A: Unfortunately, producing custom one-off cards is not a business we’d like to get into. That said, many people have used Fluxx (or one of our other games) to propose marriage, or enhance their wedding or other event. Most of these have simply been hand drawn or otherwise created by the involved parties themselves. We have done hand-drawn cards once for a wedding proposal (with Nanofictionary, in this case), but note that these were really not appreciably better than what you might created yourself or get a local friend to do: we simply used blanxx (or blanks) and drew on them with a fine-tip sharpie.

Sorry it’s simply not feasible for us to make custom promo cards a part of our business model!

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A: We have a discount available for teachers and others who buy in larger amounts. You can get 10% off orders over $100, or 20% off orders over $200. Use discount codes TEN100 or TWENTY200 in our online store. We also accept POs from schools via phone, email, or even fax, and will apply the same discount to those orders. We are also working on getting into more teacher catalogs and stores to make it easier for you to shop. If you have any suggestions for where you would like to see our games, please let us know!

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A: Short answer, NO.

Here at Looney Labs, we do always try to encourage creativity, and we love hearing stories about the fun our fans have had by putting their own twists on our games. Fluxx in particular lends itself to customization, and we make blank Fluxx cards available for those who want to add their own cards into one of our games.

We’re all in favor of house rules and homemade cards, and we love it when people adapt our ever-changing game to suit their own tastes. And just as we’ve had fun creating entire Fluxx decks in many different flavors, so too have countless others, on every subject you can imagine.

However, it’s one thing to make your own Fluxx deck, for you to use and even play with your family and friends. We happily encourage that. But when you ask if you can start duplicating your deck and distributing copies — basically publishing it, even if the print run is very small — then we have a problem. This is not ok. Even if you are distributing it for free – this is not ok.

(If you represent a publisher seeking to license the rights to Fluxx, our answer will almost certainly be no, but feel free to ask. The only license grants we offer are for foreign-language translations of our own designs.)

Looney Labs is the exclusive publisher of games that use the Fluxx engine, for which privilege we pay royalties to designer Andrew Looney. Fluxx is our most important brand, and it is simply not in the best interests of Looney Labs to permit competing entities to distribute copies of a game based on Fluxx (no matter how small the production run nor how unique the theme) to others in the marketplace.

• It is ok to post/share a written card list and photos of a few sample cards
• It is NOT ok to post a PDF (or any digital file) of your card designs online
• It is NOT ok to send a friend your files, or to print an extra copy to give to them
• It is NOT ok to pay a printer to make you one nice copy for yourself
• It is NOT ok to send digital files to anyone – not a friend, not a print-on-demand printer

If you are a teacher, and want to design Fluxx games in your classroom, go for it. It is a wonderful creative exercise. But make sure your students understand these rules about not publishing the design online, and no, it is NOT ok to make a small print run so each student gets a copy.

Again, one-of-a-kind Fluxx decks are fine, we encourage anyone who feels creative to try their hand at making one. In legal terms, that’s “Fair Use.” You can make your own deck and play it with anyone you like. But you may not make copies. Sorry, we simply cannot condone that.

We realize this answer will be disappointing for would-be Fluxx designers, but unfortunately we’ve concluded that this is the best policy for us. We hope you can understand our reasoning. Thanks!

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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: It’s part of our forays into the mass market, vs. the smaller specialty hobby game toy store market. For those games that we feel will work well for the wider audience we use the more common hang-tab style box, which is also slightly cheaper to produce, and allows us to bring prices down for some of the larger retailers who demand lower prices.

Games in this style packaging include:
Get the MacGuffin
Mary Engelbreit Loonacy
Monster Fluxx
Fluxx SE (“Special Edition”)
CN Fluxx (Cartoon Network Fluxx) (out of print)

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A: Here’s a fun graphic we put together about this:

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A: Yes, but only in Russian. The Russian publisher who licensed Fluxx from us has the license to make games with the Star Wars assets… but that is much harder to come by in the US, so there is little hope of our getting it. We have not been able to get any copies of the Russian version to sell in our webstore, but some fans have had success from here:

http://labirint.ru

Here is the Google-translated-into-English version

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A: We suggest that you use card sleeves to protect these overused card types. If you’re unfamiliar with these, they are simply custom-sized plastic pockets to put your card in to protect them from wear. People who play games with collectible cards often do this to protect cards they want game with but don’t want to damage for their collectible aspect. Or avid gamers do it for the reasons mentioned here: to protect frequently used game components. You should be able to still shuffle a deck with all cards in sleeves, though it may take some getting used to.

