Get the MacGuffin

(Also, here is someone’s fun list of all of the free games available on BGA, ranked by number of plays.)

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A: We like to make our fans happy, so obviously we’re bummed when our fans are so bummed. The thing about working with licensed properties is that they’re dependent on contracts with other companies, all vastly bigger than Looney Labs. Inevitably, those contracts end, and we are no longer allowed to print, or even sell off any remaining stock after the time period ends, so we make a push to sell off any remaining inventory before the deadline, and, after that, only secondary sellers have them for sale.

There are various reasons contracts end, the most common being that it’s too expensive for us to renew them, given that we’ve had an initial burst of sales for a given version, but then sales slow to a trickle, and cannot support the cost of the license. In some cases however, the licensor simply decides to not renew the contract, and there’s not much we can do about that.

So, as much as we would like to be able to keep everything in print forever, there are a million reasons we just can’t. So we’re sorry to disappoint, but, as they say, that’s life.

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A: In the vast majority of cases, when a duplicate Rule is played, it simply replaces the previous one, yet causes no change. For example, if Draw 2 is in play, and someone plays another Draw 2, it would replace the old one, and the old one would go into the discard pile, and the Draw would remain at 2 cards per turn.

Functionally, this would have identical results to playing your Draw 2 directly into the discard, and leaving the old one in play. You could choose to execute it that way, but it is important to remember that it is NOT a discard: it counts as one of your Plays, it just doesn’t make any change to the game state. For this reason, we recommend going through the formality of removing the old copy to the discard pile, and playing your new version to the table – at least at first, while you’re still getting used to the concept.

EXCEPTIONS to this would be if you played a new copy of Let’s Keep Doing That or Double Agenda, since these Rules have other cards associated with them which, when you play the new copy, would give the opportunity to change the associated cards.

• Let’s Keep Doing That (LKDT)
Put the old copy and its associated Action into the discard pile, and play your new LKDT. Then look through the discard for whatever Action you’d like to associate with your new play. Yes, you may choose to attach the same Action that was there before if you want.

• Double Agenda
… (ruling TBD)

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A: Andy says: The simple answer is because Doctor Who is not a time travel show.

Oh, it pretends to be a time travel show, and sometimes it does have time travel of a sort, but Doctor Who is a show about monsters, not time travel. It’s about a time traveler who fights off invading monsters using any means other than time travel.

Never does The Doctor solve their problems by saying “No problem, we’ll just hop in my TARDIS, go back five minutes, and have another bash at this.” It’s literally forbidden by the in-universe rules of how time travel works. The Blinovitch Limitation Effect is why the Doctor cannot encounter past or future versions of themselves (except on rare occasions when the writers don’t feel like following their own rules because they want to do a multi-Doctor reunion show or something).

Actual time travel shows are about changing history — something The Doctor cannot do. Instead The Doctor talks about “fixed points in time” which cannot be changed. The Doctor never deals with temporal paradoxes or alternate realities created by splintering timelines. The Doctor simply uses the TARDIS to go to different historical settings in which to fight off invading monsters encountered there, wringing their hands sadly when things goes wrong and someone can’t be saved.

One notable exception is Doctor Who’s all-time best episode, Blink, but even then, time travel is used in a very minimal way. Instead the focus is mainly on that episode’s invading monsters, the Weeping Angels.

Doctor Who scholars are welcome to tell me where I’m wrong here, and I acknowledge that my knowledge is incomplete, but I can’t think of a single example of a Doctor Who story in which we see events unfold two different ways, before and after time travel interference.

So when people say Doctor Who is the perfect subject matter to turn into a version of Chrononauts, I say, how so? What events would I put on the Timeline?

The true “perfect subject matter for a Chrononauts game” was of course Back to the Future, since it’s all about showing us the before and afters of time travel tampering, which are what I need for the two sides of the cards in a Chrononauts game. Same thing with Star Trek, whose many time travel episodes are all about showing us another reality, which was the result of a specific change to events in the past, and how that change to the past must usually be reset by the end of the episode, so that reality ripples back to the way things had been. When does that sort of thing ever happen on Doctor Who? And without that, how can I make a Chrononauts timeline about it?

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A: Unfortunately, no. Although we do still have a limited supply of various old titles, we have a rather possessive attitude about them, given their rarity. Yes, we’ve been known to be generous at times, such as special occasions (like when we dug into our stash for prizes at LooneyCon) or hard luck situations (e.g. “my house burned down and I’m trying to restore a particular cherished item”). But for collectors trying to fill in the gaps, we recommend the secondary market — thrift stores, used game vendors, and of course, eBay.

One big issue we are faced with when asked this is the price tag: it’s very difficult for us to decide on an appropriate price for an out-of-print game. That’s the secondary market’s job. But the biggest reason we have for saying no to this type of request is fairness. There are a lot of fans would like a chance to get stuff from our dwindling supply of out-of-print games, and it’s only fair to limit such availability to situations in which everyone has the same opportunity, such as an auction or a raffle. Sorry. But good luck in your quest!

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…You did the 13th Doctor to add to Doctor Who Fluxx…?

A: No, we don’t plan to keep up with what’s new on shows like Dr. Who, Star Trek, or Firefly. We’ve actually made a corporate level decision not to pursue any new licensed themed products for a while, and that includes expansions to stuff we’re already working with. Besides, it’s very difficult to stay current with new stuff that’s actively being made. Yes, we did that for the 13th Doctor, but that was an exception not likely to be repeated.

