Batman Fluxx: A First Impressions Review/Preview

As most UK-based gamers will be well aware, this weekend is the 2015 UK Games Expo: an annual event held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel at Birmingham's NEC.  This year was the second year that we were in attendance, and whilst a general write-up will be forthcoming, there was something else we wanted to report on first and foremost.

A couple of weeks ago whilst pootling about on Twitter, we saw a retweet of an announcement for Batman Fluxx.  As fans of both of those words, this got pulses racing a little here at Games & Tea HQ.  It's scheduled for release in early August, so it was put right at the top of our shopping list and no more was thought of it.

What we didn't realise was that this weekend Looney Labs would have a table at the UK Games Expo, and that Batman Fluxx would be one of the games available for demo (along with a couple of other Fluxx prototypes, which we can't mention due to the copyright negotiations still ongoing).  So we had the opportunity to have a look through the deck, play a game with Fluxx creator Andrew Looney himself, and take a few photos along the way!  Seeing as we completely overlooked the fact that is was Games & Tea's 2nd birthday just a few days ago, this felt very much like a belated present!

The head Looney himself - Andrew Looney - proudly showing off one of the latest additions to the Fluxx family!

Now whilst we have done reviews of games in development before, this is the first time we've reviewed a game after just a single playthrough, and without a reference copy in front of us.  For this reason we've branded this as a first impressions review/preview, and will be putting up a full review once we've gotten our grubby mitts on our very own copy, and put it through its paces to determine its replay value etc.

As with our last few Fluxx reviews, we'll be dispensing with the basic gameplay mechanics, and just address the elements of Batman Fluxx which make it stand out from the rest of the family.  For those unfamiliar with Fluxx on the whole, take a quick look at our Monty Python Fluxx review, in which we explained the game's core mechanic.

So to start with the basics, Batman Fluxx is Fluxx with a Batman theme - yes, this may sound like we're stating the obvious, but the point we're getting at is that you'll find the familiar New Rule and Action cards in the deck which are fairly universal, eg. Draw 4, Trash a New Rule, Draw 2 and Use 'Em, etc etc.  And - as with all other Fluxxes - the backs of the cards are of the same universal design, meaning that they can be integrated into other decks.

Yes, this means you can have Pirate Batman Fluxx.

"Bring me the Jokarr!"

On the front of the cards, the first thing to notice is the illustration style.  Fluxx has always had a cartoony element to it, which both adds to its charm and serves to remind players that it's supposed to be a casual, fun game at its heart.  Whilst the recent Love Letter: Batman Edition featured illustrations from the New52 comics series, such serious imagery would look very much out of place in a Fluxx deck.  Instead, Batman Fluxx is filled with illustrations in the style of Batman: The Animated Series, which fits in very well with the general Fluxx feel.  Combined with the classy art-deco style sidebar and font, and Batman Fluxx is a game which is aesthetically very pleasing to play.

The Keepers in Batman Fluxx cover a range or characters, gadgets and locations.  As with most recent Fluxx incarnations, many of the Keepers have additional rules and abilities, just to keep the game moving at a more interesting pace.  Bruce Wayne, for example (above), must be discarded if Batman ever hits the table.  The Batmobile can be discarded to take an extra turn.  The Bank increases your draw by 2, and so on.  Other Keepers we remember off the top of our heads included Robin, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon, the Bat Signal, and Wayne Manor.

The Creepers (of which we sadly forgot to take any photos, due to being so caught up in the gameplay!) are where the game truly becomes interesting.  Each Creeper in Batman Fluxx is one of Gotham City's famous supervillains, and so there are a fair few of them in the deck.  The Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, The Penguin and The Riddler are all out in force, to name a few, so the chances are your favourite villain will be in there somewhere!  Now the most Creeper-heavy Fluxx edition to date is Zombie Fluxx, and it worked very well because many of the game's Goals required Creepers in order to achieve victory.  Batman Fluxx works in a similar way, with Crazy Love, for example, giving the win to the player with The Joker and Harley Quinn.  Now the interesting thing with Batman Fluxx - and the thing which makes its Creepers unique - is that if the active Goal doesn't include Creepers then no one can win if there are Creepers on the table.  This is a wonderful mechanic, first of all in that it gives players a Batman-style task of cleaning up the crime in Gotham City, and secondly in adding a whole new tactical element, as win conditions generally become harder.

