February 20, 2014: You Need Loonacy!

At the Dallas Fall Toy Preview last year, Andrew Hackard and I had the chance to sit down with Kristin and Amber from Looney Labs to play several rounds of a new game design by Andrew Looney. At the time, the game was unnamed, but as this ICv2 post tells us all now, Loonacy: The Maniacal Matching Card Game is coming in March. The game is incredible, and at the Dallas show I think we played at least two dozen times . . . and in more than one sitting! 

How does Loonacy work?

Players start with seven cards each and then start slapping cards down as fast as possible, attempting to match icons on the cards in their hands to the icons on cards in play. There are no turns, just moments of hilarious madness as everyone's racing to empty their hands; the first player to play every single card from their hand wins. (That's usually not me, but only because Amber constantly cheats by being smarter and faster than I am. Hey, that's cheating in my book!)

The Loonacy name is a perfect fit, but while playing I came up with some alternatives that all describe what I tend to say as I lose:

• Wait!
• No, I'm . . . no . . . gah!!!
• Stop! Stop! Stop!

There are more possible titles for the game, but I can't quite figure out how to spell the various groans, moans, and laughs that I spew as I throw down cards and . . . well, as I said, I lose. But I'm betting you will be way better at the game than I am. And regardless of how many times I lose I keep going back to play again (I was happily demoing Loonacy at the New York Toy Fair earlier this week) which, I feel, is the sign of an amazing game.

Congratulations to Andrew Looney and the entire Looney Labs team. I cannot wait to play Loonacy with all of you next month at the GAMA Trade Show . . . and I'm ready to buy my copy just as soon as it hits stores!

-- Phil Reed