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A: Well, the biggest difference is the move up to the larger 2-part box for uniformity of our games. We also had the art updated by a graphic design company. The changes are actually pretty subtle.

They made a new logo (new style for the title) but it works so well with the rest of the art we hardly notice it anymore. They also added some classy gradients to the card art, and variations in line width. Other minor changes include the goals having round images instead of square, and, necessarily the card back, since the logo style changed.

More exciting changes include the addition of diagonal-panel cards, and a new Action: Shuffle Hands. Speaking of Actions, Shuffle Goals was changed to the less-chaotic Rotate Goals. You also get to draw an extra card when you connect panels of more than one element with your play. The rulesheet, in addition to being in full color, also includes variations for a range of younger ages, so that you can start your kids young and gradually work them up to the full game.

If you’re interested in what else was going on at this time, here’s the blog post where Andy first talked about it. It’s just one paragraph among many, but it gives some interesting context.

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A: While it won’t change the fundamental awesomeness of Aquarius, there turn out to be quite a few differences:

1) Card size is changed to the narrower Fluxx-sized cards, and deck size is increased to 100 cards.

2) Triples (cards with one half-panel, and 2 quarter-panels, including both horizontal and vertical halves.

3) Rotate Goals changed (back) to Shuffle Goals.

4) Rules to a new cooperative game, suitable for very young players: Maze Escape!

5) Number of Wild Cards increased from one to two, AND now usable as a Wild Action if so desired.

6) Better Quad randomization.

7) Vertical Aces

For more details on these changes, read Andy’s blog post about them.

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A: Each version of Fluxx has some distinguishing feature. It’s almost always the font at the top of the card, but on some very early decks, we did fun things with the color stripe. Here’s an example of two of the “same” card from Star Trek (TNG) and Star Trek (TOS) Fluxx versions:

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A: If you think your deck idea is so good we might want to publish it ourselves, you are welcome to submit it to us. But please understand that we will need for you to grant Looney Labs permission to use your ideas for free before we can even look at them.

Andy already has more unpublished Fluxx decks designed than we have in print, and chances are very good that he’s already thought of whatever it is you’ve come up with. Given this, we can’t risk opening ourselves up to claims that we stole ideas from you if we subsequently publish something that seems similar to an idea you suggested.

You are always welcomed to make one copy for yourself. But just one:
See: Can I make copies of my home-brewed Fluxx deck…

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A: Yes, but only in Russian. The Russian publisher who licenses Fluxx from us also has the license to make games with the Star Wars assets… but that is much harder to come by in the US. We’ve explored all the avenues, and we’re unable to get that license. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to sell the Russian version from our own webstore in the US, however there are international retailers online who may have it.

Here’s Andy’s write-up about it (with images!) at his blog. (Note that at the time he didn’t know we wouldn’t be able to sell the Russian version ourselves.)

If you end up getting a copy (go you!) here is a handy reference:
Star Wars Fluxx: Russian: English Translation Table (pdf)

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A: Yes, but only in Polish. Our relationship with Cartoon Network ended without us getting to make this ourselves, although Andy really wanted to, as he’s a big fan of the show. The good news is that the Polish publisher who licenses Fluxx from us also has the rights to make games with the Rick & Morty assets, so they have. As with Star Wars Fluxx, Andy did insist on doing the design work himself.

The Polish publisher is Black Monk games. We do not know whether they have kept the game in print, but you can try contacting them:
https://blackmonk.pl/
or, if you don’t speak Polish, here is their page as punched in to Google translate:
https://blackmonk-pl.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

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A: Yes, but wholesale mixing of entire decks can raise some issues, for which we have some suggestions.

The main issue is the dilution of the Keeper to Goal balance. Although most of the Rules and Actions are quite flexible, the specific Goal set in any given version is designed to go with the Keeper set. So it’s harder to get Keeper sets that match the Goals which come up, since half the Goals only go with half the Keepers. Andy has noodled around to figure out what our recommendations might be to resolve this issue, and he came up with this MetaRule, which is available in our More Rules Expansion Pack.

(The card says: If the deck contains cards from multiple versions of Fluxx, a Goal from each version can be in play simultaneously. Goals only replace Goals from the same version. (Promo and expansion cards collectively count as their own version.) You win if you meet any Goal currently in play. Double Agenda creates one additional “slot” that can be filled with any type of Goal.)

Beyond that, keep in mind that, although we have deliberately designed all Fluxx versions to have the same back so you can mix and match cards, particularly promo cards, not all versions “play well together”. For example, in Martian Fluxx, most of the Creepers are Humans. What do you do when you mix a different deck where there are Keepers who are Humans? Are they Creepers now? You’ll have to decide how to handle that.

Also take a look at all of the specialized Rules and Actions to see if there are any which might interact in unplayable ways, and consider which Rules might replace each other as “contradictory.” See if there are Keepers which might “count as” Keepers in the other deck. Create whatever house rules you deem necessary, and, as you should always do with house rules, make sure everyone knows the tweaks before you begin playing.

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A: Looney Labs did not do the software for the iOS or Android versions. We worked with a company called Playdek, so if you’re having any technical difficulties with the app, please contact them at support@playdekgames.com

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