That's basically all there is to say at this point about the new additions to the game!  In terms of how it all works, it does really capture the Batman theme while keeping things casual.  Things like the "no one can win" rule with the Creepers, Bruce Wayne's exodus from the table as soon as Batman appears, and the Bat-Signal's ability to 'summon' the dark knight from an opponent all fit together nicely.  The Goals we saw during our game were all nice little references to the cartoon/comics lore, such as Secretly His Daughter for having Commisioner Gordon and Batgirl (we are fans of Babs over here).  And of course the overall aesthetic is very pleasing, feeling very much like the cherry on top.

If we had to nit-pick (and as game reviewers, we do feel it's our duty), the win-condition difficulty increase as a result of the Creepers did feel like it would steer games of Batman Fluxx more towards longer play times than shorter ones.  Fluxx has always been renowned for games lasting anywhere from 90 seconds to 90 minutes, but the Creeper rule does seem to skew things more towards the latter, which may put off a few players who would normally consider Fluxx to be a filler game.

One thing we will be interested to see, however, is whether it can convert a few non-Fluxx fans.  It's always been a Marmite game in the gaming community, and we come heavily down on the 'love it' side of the line.  With Batman being so wildly popular, we can genuinely picture a few folks being swayed over onto our side, where we will be ready to greet them with hugs, cake and "I told you so's".

With a normal review this is where we'd do a summary breaking down the pros and cons, the price, average play time and so on, but seeing as this only a first impressions review we'll dispense with that until the full review in a couple of months time.  We will, however, quite happily give it a preliminary score based on our overall feelings from the day...

PRELIMINARY SCORE: 9/10

Love Letter: Batman Edition Review

Good day to you, ladies and gentlegamers! As we've mentioned in the past, we thoroughly enjoy every review we bring to our readers, but we get an extra bit of joy from reviewing a new release - purely because of the fact that it allows us to feel as though we're on the ball for once!  So, brace yourselves for probably the shortest gameplay walkthrough we've ever brought you, as we take a look at Love Letter: Batman Edition by Seiji Kanai, from Alderac Enterainment.

Love Letter itself is a very popular and well-established casual card game, and has been a staple of many gamers' collections for quite some time.  Even with comic book heroes very much ascendant in recent years, this is probably one of the most surprising games to receive a superhero paint job!

To date we haven't actually played the original Love Letter so will be unable to draw direct comparisons, but we're chalking this up as an advantage as it leaves us able to dissect the Batman Edition on its own merits, and give it an unbiased score.

Love Letter: Batman Edition is a competitive card game for 2-4 players, in which each player takes on the role of the Dark Knight, and has to outshine the other Batmonei (we established this as the plural of "Batman" on a Hobbynomicon podcast!) in recapturing the escaped inmates of Arkham Asylum.

At the beginning of the review we mentioned that this would probably be our shortest gameplay explanation to date, and this is entirely down to the fact that Love Letter: Batman Edition is a mind-bogglingly simple game to play - to such an extent that we were left wondering why we never picked up a copy of the original version.  Before you click away though, we like to think our Cards Against Humanity review proved that simple mechanics do not a bad game make, and similarly our Arkham Horror review went to show that complex mechanics don't necessarily pave the road to a good gaming experience.  So stick with us as we go through Love Letter: Batman Edition and see how it plays out...

Contents-wise, Love Letter: Batman Edition is a very light game.  There are 16 Game Cards, each printed with lavish artwork depicting either Batman, Robin, or one of the many major supervillains from the Batman universe (for those DC fans interested, with the exception of The Joker they're all New 52-based).  Each of these cards contains a nice, plain-English explanation of how that card functions, which we'll go through shortly, and a number in the top-left corner which dictates the card's value (the higher, the better).

As an extra little assist for players, there are also four card lists included in the box, explaining the value of each character, the card's abilities, as well as a reminder of how many of each card are in the deck (there may be five Batmonei, but there is only one Mr J!).

