Looney Labs
Looney Labs is a small game company based in College Park, Maryland, USA. It is named after its founders, Andrew Looney and Kristin Looney.
Games
The company is probably best known for its card games, especially Fluxx, whose rules and goals change as the the result of its players' actions, and Chrononauts, themed around time travel. Both of these were designed by Andrew Looney and derive much of their popularity from the whimsical, unpredictable nature that he tends to give his games; while a player can definitely benefit from an overall strategy, the games are random enough to demand far more short-term tactical skill than long-term planning ability.
Looney Labs also produces and sells Icehouse pieces, small, colorful plastic pyramids useful for playing a variety of games (as well as inventing new ones). In one sense they are the Labs' flagship product, being the original motivation for the company's launch (as "Icehouse Games") in the 1980s, but they have yet to bring the company anything approaching the financial success of its card games. As a reaction to this, the Looneys have started to market the more popular Icehouse games as stand-alone products, starting with Ice Towers and Zendo (the latter of which won an Origins award for best abstract board game of 2003).
Activism
Andy sometimes lets his opposition to American marijuana prohibition shine through in the games that he designs, slipping in various references to marijuana and its attendant culture. These include the players' ability to legalize marijuana through timeline manipulation in Chrononauts, or the clock reading 4:20 that can be seen on one Fluxx card. More recently, the company has published Stoner Fluxx, a variant of the popular game that is an overt celebration of pot and the fight to legalize its consumption in the USA.
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