Lux Delux for Mac6.56

Fun game and no problems loading any amount of maps on 10.6.5. Interesting twist on Risk and I enjoy the online play too.

Don't waste your money. I tried the previous version for a while and, though it had a disturbing tendency to crash while loading every fourth map or so (sending the syslog process into hyperactivity, jacking up the heat/fan and slowing my entire computer down...), I thought I'd plump for 6.0 on the theory that they probably fixed what ailed it and I was getting tired of going into Parallels to play Risk. Bad choice. Aside from the fact that I still haven't received my license code after two days, the same problems remain: if you play different maps, inevitably, one of the maps won't load and syslog will go nuts. You can kill the process but sometimes that doesn't do it, so you have to kill it again. Or several times. Eventually, everything returns to normal, but it starts again the next time you boot up. Oh, and this problem persists on both my laptop and my family iMac, so I'm pretty sure it's not just me, but it's the code. Anyway, I know I'm the sucker for trusting the developer, but like I said, I've always been a Risk fan. In this case, the risk cost 25 bucks and was definitely not worth it. Take my advice and stay away. I'm the sucker

I think there's too much nitpicking on how one should play this game and the "rules" about how to interpret the rules. In my mind, the game rules ARE the rules; the rest is up to you - otherwise, the game should take responsibility for preventing someone to attack the way they want, etc. I was looking for a game where I could just pop by and have a few shootouts, then leave. But no, that's NOT okay with the people playing Lux… You can't just enter and play by your own chaos tactics however you want. Stepping on someones toe will mean about 10-30 comment lines teaching you what you did wrong - at best - and more often, lead to even more befooling. You are adviced to ask: "Is it OK with you, if I attack you in South America?"… (which of course is a huge disappointing element for someone who just want a game or two during lunch break or likewise). My point of view: if I come in and play the game with my own uncanny/barbarian ways, I'd rather learn the consequences by myself, and I certainly didn't pay $24.95 just to express that I'm sorry if I so happened to "ruin" someone elses game. Who cares? I hope I'll have a reason to retract these comments, but this is my honest conclusion: if you're not a hardcore player of Risk-like games - this is NOT for you, period. And If you (like me) don't have the time or interest learning each little code of conduct, then again, this isn't for you. The way I wish to play this game is to simly act with passion and a bit of fun, making rough estimations, and if (at all) I feel a need to become more skilled, I'd prefer to "teach" myself - learning form my own "mistakes". Not by being yelled at, in a chat communication window. The developer needs to address this in order to attract a larger audience. Perhaps there should be a public server open for free interpretation. The game itself is pretty fun - enough for me to buy it after I tried the demo, at which time I was unaware of the prohibiting nature of its online games.

WARNING LUX BANS PLAYERS The Lux Nerds complain EVERY time someone attacks them "Im telling Dustin to ban you". In other words, if you are an agressive player and like to pop-income you will get banned because you "ruined their game". Lux will take your money and then ban you for no other reason then the way you play. BEWARE.

Lux is way better than iConquer both in appearance, versatility and the enormous number of game variations. Best fun is creating your own games although the drawing tools look like stuff I was using back in the early 80's. The help could be better written as well, but the forums are very active to make up for that.

Lux Delux is a game based on the boardgame Risk. For those of you not familiar with Risk, it's a game of global conquering as you try to advance your units into various countries according to the roll of dice. It's up to you to place your units in strategic places, and hopefully ward off your opponents. As you conquer various territories, you gain extra units if you control it the next round. The last conquerer standing is the winner. Lux Delux, a cross-platform game (PC, Mac, Linux), boasts of over 300 maps for your downloading pleasure, and an extensive forum. The phenomenal feature of Lux is the ability to create your own theme and maps. The forums are quite helpful, the developer is quite open to suggestions for future versions. and in general most players online are cordial. (NOTE: The online layout is awkward, as juggling various windows seems to be the norm.) But as always, watch out for those not-to-family-friendly players online who want to shock others with their obscenity and slang fortitude. Be aware as there are no language filters as far as I can tell. There is a ranking system with Lux Delux that can either be a positive or a negative, depending on players' philosophy. The only thing that is lacking with such a game is variety. As the newer version of the boardgame Risk can attest to, they tried to alleviate this by adding mission cards--beyond just the King-Of-The-Hill type game. Lux Delux is currently lacking in these areas and team play as well; however, it is well on its way to quench the insatiable desire of any Risk addict.

Does anyone have an opinion about how this compares to iConquer? I'm too lazy to download and install the trials versions to find out myself...

A great game... If you like risk your love lux... if you don't like risk you still will probably love lux.