"I'm Batman!" "No, I'm Batman!" "I'm Batman, and so's my wife!"

This just leaves a bag of small wooden Batman tokens, which are used to keep track of the scores across each round, and the rulebook.

And that's it!  Not a great deal to look at (although certainly very pretty), but let's put them all together and see what happens...

The aim of Love Letter: Batman Edition is to gain 7 Batman tokens before any of the other players, through rounding up the highest-valued Arkham escapees.

To start the game the Game Cards are shuffled and then one card is randomly discarded face-down, not to be used throughout the rest of the game.  Lover Letter: Batman Edition is a game of bluffing and deduction, so having one unknown card missing from the deck adds an extra challenge to the latter.

Each player draws a single card to create their starting hand, and then the round begins.  During each players (very quick) turn, they draw one card off the top of the deck, and then have to discard one from their hand,  Some of the cards have positive effects, some have negative effects, either of which can be used to try and misdirect the other players about the remaining card.  Some can be used to eliminate other players from the round, whilst some eliminate the player who discarded it, and one way to win the Batman token for the round is to be the last Batman standing.

If the deck is depleted then the round finishes, and the player with the highest value card in their hand wins the Batman token, or - in the event of a tie - the player with the highest value of discarded cards wins.

Confused?  That's fair, it's a far simpler game in practice than on paper!

For example...

Going back to Batman himself from the earlier photo, his discard ability allows a player to guess at the card in another player's hand.  At the beginning of the game this could be an outright guess, but as more cards are discarded deduction can start to creep in.  Of course players do have to rely on complete honesty from one-another, but frankly anyone who can't be trusted through a casual game has no place in any gaming group, in our opinion!  Batman is the lowest value card in the deck, so keeping him in hand serves very little purpose in the long-run, so he will usually get discarded/activated a lot.

Harley Quinn is a high-value escapee, with a value of 7 (second highest only to her puddin' - The Joker - himself), so keeping her in hand is usually going to be a good play.  However, her ability forces her to be discarded if Two-Face or Poison Ivy are drawn.  In the example above the player has just drawn Bane, who allows players to basically play a quick game of Top Trumps!  Now whilst the obvious play would be to discard Bane and hope Harley's 7 is enough to knock out an opponent, a sneakier play might be to discard Harley, leading the other players to believe either Two-Face or Ivy is in your hand.  Throwing the other players off the scent for a turn like this can be a devastating move, especially with such high card turnover and fast deck-depletion.

Each character in Love Letter: Batman Edition serves a different purpose, and learning how and when to use them most effectively is the key to victory... that, and a good poker face.  Catwoman, for example, allows a player to look at an opponent's hand.  Two-Face allows a player to trade hands with an opponent altogether.  Robin allows a player to ignore the effects of other cards for a full turn.  And The Joker (a personal favourite) puts the player who discarded him out of the round - you are playing as Batman, after all, so allowing Gotham's most notorious criminal to slip through your grasp is grounds for immediate dismissal.

As mentioned above (although now with a bit of context!) being the only non-eliminated player wins a Batman point, or after the deck is depleted, having the highest-value inmate in your clutches snags you that little wooden bat-symbol.  At the end of each round the deck is shuffled and the process is repeated until one player has 7 of those coveted points.

So that's Love Letter: Batman Edition.  With a learning time of roughly 90 seconds (no kidding, that's actually how long it took us to get a game going!) it's one of the quickest and easiest games to pick up on the market, but with some light-hearted theatricality and deception, it's still incredibly fun to play.

The physical components of the game are manufactured to a high standard, and the artwork - as mentioned earlier - is very nice to look at.  Being a quick game to play, it makes an excellent warm-up, wind-down, or intermission game to any games night, and the turns rotate so quickly that it feels more like a party game, as you always seem to be taking an action of some sort.  It's simplicity and short play-time make it an excellent game for younger gamers with shorter attention spans as well, so if you have a young Bat-fan in the family and you want to draw them into your gaming hobby, this might be a good place to start!

