Game Modification. Learning Domain. Learning Outcomes. Modifications. Joe Schultz - INTE March 30, 2014

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1 Game Modification Joe Schultz - INTE March 30, 2014 Learning Domain Rhyming for early elementary students and emerging readers. Learning Outcomes Match familiar rhyming words from the Dr. Seuss stories. Modifications This modification starts with the classic Fluxx deck. All Keepers, Creepers and Goal cards are replaced with cards listed in the table below. In addition, there are some substitutions for Action, New Rules, Meta Rule cards as detailed below. All other New Rule, and Action cards are retained from the classic Fluxx deck. This deck has 100 cards. Keepers Goals Creepers cat Cat in the Hat - The player with the CAT and the HAT hat fox box beast feast Who two ham Sam am fish dish rake cake Fox in Box - The player with the FOX and the BOX Who's Banquet - The player with the FEAST and the BEAST Two Who - The player with WHO and TWO on the table wins. No More Than - The player with CINDY-LOU and TWO He Likes Them - The player with SAM and HAM Sam-I-am - The player with SAM and AM on the table wins. Put Me Down! - The player with FISH and DISH Balancing Act - The player with RAKE and CAKE

2 pinch Lorax Max (Grinch's dog) Cindy-Lou (Who) train rain (little toy) man (red) fan boat goat no go sad glad bad Try Them, Try Them! - The player with GREEN EGGS AND HAM and SAM Stop the Chopping - The player with LORAX and AX The Good Guys - The player with LORAX and MAX Cindy-Lou Who - The player with CINDY-LOU and WHO Could You, Would You - The player with TRAIN and RAIN Look at Me Now! - The player with MAN and FAN Not on a, not with a - The player with BOAT and GOAT Not One Little Bit - The player with NO and GO Some Fish Are - The player with SAD and GLAD Bully Fish - The player with BAD and SAD on the table wins. Grinch - You cannot win if you have this. On your turn you can play normally; or you can steal any one card that s been played on the table; or, you can pass this card to another player; but you can only do one of these on each turn. green eggs and ham - You cannot win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise. ax - You cannot win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise. Thing 1 and Thing 2 - You cannot win unless you have the CAT. At the end of each of your turns, you can choose to reverse the direction of play.

3 Actions Keep all "Action" cards from classic Fluxx except: 1. "Draw 3, play 2 of them", replace with: "These rhyme" - Take a Keeper from in front of another player that rhymes with one of your Keepers, place both in front of you. 2. "Today's Special", replace with (duplicate of card above): "These rhyme" - Take a Keeper from in front of another player that rhymes with one of your Keepers, place both in front of you. 3. "Let's Do That Again!", replace with "Find a rhyme" - Find one card rhyming with one of your Keepers. Start with other player's hand, then the discard pile, then the draw pile. Place both in front of you. New Rules Keep all "New Rule" cards from classic Fluxx except: 1. "Party Bonus", replace with Surprise card: Surprise - "That's Mine!" Out of turn: Cancel and Action another player has just played. During your turn: All other players must discard one Action, or random card, from their hand. 2. "Inflation", replace with: "Rhymer's Bonus" - If someone has more rhyming pairs on the table than any other player, that person may play 1 extra card. In the event of a tie, no player receives the bonus. 3. "You Also Need a Potato", replace with: "Poor Rhymer's Bonus" - If someone has fewer rhyming pairs on the table than any other player, that person draws 1 extra card. In the event of a tie, no player receives the bonus. Other Substitutions 1. Replace "Meta Rule" in classic Fluxx with optional Meta Rule card: "Rhymers Keepers" - If someone plays a Keeper, anyone with a rhyming Keeper in their hand, must immediately play the card on the table next to the Keeper that was just played, then draw a new card from the draw pile. All rhyming Keepers belong to the person who played the first Keeper. This does NOT apply to Keepers that have already been played on the table. 2. Replace "Taxation!" New Rule card in classic Fluxx with: Surprise - "Stop That!" Out of turn: When another player plays a Keeper, it goes in front of you instead of them, possibly preventing their victory. During your turn: Steal another player's Keeper and put it in front of you. Modification Process I started by counting each type of card in the classic Fluxx deck (Keepers, Creepers, Goals, etc.). I also counted the number of each type of card in Oz Fluxx. I noticed that each deck had 100 cards total, but the amount of the each type of card varied slightly. This told me that I could vary the number of each type of card, but it would probably be good to maintain the proportions. In other words, it would not be