If your cards are already over-worn such that it’s interfering with the secrecy required for game-play, look for card sleeves with opaque backs, or try sliding an extra card of a similar or slightly larger size behind the card in question, so that you only see the extra cardback (regular playing cards would work fine for this, for example, as long as they are close to the same size so that they can fit in the card sleeves you’ve acquired.)

You can find card sleeves for almost any size cards, so search online and see what’s available. You’ll need to know the size of the cards, which you can get by simply taking a ruler to them. For a more comprehensive list, however here is one that someone has compiled as a reference on the tabletop gaming reference site BoardGameGeek.com

This informational website is incredibly dense, so it starts with a lengthy description of how to read the chart. Then scroll down for a list of games by title. There are pages and pages of them, but you can click to the alphabetic range you need:
https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/164572/card-sleeve-sizes-games?titlesonly=1

Find the game you’re interested in on the list and click the NUMBER to the left (clicking the name gets you to an interesting game description page, but not the card sleeve sizing recommendations). Aquarius is on there, as is Fluxx, but Choose One was not deemed popular enough to include specifically, though the cards should be the same size as Fluxx, which IS certainly on the list.

Although they show two separate lists for first and second edition of Aquarius, to our knowledge, they are exactly the same size. That said, the second edition is more common these days. The Goals have round images, and the deck includes diagonally split cards.

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A: Andy is a big fan of Rick & Morty, so he loves this idea. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen. Our 3-year license agreement with Cartoon Network has run its course, so we won’t be making any new games with Cartoon Network branding anytime in the foreseeable future. In a related story, Cartoon Network Fluxx, Adventure Time Fluxx, and Regular Show Fluxx have all now gone into the Vault.

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A: Our webcart is not quite that sophisticated. All prices are shown in $USD. When your order is placed, the total in $USD will be sent to your banking institution, and they will do the currency conversion, and that is the amount you’ll see on your statement from them. So if you’re worried about what the cost will be for you in your local currency, check up on the current exchange rate, and do some math before you finalize the order.

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A: Well, we would have said we have no idea, but we have had people in the UK deliberately order under a certain amount at a time so that the total does not hit a certain threshold that triggers customs fees.

But hey, we found this UK government page that looks really useful:
https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/tax-and-duty

We’ve gotten the most complaints from UK customers, but other countries have duties too, so, if you’re worried about it, check around for info from your local government.

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A: We take VISA, MasterCard and PayPal, and, if your checks are from a US bank, you can send a check.

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A: Is this, by any chance, on a debit card, rather than a credit card? For some reason debit card holders see the reserve on their account as a charge, even though we do not have the money. Once we bill the order (at the time of shipping) the card is actually charged, and we receive that reserved money.

If the total changes, however, a new reserve will be placed for the new amount, and (if this is a debit card) you’ll see that as a separate transaction. The old reserve will never be charged, however, since on our end, your order is associated with only one reserve – the new one for the new amount. The old reserve will simply expire unused.

We only have one order for you, so we’ve only gotten paid for the one charge.

Your credit card would have been reserved at the time you placed your order, and when we adjusted your order, the total would have changed, and the bank system would not be able to match the new total to the old reserve, so the charge would go through as a separate transaction when we shipped.

Please rest assured that we only have money from you for the updated total, and the first transaction you see on the card, for the original amount, is only a reserve, which will expire. We never had that money, and never will, since we charged the second amount for your order.

You should be able to get more information from your bank if you have questions about that particular transaction. It should simply disappear from your record after the reserve period. We’re not sure how long that will be. For actual credit cards, the reserve can last as long as a month.

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A: There are three different decks in Pyramid Arcade, each a very different size.

The Zark City deck is like a regular deck of playing cards, except that it has five suits and the cards are square. Measurement (roughly, using a ruler) is: 2 & 5/8″ (7 cm) on a side.

The Pyramid Arcade deck, which has a card for each game in the set, has more familiar dimensions. I believe they would be called “poker sized” (wider than “bridge sized”). These are 3 & 7/16″ (8.75 cm) tall by 2 & 15/32″ (6.3 cm) wide.

The Twin Win deck has miniature-sized playing cards which measure 2 & 11/32” (6 cm) tall by 1 & 9/16 (3.95 cm) wide.

See also: What size are Fluxx cards (or any of your other games?)

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A: When you buy a promo postcard from our webstore, it is put in a regular envelope with letter postage* it does not mail as a postcard.

*But our minimum shipping charge is $4 (or $5 international) because there are other related costs to filling an order from our warehouse, so you may want to combine it with a few other items to spread the cost out.