Criticisms of the game come very few and far between, however we've always prided ourselves on our impartiality, and so will work to find any negative points we can.  First of all it's not so great with just 2 players.  Even with the mystery card removed at the beginning of the game, the deductive side of Love Letter: Batman Edition falls a little short when you only have one opponent to outfox.  The only other criticism (and ye gods we're having to scrape the nitpicking barrel here!) is that there will inevitably be people getting upset over the choice of villains in the deck.  With a limited-sized deck and so many Arkham alumni to choose from, some people will end up having their favourites missed out.  (On a personal note, the inclusion of The Joker, Harley Quinn and Catwoman was enough to keep me happy, anyone else is purely a bonus!)

The Good Points

• Quick to play.
• Even quicker to learn!
• An excellent entry-level game for younger gamers, or those new to the specialist game scene.
• Nicely tactical, in spite of the simple mechanics.
• Very well presented, with nice artwork throughout.
• "I'M BATMAN!"

The Bad Points

• Limited appeal with only 2 players.
• No Riddler or Penguin, to name but two, so Nigma and Cobblepot fans will be disappointed.
• Very difficult to resist the urge to growl "I'M BATMAN!" with the Batman card in hand.  Anyone?  Oh, maybe that's just me then.

Recommended Number of Players: 3-4

As mentioned, Love Letter: Batman Edition struggles a little with 2 players, but it comes to life with 3 and excels with 4.

Average Game Time: 20 minutes

Each round of Love Letter: Batman Edition only lasts a couple of minutes, but with a target of 7 Batman points a full 4 player game has the potential to cap at 25 rounds!  However, this is unlikely to happen, and 20 minutes is a good average game time, which can even be shortened if needed by reducing the number of required points.

Replay Value: High

With its short play-time, this is a good game for filling gaps, whether a lunch break, or a pause between bigger games on a game night.  As a result, it's likely to be a game which is played little and often, and so will be very easy to keep coming back to.

The Future: Darkest just before the dawn...

Okay we have to admit that comment wasn't really relevant, but we just thought it'd look really good there!  Love Letter: Batman Edition is a standalone game, so really doesn't have anywhere further to go.

Price: £14

The RRP on Love Letter: Batman Edition is £14, and there are two versions available.  We've shown you the boxed version (as we like having pretty boxed games filling our shelves), but there is also a bagged version, which doesn't come with the box, but includes a Batman-embroidered canvas bag for ease of transportation.  Both retail for the same price, and with both Love Letter and Batman being very popular, we imagine it will be readily available on the shelves of most gaming stores before long!

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10

 Tea consumed during this review: Typhoo, milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew Rating: 7.5/10

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more of the same, come and like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our reviews, as well as our general day-to-day ramblings!

Diary of a Roleplay Beginner #3: LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!

This diary entry is perhaps a little bit overdue, being a good couple of weeks after my last roleplay session, but there are two reasons behind this gap.  The first is a simple matter of time contstraints; it's been a busy couple of weeks (hence the long silence on the review front), and the roleplay diary was in a perpetual state of being on the back-burner.  The second is that emotions were running quite high amongst a few of the group's participants after the last session, and I didn't want to start posting things to Games & Tea until I'd had some time to look back on them with a clear head.

 

 

But I fear I'm getting ahead of myself!  In the last entry I mentioned how much I'd enjoyed taking part in my first roleplay session - a purely narrative experience - and how I was looking forward to my first taste of combat in the next session.

 

The first major difference between a combat session and a narrative session is the tabletop element of gameplay.  Now from what I've gathered as a novice overhearing talk of other systems, this does vary from one roleplay to the next.  However, only having experienced Privateer Press' Iron Kingdoms thus far, I can only comment on its mechanic.  With the combat system represented by miniatures on a tabletop laid out by the Game Master, each player needs to provide a miniature to represent their character, allowing everyone to keep track of their place in the action.

Finding a miniature for my character proved to be trickier than expected.  Being a Gun Mage/Rifleman I obviously needed it to be a male character with a long rifle, but with my character's backstory being one of 25 years of mercenary work, I particularly wanted a model which looked like it was not to be trifled with.  The obvious answer would have been Kell Bailoch from the Mercenaries range of PP's Warmachine, having a grizzled look, a long rifle, and even an armoured greatcoat just like my character.