4 a good idea to have twice as many Creepers as the other two decks. I was determined to keep the total card count at 100. For future modifications, I might reduce the deck size to around 56 cards like Family Fluxx. This might make it better for younger players. I replaced all the Keepers and Creepers with content that supported my learning domain and learning outcome. As I was deciding on new Keepers and Creepers, I designed new Goals around those Keepers and Creepers. Finally, I replaced a few of the Actions and New Rules. Some of the Actions and New Rules referred to content from the classic Fluxx deck so they needed to be replaced. I added two Surprise cards from Oz Fluxx because I liked having those in the deck. Finally, I created a new Meta Rule card from classic Fluxx with one that made more sense to my learning outcome. I ended up with 29 Keepers and 19 Goal cards. This is a bit out of proportion from the other Fluxx decks which generally have more Goal cards (around 30) than Keepers (around 20). This became necessary because it was very difficult to find rhyming pairs that had memorable pictures from the Dr. Seuss books. In play testing, one of my goals was to see how this affected the play. My concern was that it would too long to win the game because in most cases there were only two Keepers associated with one Goal card. Getting the right combination of cards to win the game is more difficult with my version of Fluxx. In other Fluxx variations, most Keepers are associated with multiple Goal cards. I compensated for this by creating some actions that made it easier to get pairs of rhyming Keepers. I also added a Meta Rule that required anyone with a rhyming Keeper in their hand to give it to a player who plays a rhyming Keeper on the table. I also compensated by reducing the number of New Rule cards which limit the number of Keepers one can have in from of them. This version works best if there are lots of opportunities to match Keepers to Goal cards. Play Testing My play testing was fairly successful. I discovered some ambiguity in some of my cards. I was aware that Fluxx is not meant for non-readers, and some emerging readers would need help understanding the cards. However, my non-reading 4-year-old son was able to recognize rhyming words and understand which card pairs would help him win the game. It worked fine for me to read the cards to help him understand the Actions and New Rules. My 6-year-old daughter was able to read the cards, so she didn t need any help playing her hand. Both of them needed help remembering all the rules and keeping track of the order of play. They are both very young to be playing Fluxx which is meant for ages 8 and up. But the fact that they both enjoyed the game and were able to play it, made me more confident that an older audience would like this Dr. Seuss version. I enjoyed playing the game. When multiple New Rule cards were played, I had trouble keeping track of all of them. At one point, we had a Draw 5 and Play 4 rules in effect. This got a bit overwhelming. Each turn took a long time, as each player figured out which cards to play in which order. In future modifications, it might be helpful to reduce the number and complexity of New Rule cards. This modification of Fluxx took longer to win than the other two versions I played (Classic Fluxx and Oz Fluxx). In future modifications, I could design more Action, New Rule, and Goal cards that make it easier

5 to acquire rhyming pairs and match them with a Goal card. I could envision a New Rule card, that makes it possible to have three or more Goal cards active at one time (similar to the Double Agenda card). I was pleased that both my children, who are quite young to be playing Fluxx, enjoyed the game. They enjoyed the connection with the Dr. Seuss stories that they are both very familiar with. My wife also enjoyed the cards, though she didn t play the game with us. Her comment to me was that it took a long time to complete one game. Reflections related to better understating of learning Domain I decided that all the Keepers that allow a player to win needed to rhyme, since that was my learning domain. This presented a particular challenge as I was creating the Goal cards and deciding with rhyming word from Dr. Seuss to use. There were some natural pairs that I wanted to use (i.e. green eggs paired with ham), that were not possible because they didn t rhyme. I considered using them anyway, but it didn t make sense for my learning outcome to introduce non-rhyming pairs. Another challenge came as I was considering which objects would be easily represented and recognized from the Dr. Seuss books. I wanted young players to be able to match the winning pairs using their familiarity with the Dr. Seuss books. It helped immensely to have a picture associated with the word. Even my son who is not reading yet, was able to look at the picture which he recognizes from the Dr. Seuss story and match it with another image with a rhyming name. During play testing, I learned that it didn t really matter whether the rhyming words had similar spelling. For example the words two, Cindy- Lou, and who which use different letters to represent the oo sound, all rhyme. As long as there is a picture associated with the word, young readers can learn by playing the game, that rhyming sounds are necessarily spelled the same. As I was developing the game, I was concerned that it didn t require players to actually think about which words rhyme. If all they had to do to win the game was have the two Keepers on the Goal card, it was more of a matching game than a rhyming game. However, the addition of a new Meta Rule changed this dynamic. The Meta Rule states: If someone plays a Keeper, anyone with a rhyming Keeper in their hand, must immediately play the card on the table next to the Keeper that was just played, then draw a new card from the draw pile. All rhyming Keepers belong to the person who played the first Keeper. This does NOT apply to Keepers that have already been played on the table. This addresses my concern by making it necessary to determine if any of the cards in one s hand rhyme each time a Keeper is played. There are also three new Action cards which require players to find rhyming cards. These two things change the dynamic from matching to rhyming. Overall, I m very pleased with my game modification. I think it supports my learning outcome nicely.