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A: All our cards are printed in the US, except for components in Pyramid Arcade.

Our main printer, DeLano, who prints all our card games also does most of the packets and expansions. If there are very old packets and expansions in our stock, they might have been done by our previous printer, Carta Mundi. They’re a Belgian company, but they have printing facilities here in the US.

For loose promo cards and smaller runs of packs, we use a print-on-demand printer called DriveThruCards. In the “olden days” we used a very local printer for the b&w art cards, and I’m sure some of those are still in inventory and being sold in the webstore. They’re literally down the street from us.

Custom Loonacy is done by another print-on-demand printer called The Game Crafter.

The peel-off promo-postcards are done by a company called Membership Cards Only. (I know, I know, “But those aren’t membership cards!” Hahahahah!).

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A: Most of our card games have the same size cards, a slightly narrower type many would call “bridge sized” though that’s not a precise category. The card size (roughly, using a ruler) is: 3 & 7/16″ (8.75 cm) tall by 2 & 13/64″ (5.6 cm) wide.

This is for Fluxx, Chrononauts, Just Desserts, Loonacy, Are You A Werewolf (current printing), Are You The Traitor.
I could swear Choose One cards are just a hair wider on the short side, but they’re VERY close.

Aquarius (and original-style Nanofictionary) are 3 & 31/64″ (8.85 cm) tall by 2 & 1/2″ (6.3 cm) wide. Current Nano is the same size as Fluxx etc.

Zendo cards are the same size as the Pyramid Arcade deck, which is aaaalllmmost the same size as Aquarius cards. But not quite.

See also: What size are the cards in Pyramid Arcade?

If we’ve missed a game card size you’re looking for email us at QA@looneylabs.com

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A: Well if we told everyone that, it wouldn’t be much of a mystery, would it!!!

But seriously, people do ask this, and, given the high shipping cost, we do simply tell people the contents if they ask. We’ll just keep this little FAQ question slightly obscure, by not linking to it. So if you’ve found your way here, and knowing this info makes you happier than you were… good for you!

10 Black Treehouse Die
1 Blue Martian Coaster
1 Yellow Martian Coaster
1 Red Martian Coaster
1 Green Martian Coaster
1 Black Martian Coaster
1 EcoFluxx (first ed.)
1 Fluxx 3.0
1 The Empty City
1 Martian Coasters
1 Fluxx Espanol
1 Pink Hijinks
1 Peace Puzzle
1 Castle Expansion
1 Promo Postcard: Aquarius Dragon
1 Poster: Treehouse
1 Poster: Monty Python Fluxx
1 Poster: Brain No TV
1 Poster: Pirate Fluxx
1 Poster: Looney Pyramids
1 Playmat: Star Fluxx
1 IceDice Playmat
50 Micro Catalog Card
1 Doorway Sticker
1 Mystery Bag of Warehouse Swag Letter

(Yes, this includes loose Martian Coasters AND a packaged game of the same. You will have some extra coasters. They DO work as actual coasters, you know…)

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A: There is a minimum cost for us to ship any order, based on things like amount of human time to pick, pack, generate postage, and process the order through the system, as well as some cost for shipping materials, and the cost to store the product until fulfillment, too. We’ve got that minimum shipping per order set at $4.

We understand that for very small items, that’s a pretty high shipping cost. It makes sense to combine them with other things to spread that shipping cost over more items, and many customers do just that. On the other hand, it always surprises me how often customers go ahead and get very small orders — a single promo pack pack or just a few promo cards like that, so I guess those people don’t mind the shipping cost. It’s up to them.

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A: Packs are a great deal when you look at the price of the single promo cards, which are, yes, $1 apiece. This is mostly because they are printed in vastly smaller quantities than a full deck of cards, or even a cello-wrapped pack, so our price doesn’t go as low per card as it does on packs. Also, picking and packing single promo cards is the most laborious type of order, so unless people are buying bulk packs of 25 of the same card, the price doesn’t go cheaper than that on singletons – not even for retailers.

So packs, obviously, are a better deal than singletons. Taking a brief survey of expansion/promo packs at this time, they seem to range from four cards up to seven or eight per pack. It looks like our pricing has been a bit inconsistent through the years, but most are $2, with a few at $3. Licensed assets, like the Castle Expansion, usually cost more, but that has varied as well. If we were going to tweak any pricing, it would probably be to increase the Regular Show Future Pack, since, for some strange reason, it’s a seven card licensed pack priced at the lower $2 price. Not sure why that is.