 

 

In fact the model was, frankly, perfect for the part.  If anything it was too perfect, and upon inspection I decided he was a little bit too grizzled, and I'd rather go for someone with perhaps a few less scars and a slightly more sinister look to him...

 

...and so I said farewell to Kell Bailoch, and hello to Lazar Grigsov; a Khadoran rifleman from the actual Iron Kingdoms miniatures range.  Aside from the cloak instead of the greatcoat, Grigsov fit the bill just as well, and had a little bit more of an edge in my opinion.  After speaking with the GM the "artistic licence" card was played, and I happily went ahead and ordered him in.

Sadly the miniatures range from Iron Kingdoms has been discontinued, so I had to pick him up from an eBay seller in the US, and as a result he didn't arrive in time for the required session (in fact just to rub it in, he arrived the following day!).  However, the GM knew I was waiting for my model's arrival, and so he approved my choice of proxy model...

 

 

Yes, I went with Batman, from Knight Models' Arkham City tabletop system.  Now at this point I should mention that it's fairly common courtesy to play WYSIWYG - or as close as you can get - with roleplay models.  It helps to keep track of which characters are where, and it creates an altogether more involving experience.  With this in mind I wouldn't recommend to any beginner to just show up with such a drastically out-of-character model, but in this case it was actually something of an in-joke amongst our roleplay group, and so the GM gave it his blessing for this one session :)

 

Anyway, I'm getting slightly carried away with the miniature selection aspect of the game!  With my far-from-obvious Gun Mage/Rifleman chosen, I turned up for our session, ordered myself some Chinese food and we all got started...

 

The session began with us all preparing to enter the town's sewer system, hot on the trail of the missing arcanist we'd been scouring the town for in our previous session.  We all knew there'd be something nasty awaiting us down beneath the city's streets, but in spite of a fortnight's guesswork, no one quite managed to anticipate quite what that something would be.

...well

...almost no one ;)

 

As it turned out, during a chat on Facebook the GM let me know about what we'd be facing, on account of the fact that I'd be getting snatched by one of them at some point in the adventure!  For those familiar with Iron Kingdoms, we were facing up against Thrullgs.  For those unfamiliar, we were facing up against 10-foot tall, hulking, purple, tentacly monsters which prey upon magic users.  Obviously I had to keep this information to myself, and it did feel very good to know that the GM had faith in me to keep this nugget from the rest of the group.  At this point you might be wondering why he clued me in at all, but it makes perfect sense as it was my responsibility to describe these big tentacle monsters to the rest of the group after the event.  I did have a good laugh to myself at one point in the days leading up to the session, when two of the group started speaking to me about their theories regarding our imminent enemies, to which I just had to smile and nod and pretend I was as clueless as they were!

 

Anyway, I'm digressing again!  We entered the sewers with a couple of NPCs to carry on our search for this arcanist chap.  Now even though this was my second session, this was a slightly new experience for me in comparison to the previous outing.  In our last session we were splitting up and searching different areas of town, whereas down in the sewers we were working together as a single group.  This made me feel quite at ease, as it meant that I could tag along for a while at the back of the pack, waiting until I found my novice roleplay feet again!  Being one of only two characters with a rope and grappling hook, I was called upon quite early on which kept me feeling part of the team, but aside from that I was able to just sit back for a while and let the more experienced players guide the action.

In all honesty I did find navigating around the sewers a bit of a struggle.  I've always had a problem creating mental images of locations, whether it's a passage in a book or someone verbally trying to set a scene.  As a result, in spite of some good descriptive work from the GM, I really couldn't picture the location we were searching, and so sometimes needed a bit of prompting from the other players (a perfect example was an occasion I neglected to investigate a balcony, on account of the fact I forgot it was there!).

After we'd done some solid investigative work, and I'd failed rather spectacularly on some skill-based dice-rolling, we began backtracking the sewers when suddenly...