6 FOX HAT fox FEAST hat BEAST cat beast feast Who two 2 CINDY-LOU box TWO CAT BOX WHO Cindy-Lou

7 SAM AM HAM Sam am ham FISH DISH RAKE fish dish rake CAKE cake LORAX Lorax MAX Max

8 MAN RAIN man GOAT rain BOAT train boat goat no NO go GO SAD fan GO TRAIN FAN NO sad

9 bad The Cat in the Hat FOX IN BOX glad Fox in Box The player with the CAT and the HAT The player with the FOX and the BOX Two Who The player with WHO and TWO 2 No More Than The player with CINDY-LOU and TWO on the table wins. 2 WHO S BANQUET CINDY LOU WHO BAD NO MORE THAN GLAD THE CAT IN THE HAT TWO WHO Who s Banquet The player with the FEAST and the BEAST on the table wins. Cindy Lou Who The player with CINDY-LOU and WHO on the table wins.

10 Sam-I-am The player with SAM and AM Balancing Act BULLY FISH The player with SAM and HAM Bully Fish The player with RAKE and CAKE The player with BAD and SAD Stop the Chopping The player with LORAX and AX The Good Guys The player with LORAX and MAX PUT ME DOWN! TRY THEM, TRY THEM COULD YOU, WOULD YOU He Likes Them SAM-I-AM THE GOOD GUYS HE LIKES THEM BALANCING ACT STOP THE CHOPPING Put Me Down! The player with FISH and DISH Try Them, Try Them The player with GREEN EGGS AND HAM and SAM Could You, Would You The player with TRAIN and RAIN

11 Some Fish Are The player with SAD and GLAD Not on a, Not with a The player with BOAT and GOAT NOT ONE LITTLE BIT The player with MAN and FAN SURPRISE This card can be played at any time, for one of the functions described below, or to cancel a Surprise which another player has just played. That s Mine! Out of turn: Cancel and Action another player has just played. Take a Keeper from in front of another player that rhymes with one of your Keepers, place both on the table in front of you. Not One Little Bit The player with NO and GO GO ACTION To play this card, do whatever it says, then place it on the discard pile. These Rhyme Take a Keeper from in front of another player that rhymes with one of your Keepers, place both on the table in front of you. This card can be played at any time, for one of the functions described below, or to cancel a Surprise which another player has just played. Stop That! Out of turn: When another player plays a Keeper, it goes in front of you instead of them, possibly preventing their victory. During your turn: Steal another player's Keeper and put it in front of you. FIND A RHYME These Rhyme THESE RHYME THESE RHYME To play this card, do whatever it says, then place it on the discard pile. SURPRISE During your turn: All other players must discard one Action, or random card, from their hand. ACTION NO STOP THAT! Look at Me Now! NOT ON A, NOT WITH A THAT S MINE! LOOK AT ME NOW! SOME FISH ARE ACTION To play this card, do whatever it says, then place it on the discard pile. Find a Rhyme Find one card rhyming with one of your Keepers. Start with other player's hand, then the discard pile, then the draw pile. Place both in front of you.

GRINCH CREEPER You cannot hold this card, but must place it face up in front of you as soon as you get it. If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it.

If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it. Grinch You cannot win if you have this.

12 GRINCH CREEPER You cannot hold this card, but must place it face up in front of you as soon as you get it. If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it. green eggs and ham You cannot win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise. CREEPER You cannot hold this card, but must place it face up in front of you as soon as you get it. If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it. Grinch You cannot win if you have this. On your turn you can play normally; or you can steal any one card that s been played on the table; or, you can pass this card to another player; but you can only do one of these on each turn. Poor Rhymer s Bonus If someone has fewer rhyming pairs on the table than any other player, that person draws 1 extra card. In the event of a tie, no player receives the bonus. CREEPER You cannot hold this card, but must place it face up in front of you as soon as you get it. If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it. Thing One and Thing Two You cannot win if you have this unless you have the CAT. At the end of each of your turns, you can choose to reverse the direction of play. If all players agree, keep this card with the Basic Rules during the entire game. RHYMERS S If someone has more rhyming pairs on the table than any other player, that person may play 1 extra card. In the event of a tie, no player receives the bonus. New rules take effect instantly. *META RULE AX Rhymer s Bonus POOR RHYMER S BONUS New rules take effect instantly. THING ONE & THING TWO GREEN EGGS AND HAM RHYMER S BONUS * NEW RULE * NEW RULE Rhymers Keepers If someone plays a Keeper, anyone with a rhyming Keeper in their hand, must immediately play the card on the table next to the Keeper that was just played, then draw a new card from the draw pile. All rhyming Keepers belong to the person who played the first Keeper. This does NOT apply to Keepers that have already been played on the table. CREEPER You cannot hold this card, but must place it face up in front of you as soon as you get it. If you drew it, immediately draw another card to replace it. ax You cannot win if you have this unless the Goal says otherwise.

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