Incidentally, we don’t make expansion packs just so we can make a few bucks with a massive profit margin — at least not on sales of the expansion itself. Mostly we print them in conjunction with the initial release as marketing materials that we can use to promote sales of the main game when it first comes out (usually by giving them away – marketing materials are an expense, not an income stream).

So yes, we hope they help us make more money, of course, but the idea is that they are boosting sales of the main product. If they’re really popular, we’ll find a way to keep them in print when they run out, but that can really depend. Subsequent print runs for consumer sale are always much smaller, such that our margin decreases significantly, so keeping them in print for fans is something we do primarily because we like to keep our fans happy, not because they’re a major source of income for us.

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I recently created a card game and am looking to start working with small re-sellers and shops in my area, but coming from an art background, I do not know how what to charge for orders. Since your company works with retail stores, I was hoping to get some insight on how to proceed. I know what it costs to make my games, and I have a price that I have been selling it at to customers directly. My question is: when selling to a retail store, what is the typical percentage you discount each unit, or does it change depending on the game? And is that discount a percentage of the total MSRP [Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price], or a percentage of the remaining profit after the cost of manufacturing is deducted? I have done some research online but have not come across a clear answer. Any information you could provide would be a great help.

A: When we were trying to figure this out, we got various recommendations about what ratio you should set for the price relative to your cost.

What I recall is that a 7:1 price:cost ratio is good, but 10:1 is what you want to aim for. So, for example, if your game cost $1 to make, then to get a 7:1 ratio, you’d decide that the lowest cost you were comfortable selling it for would be $7.

So, moving on to discuss the difference between the MSRP and the price per unit to stores, a 50% markup is pretty standard, which is the same thing as saying that retailers get a 50% discount off of MSRP. So if $7 is the least you want to sell for, then that’s your retailer price, so your MSRP would be $14. Note that if you plan on eventually selling to distributors, they require an even greater discount off of MSRP, so that they can sell at rates comparable to your retailer rates, and still have a profit margin themselves. Distributors typically demand at least a 60% discount off MSRP, so you might want to plan your MSRP with that eventuality in mind.

That said, many small hobby retailers get discounts less than that from distributors (obviously, this is to increase the margin for the distributor) so they might get only a 40% discount off MSRP, or 45%, so you could ask the retailer to take a smaller markup.

You probably also want to look around at comparable games on the market: games of a similar box size, perceived quality, and complexity – the other games that are going to sit next to it on the shelf at your local hobby retailer (don’t try to compare with the big box stores, they’re selling things hella cheap – hobby stores can’t manage that, and you can’t either at this point).

Unfortunately, I’m willing to bet that for a first (probably small) print run, your costs were more than my example of $1 per unit. So, between your probably higher cost, and the likelihood that you’re going to have trouble adhering to these ratios while keeping the price in line with comparable games…

You might decide that you’re willing to accept a lower ratio, since you have lower overhead to run your company – but don’t discount the cost of your time and effort. Also, you might be able to get by with a lower ratio for now, and hope to get your cost down if the game is a success, and subsequent print runs are bigger.

Don’t forget to get out there and pimp your game to anyone who will play. Go to game/comic/sci-fi conventions, and if you get local stores to carry your game, ask if you can come in and offer free demos to customers.

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A: We would love to have an Android version of Fluxx as well. Unfortunately, the plans to make that happen fell through, and at this point we would have to completely start over with a new programming partner, which is something we just don’t have the bandwidth for at this time. We are hoping to have more fun and exciting apps for both iOS and Android in the future, but we can’t say exactly what or when at this point.

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A: Here’s a link to an old page on the wayback machine that gathers some wisdom from longtime fans. Some people print onto stickers (that’s what we do here at the Lab for prototypes – but then again, we don’t have to use those forever). Most of these recommendations involve using a carrier sheet to run the cards through the printer, and recommend a clear spray coat to keep the ink from smudging.

http://web.archive.org/web/20111123162630/http://rabbits.continuation.org/wiki/Techniques_for_Physically_Making_Fluxx_Blanxx

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A: We regret to tell you we are long since out of the tubes. We had some left over for quite a while after we switched, and kept them up for sale for folks who liked them, even though we found that they were actually kind of sub-optimal (or years in storage had made them so). They were quite tight in the corners, and the pyramids would stick. Even with all that, and how slowly they sold, we’re completely out of them.

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A: No. A few things:

1) If you’re looking for someone to print your game so that you can sell it, then you are looking to self-publish, and the kind of company you need is a printer. Looney Labs is a publisher. If you’re looking for info on printers, check out:
How can I get my game printed? What printers does Looney Labs use?

