When a game proclaims itself to be the greatest card game of all time, you tend to take notice. I came across this game as a bit of news and thought it worth checking out. I added it to my wishlist and, a month or two later, the bright blue box arrived as part of a Secret Santa gift. I promptly took it to my aunt’s house for a game night at her request to bring some games down, (we were visiting her and the Exeter Christmas Market) and it was an instant success. So much so, that my aunt and her friends bought a copy each. The only critique is the unnecessarily large box size, but that seems to have been resolved with a later print run. But if you want to play Flip 7, “the greatest card game of all time,” here’s how you do it.
Set up
Shuffle the deck of cards. You are ready to play.
No, really. That’s it.
It’s a card game, what did you expect?
Gameplay
Each round, a player will be nominated to be the dealer. The dealer, unsurprisingly, deals out a card to each player. Then, going around and around, they will see if each player wants to take another card or stop for the turn and bank their points. Points are important, as you want to get to at least 200 to be in with a chance of winning. Straightforward enough so far.
The “push your luck” element of this game comes in that decision to push or stay. Each of the number cards in the deck, 1, 2, 8, etc, is represented that many times, and if you draw the same number twice, you immediately bust and are out of the round, scoring no points. If you choose to stop, you will score the total face value of your cards, plus any bonuses that you may have gathered. So if you had drawn the only 1 card, one of the pair of 2’s and an 8, you might be tempted to push your luck, especially if you can see that Uncle Jim and Granny have both got an 8 in front of them. However, if you had the only 10, 11 and 12 that had been dealt out so far that round, you might opt to bank your 33 points.
But why should you push your luck? Well, if you manage to flip over seven different number cards, you will immediately end the round for everyone, score your cards and get a bonus 15 points.
There are a few special cards that will come up as the game goes on, so we should cover those. Whenever one of these cards appears, you must resolve it fully, even if it’s during the initial deal:
Second Chance – This gives you a lifeline in the event of a duplicate card. If you draw a number card which matches one of yours, you can discard the new card, along with the Second Chance and carry on with the game. If you end up with a second Second Chance card, you cannot stack them up. You can only have one Second Chance card at a time, so you have to pass it to another player (if there are any).
Flip 3 – Target someone to flip three cards in a row. This can be yourself, or an opponent, and should they bust, well that’s unfortunate for them. If any other action cards come up, they are resolved as well, but if a second Flip 3 comes along, fully resolve the first one, before that player picks someone to Flip 3.
Freeze – This card targets any player who is still active in the game and immediately takes them out of the round, letting them score whatever is in front of them, even if they haven’t received a card yet. Unfortunately, this can also mean yourself if you are the only person left in the game.
Modifiers – there are several of these cards, which do pretty much what they say on the card. The “X2” card multiplies the face value of your cards, but not any other modifiers you might have, like a +2, +4, etc. These get added on after you multiply.
The game ends when a player has scored more than 200 points at the end of the round. It’s important to note that the end of the game isn’t triggered when someone reached 200, and multiple players can get to 200 in the same round. After that, whomever has the most points wins.
