So what’s it all about?
Ok, so I’M not going to bury the lead here – if you buy one family game this year, make it this. Captain Flip is super simple, snappy and satisfying pirate-themed fun. No surprises there’s a lean, accessible and delightful experience as Paolo Mori is half the design duo – but if that’s not enough let me explain a bit more.
How does it play?
Set up simply consists of players agreeing which of the 4 boards they are all going to play and putting one in front of them. They all have a pirate theme and depict 5 columns of box-outlines of various heights, with a variety of bonuses for completion.
On your turn you draw a double-sided tile from a common bag, looking at only one side. You then have a choice of placing it in an empty slot at the bottom free space of any column or flipping it and then doing the same. BUT if you flip you have to keep the new side and place it – there is no flipping back.
So what’s it all about?
Ok, so I’M not going to bury the lead here – if you buy one family game this year, make it this. Captain Flip is super simple, snappy and satisfying pirate-themed fun. No surprises there’s a lean, accessible and delightful experience as Paolo Mori is half the design duo – but if that’s not enough let me explain a bit more.
How does it play?
Set up simply consists of players agreeing which of the 4 boards they are all going to play and putting one in front of them. They all have a pirate theme and depict 5 columns of box-outlines of various heights, with a variety of bonuses for completion.
On your turn you draw a double-sided tile from a common bag, looking at only one side. You then have a choice of placing it in an empty slot at the bottom free space of any column or flipping it and then doing the same. BUT if you flip you have to keep the new side and place it – there is no flipping back.
Once placed if it has an instant effect you follow it – potentially taking gold (VP) and or drawing more tiles / flipping and triggering existing ones. Then the bag goes to the next player. Repeat until one play has completed their penultimate column, then finish the round and the game is over.
Finally, score up – the gold in front of you plus any additions from tiles or completed columns with end-game (as opposed to instant) iconography. Player with the most gold wins.
Simple, eh?
What’s it like?
The reason Captain Flip is so great a combination of pacey play, the joy/despair of you and your fellows of flipping tiles, and the combo/placement strategy of trying to optimise your score.
The tile combination of tile effects are really well considered. Let me illustrate by example. Gunners give 5 gold (a lot!) instantly, but if there are three on your board at the end you lose instantly. So they are great, but even better if you then get a Monkey, which gives you 1 gold and allows you to flip and trigger an orthogonal tile. Cartographers mean you seize a giant map tile and get 1 gold a round for as long as you control the map – but they also work with the Navigator who gives you 2 gold instantly for every Cartographer on your board. Hopefully you get the idea.
The result is 15-20 minutes of hilarity, triumph and joyous disaster. No direct gotchas but some racing to complete columns, a bit of map stealing and plenty of amusement at others’ (Dad’s) misfortune.
Art and design are great. Production values are solid and it plays 2-5 (with solo rules in the expansion board). All in all a very palpable hit.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
87%
