FlipToons

In FlipToons the story is we’re assembling the cast for an animated show. But whilst the artwork definitely lends itself to the theme, really this is a fast-moving thing of looking for combos and hoping for luck.

Everyone has the same basic starting deck made up Skunk, Dragonfly, Bee, Snail, and two Caterpillars. In each round of the game, everyone will shuffle their decks and simultaneously deal out six cards into their own 2×3 grid and calculate the ‘fame’ value. Then, in turn order, each player can take two actions: spending fame to buy (better) cards from the central market, or spending 5 fame to dismiss one of their current cards, ejecting it from the game. You can do one of each action, or two of one, just one action or none at all: it’s up to you, as long as you can afford it.

The goal is to increase your fame score, which resets to zero each round as all your cards (except the dismissed ones) are shuffled and then six dealt out again. If someone gets 30 fame or more, it triggers the end game: complete the current round and then play one final round – the person who scores the most fame at this point is the winner.

It’s a game with a fairly simple rhythm: easy to teach and learn and pretty fast-moving, especially for 2 or 3 players. What becomes clear as you play is how certain cards synergise: Rabbits, for example, will stack on each other, having special dispensation to do so. Elephants score a big 7 fame, but they flip the previous card over, rendering it useless. Unless of course you have a Bull, which scores +7 if you have any card in your grid flipped face-down. Note that in each round the starting player moves clockwise, and whomever triggers the end of the game gets the Critic’s Choice card, which scores an additional 3 fame.