by W. Eric Martin

▪️ Have you ever had the feeling that something already exists...then you see it announced as a new thing? I had that feeling when Looney Labs announced that it would release Cat Fluxx — the next iteration of Andy Looney's long-lived Fluxx — on September 9, 2025. Wait, isn't that already a thing? Turns out that it is not.

The familiar Fluxx gameplay now features felines and every trope you might expect to find. Nine specific cat breeds are included as keepers, along with cat silhouettes, part of a human, and a laser pointer. New actions include cards such as "The Zoomies" and "Objects on Shelves Must Be Pushed Off", and one of the new rules is "Live Cat Bonus", which has you draw an extra card each turn while a cat is in the room.


I appreciate Robin Sevakis' cover art, which feels like it's channeling What's Michael?, Makoto Kobayashi's adorable manga series from the 1980s. Cat lovers who have not read What's Michael? should check it out!

▪️ In Q2 2026, Modiphius Entertainment will launch a second edition of James Sheahan's Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, with the miniatures from the original edition being compatible with those to be released in the future. Here's an overview from the publisher:


In a press release, Modiphius' Head of Brand Samantha Webb writes: "We're doubling down on all the best bits of the Wasteland Warfare experience, inspired by elements of the Into the Wasteland, Homestead, and solo rules from the first edition, to give players a more refined and streamlined version of the solo campaign that's so popular. The game really nails the feeling of Fallout: exploring the wasteland around you, being jumped by irradiated creatures, coming across other camps of survivors, raiders, or super mutants, and scavenging what you need for your warband to survive. War never changes!"

Inspiring words: "War never changes."

▪️ On June 27, 2025, a "refreshed" edition of Alan R. Moon's Ticket to Ride will hit retail shelves, with the only obvious refreshing being to the cover. (The game listing on Asmodee's site doesn't suggest any specific changes.)

▪️ Similarly, the new editions of Klaus Teuber's CATAN: Traders & Barbarians and its 5-6 Player Expansion are due out in the U.S. on July 4, 2025, with the German release coming in August 2025.

▪️ Pegasus Spiele North America says that three titles already released in Europe — two from Deep Print Games and one from Ludonaute — will be available on the U.S. market as of August 2025: Andreas Steding's Rival Cities, Leo Colovini's Roaring 20s, and Aske Christiansen's Living Forest Duel.

▪️ In 2019, Greater Than Games acquired the publishing rights to titles from Cheapass Games, then in 2021 Flat River Group acquired GTG and to date I believe the only Cheapass titles that appeared from either GTG or FRG were a new printing of Tak, Devil Bunny Needs a Ham, and the 24-3/4 anniversary edition of Kill Doctor Lucky.

In 2020, designer James Ernest, who had founded Cheapass Games in 1996, started releasing games as Crab Fragment Labs, with most (all?) of them being available as rules or in a print-and-play format — although you could also purchase the games through the Crab Fragment shop in order to throw a few bucks in Ernest's direction.

In 2022, Crab Fragment started offering some former Cheapass titles as well, and in June 2025 Ernest and Crab Fragment Labs announced that "we have regained total ownership of Cheapass Games". From the announcement:

How will these older games be made available again? Mostly in the same way they used to be available: "[W]e plan to make a large chunk of the old catalog available for free. Not just the 'original' PDF versions, as we have now at Cheapassic Park, but also all-new PDFs featuring old-style presentation with updated rules." Some games will be available for purchase on DriveThruCards, and Crab Fragment is "already actively pursuing avenues" to bring Tak back into production.