I'm going to find the hidden prefs this thing has buried in my user lib if it takes all night. Tired of the shareware police phoning home, too.

Reasons eh? Has matured light-years since it's humble beginnings and become the unsurpassed leader of Risk-alikes, especially online ones.

The kids like it, I like it. It'd be really cool if Sillysoft added different types of armies - maybe a missile thrower that could hit sections far away? Anyway, of the genre, "Lux" is most complete.

You have GOT to be kidding! $24.95 too much for this? People are so incredibly cheap!

I really like this game and I want to buy it but the prices is too high for me. I think I would bite for $10. Problem is it's just too simple of a game for the price. Different layouts are a nice try to extend interest but the AI is the same. It would be nice to have a lower priced model with just the "Risk" map and no networking. That would be good. Becuase I just want to play it once every few weeks not every day. Now that would be a good way to diversify your product and garner sales - make simpler products for less money to go along side the full featured products. Novel concept.

Wow, this is addicting... i bought it and holy crap... i cant believe how addicting this is for people who are power hungry and like strategy. amazing, well done.

It's fun and has a fair shareware system (twenty free plays). Try it!

Lux absolutely rocks! I'm so glad Dustin has worked around all of the problems caused by bugs in Apple's code. Thanks!

Finally a version that is useable. It loads slow. Transitions to new games during network play are very slow. The chat window also needs to be resized occasionally in network games due to some odd freezing glitch. But the GUI and graphics are back on track, game play is a pleasure again. And no more crashing!!

Continually crashes on 10.3.5 on two different machines (eMac 1Ghz & PB 1.33 12"). After crash prompts to send 'bug report' to apple Very frustrating as I'd like it to work and to buy it. A dud.

Woah, I don't know about the previous person, but I found the AI to be quite good. I can sometimes beat the 'medium' ones, but 'hard' is a different story. And cute? I guess so, in a way. Excellent game.

Lux is cute. The AI's are unfortunately simple to beat.

At first glance, this appeared to be the Risk game I had been looking for. I was impresed enough so that I paid the shareware fee. Big mistake. Lux takes the easy way out in AI. Instead of making the opponents smarter, it just shaves the odds. Gives the AI opponent more armies than the rules allow, makes it impossible for the AI to lose a battle. This game has great features, great potential, but is a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT due to faulty implementation I recommend purchasing the commercial RISK from Hasbro over this. Doesn't cost much more and actually works.

This is a ausome game. Very well put together.

This game has really matured since I last checked it out, which was a long time ago. The explosions and sounds are definitely a big plus, likewise with the real Risk map. The online play is quite well done as well. There is no need to register or anything like that. Finally I can match my killer risk skills against the other riskmasters out there!

The risk board is a good addition.

Game has improved somewhat since i gave version 2.0 a try. Still plays pretty well with a variety of AI's. (Haven't had a chance to try network play). I like the overall concept. New annoyances, too, however. Cards sometimes display overlapping. With the addition of explosions and the accompanying sounds, rendering seems to crawl even on a fairly fast machine (G4 733 MHz). Explosions animate slowly and not very smoothly, while countries can sometimes be seen in a half-rendered state. Poor synchronization between graphics and sounds also. The maps have always looked like they were autogenerated by flawed algorithms. As Ded pointed out, the maps look too much the same. Looks as if all countries were generated more or less circular and were just allowed to overlap, clipping each other. In some cases the clipping didn't fly and portions of countries were left overlapping, leaving a confusing appearance and making some difficult to click on. The problem of visually unconnected but nearby countries being able to attack each other, remains. "Huge" maps tend to be quite unbalanced, with some overly large continents and others of only one or two countries. At least the AI's seem to take some advantage of the presence of smaller, more easily protected continents. I would suggest that if maps are going to be autogenerated, the software for doing so should be perfected and integrated with parameters to control the outcome, rather than having only a set number (too few) of pregenerated maps. Being able to save autogenerated maps would be an asset. Having the format available to create one's own custom maps would likewise be nice. At this point, a custom "theme" doesn't amount to much. If it weren't for the fact that iConquer's AI's are too easy to beat, i'd probably stick strictly with that.

Needs sound support, but otherwise seems to be a good start on a nice risk type game.

The game seems stable and plays fine. I like the almost-real sounding country names, too. However, the countries and therefore maps look all too alike. Many countries have irregularities like places where apparently unconnected countries can attack one another, and in some places countries overlap or have other display oddities.

This is exactly like iConquer except the graphics suck and you can have different types of maps.

kick-ass!

You can play on larger maps. Look at the 'World Size' option on the new game screen.

The map is a little small. it would be nice to be able to select larger maps for future version releases. The first game I ever played, I got attacked in the beginning and died without a turn.