Looney Labs

Looney Labs, Inc. is a small game company based in College Park, Maryland, United States. It is named after its founders, Andrew Looney and Kristin Looney and is best known for creating the Fluxx line of card games. The company has three U.S. patents and eight Origins Awards.

The company's games are distributed by ACD Distribution, Alliance Game Distributors and GTS for the US hobby game market, Lion Rampant for Canada and Publisher Services, Inc. for U.S. mass market and book trade and the international market.

Andrew and Kristin previously entered game design and manufacturing with Icehouse Games which was started to manufacture IceHouse sets for the formerly fictional IceHouse game in 1989. In 1996, Looney shut down Icehouse Games, Inc. as the cost to create Icehouse pyramid molds would cost $12,000 and to focus on designing a card game.

Andrew soon designed the Fluxx card game. Looney Laboratories was launched in 1996 as a part-time home based design company soon adding a nearby storage unit as a warehouse. Fluxx was licensed out to Iron Crown Enterprises to publish. At the 1998 Origins International Game Expo and Fair in Columbus, Ohio, Looney launched its Aquarius card game. Proton and Q-Turn were design in 1998-1999. Alison Frame started working at Looney Labs with Fluxx using her artistic abilities. The company's November 1999 weekly web zine officially launched its Mad Lab Rabbit fan demo program.

Iron Crown went into bankruptcy thus the Looney triggered the license provision allowing the rights to revert to the company. Lab then decided to publish Fluxx in house instead of finding another publisher. Kristin by 2000 quit her job to work full-time. By 2000, the company re-released Icehouse as Icehouse: The Martian Chess Set, released Chrononauts and a new printing of Fluxx (version 2.1). Icehouse sold poorly in stores while selling briskly on the company's website.

In summer 2001, ACMS, later renamed Print Mail Communications (PMC), took over from the storage unit as warehousing and distribution company. In 2001, IceHouse and Chrononauts both won Origins Awards 2000 while Looney Labs published Cosmic Coasters, Fluxx Blanxx, and Chrononauts: Lost Identities. Icehouse pieces were released as monochrome stash tubes in 2001.