2) Publishing is a lot of work, involving a lot more than just an idea and a printer: it takes immense amounts of coordination: design, sourcing materials, sales, and of course marketing effort to get consumers to want to buy your game, not to mention convincing stores to even make it available to the consumer.

3) Looney Labs does not accept outside game submissions. We are formed primarily for the purpose of publishing the works of Andy Looney, our sole game designer.

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A: Look around for card printers, and they will have various packaging options included. If you care whether the work is actually done in the USA, make sure you ask that, since many people offering quotes will be brokers working with overseas printers in China or other countries.

Ask for quotes from more than one company, pay attention to delivery lead times, and check the price for different sized print-runs. Here are some of the companies we have worked with or know of:

Print on Demand:

We work with:
– DriveThruCards, DriveThruRPG

Others include:
– Gamecrafter (also does board games)

US Card Printers:
(Though they may be able to do runs as small as 100-500 in some cases, you’ll find that it’s not economical to do a run smaller than 5,000-10,000 in most cases. Contact them for a quote)

We work with:
DeLano Service (also does board games, or can at least source parts)
(please mention Looney Labs sent you!)

Others in the US include (not sure if they also do board games, check with them and ask!):
Carta Mundi
US Playing Cards
360 Manufacturing

Overseas/Plastics:

We work with:
Grand Prix International

Others include:
Panda

I found all that by Googling “card game printers” so go to town on that Internet thing! Also try “card game print on demand” or “board game print on demand” or whatever.

Best of luck!

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The form you have seems completely unfair towards designers, as if you’re trying to discourage submissions at all.

A: Technically, we do not accept outside submissions, so we DO intend to discourage them. For whole games, that’s totally true. For just suggestions for some idea of a Fluxx version you’d like to see us make, frankly, we get people all the time that just write us a two-line email hoping we’ll make a Fluxx themed on something they’re into:

“Hey! OMG, you should make Princes Bride Fluxx!” or “My Little Pony Fluxx” or “Dumb and Dumber Fluxx” (yes, these are all suggestions we have gotten, in many cases more than once). We don’t make all of those people who send us a two line email go sign that form, especially after they’ve already sent their idea. The casual nature of the suggestion indicates they don’t expect it to be anything other than that: a suggestion or even a request.

But if someone says “Hey, I designed a full deck of Big Bang Theory Fluxx” and I want to show it to you… well, we really don’t want to see their ideas unless they are giving them to us with no expectations. Essentially, we aim to keep actual game design in-house, and having someone show us their idea taints that and opens up a can of worms. For example, we might have similar ideas ourselves already, and if we did end up making a deck with this theme, the submitter might feel we stole their ideas. Another issue is that, much as we might want to give credit where credit is due, it’s very hard to keep track of random suggestions: sometimes emails get lost, and we don’t want to make promises we might not be able to keep, or set unrealistic expectations.

So why do we have the form at all? It’s for fans who are just dying to show us their full version of something, out of sheer enthusiasm, not because they’re trying to make money by selling us their idea.

If you just want to say: hey, you should do “Blah Blah” Fluxx, then I wouldn’t worry about the legalese – but if you have a bunch of specific game dynamic suggestions, then we want you to understand that we don’t compensate you for those, and it’s not really practical for us to even guarantee credit.

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A: We always sell our games at full MSRP – that’s “Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price.” As the manufacturer, it would be rather disingenuous of us not to sell at the price we recommend retailers sell it at. We do our best not to undercut our many small retail hobby game stores. Keep in mind that when you see our games for sale at Amazon, that’s not the same as buying from us direct. You might be seeing Amazon’s prices, you might be seeing prices set by any number of other third-party sellers, all of whom are retailers in our eyes.

We know there are always going to be some retailers who choose to discount our games, Amazon among them, and it’s up to them if they want to cut their margins to lower the selling price. We don’t dictate what price they sell for, we merely suggest.

So that’s why we sell at “full retail” but some of our retailers might sell for less. We are the manufacturer, so we sell at MSRP, and there are a lot of retailers out there who would get pretty upset with us for undercutting them.

Feel free to buy our games from whatever source makes the best sense for you!

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A: Looney Labs did not do the software for the iOS version. We worked with a company called Playdek, and it is their decision not to update the app for the new iOS.

We will probably pursue a new app at some point, but it’s a pretty big undertaking, and we’re ridiculously busy, so, unfortunately, we do not have a timeline on that at this point.

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