 

 

"You hear a scream.  Rob's no longer there."  I have to confess to a smug little grin at these words from the GM.  Okay, my character's life was suddenly in danger, but I was hit by this wonderful feeling of "Yep, I knew this was coming.  Now who's going to throw themselves in to help me out?"  As it turned out, most of the group suddenly rounded on the unfortunate Thrullg, and it quickly dropped me and fled deeper into the sewers.  I recovered my rifles which had been picked up by one of the NPCs, drew my magelock rifle (the heavy-hitter of the two), and it was time for us to get stuck in!

 

We all gathered around the sewer layout which had been pre-prepared for us, arranged our miniatures, and then started to spread out.  At this point there were no enemies around, so we were very much scouting the area.  Being a ranged attacker my first instinct was to get to an elevated position to sweep the area, and so along with two other party members that was exactly what I did.  Although I still feel out of my depth from time to time in the narrative element of roleplaying, I'd customised my characters skills and loadout very specifically, so when it cam to combat I knew exactly what I wanted to be doing, and so wasn't afraid to head out and get started.

As it turned out we didn't encounter our first enemy for a few activation turns, spending a few minutes pursuing a ghost around the sewers instead!  The ghost soon vanished though, leaving a Thrullg in its wake, and me with a nice juicy target.  One of the interesting things about combat in a roleplay is making sure that you look at things from your character's perspective rather than your own.  Obviously you can see everything that's going on across the entire field of battle, but your character can only see in front of his or herself.  Obviously the GM can override the decisions of any player who ignores this fact, but if all players respect it and work to it anyway then it just makes for a much smoother-flowing game.  In fact when that first enemy appeared I actually had my back to it, but it was a warning shouted by another party member which alerted me to it and allowed me to move my miniature into a better firing position.

I won't go into too much detail about the combat itself, but I can confirm I had some abysmal dice-rolling luck to begin with (three 1's off three dice is pretty poor!), but once I switched dice (any experienced tabletop gamer can confirm the validity of this tactic) things started to change, and I was able to make the kill-shot on two of the three Thrullgs.  I like to think that my character was so enraged at their audacity of trying to grab him that he went on a kill-spree worthy of Schwarzenegger.  The experience was a very good one in the way that we worked together.  Once I cottoned onto the fact that they were attracted to the nearest magic user I stowed my magelock rifle and switched to a bog-standard repeater, allowing me to keep dealing damage as another mage kept it distracted with a sustained fire spell.

 

With the beasties all subdued, the ghost was chased into another room, with some cracking roleplaying by two of the group - a warrior priest who was hell-bent on destroying the ghost, which he saw as an abomination, and another mercenary-type who was trying to bring the priest under control.  The exchange between them was frankly a masterclass of how to stay in character, and made a fantastic bit of entertainment for the end of the session.

The ghost turned out to be that of the arcanist we were searching for, and we soon left the sewers, reported back to our employer, and then wrapped the session up ready for next time.

At the end of the session the GM rewarded us all with some XP, allowing us to develop new skills or learn new spells.  Now whilst the rulebook itself gives a wide berth on this front, the GM insisted that any new skills had to be justified.  For example, a character who spent an entire session swimming won't have suddenly learned the skills needed for rock-climbing.  Or a character who has thrown themselves into combat all evening won't suddenly be a master of seduction.  We were only allowed to learn new skills relevant to our experience, and I thought this was a great way to ensure even character development.

 

At the beginning of this entry I mentioned emotions running high.  As much as I'd like to say this was because of intense gameplay or something along those lines, the sad truth is that it was down to something of a mixed session.  The ongoing story is still good, and the combat was a lot of fun, but this was my first experience of how other players can create a negative effect on the gameplay as a whole.  There was certainly a lot of good gameplay going on, but it was let down by some instances of someone actually taking issue with others for acting in character, some acting out of character entirely, some poor roleplaying which slowed the pace of the game, and some attempts by one player to dictate the actions of everyone else.

All in all it was still a very enjoyable evening, but it did definitely give me my first glimpse into the potential for a more negative experience.

 

But I'm certainly not going to lose faith at all!  I'm still loving Iron Kingdoms as a whole and our campaign in particular.  My Lazar Grigsov miniature is now painted up and ready to go for the next session, so hopefully I'll be able to report back in a few days about how things are going!