Captain Flip

Captain Flip is the result of asking the question “what if a game was as simple as flipping one tile on each turn?”

On the table is a small grid of tiles. On your turn, you truly only do one thing at all times: flip one tile. That’s the simple core that makes this game extremely easy to learn.

What happens then? You take the corresponding action. If you flipped the tile faceup, you do the heart action. If you flipped it facedown, you take the skull action.

Most of the time, such an action allows you to “score a tile”. Maybe a tile in the same row. Maybe an adjacent tile. But in all cases, it must be a facedown tile.

Which means you must memorize where the good ones are … or blunder into a pile of negative points.

What’s special?

As stated, my goal with this game was to find the absolutely simplest core rules possible. While still having a game with depth and variability.

The first few versions were either too simple or too difficult, until I found this mix between a memory game and a strategic game. You have to remember which tiles are good, but also which tiles have an action you need to score them.

This turns a game you can learn in thirty seconds into one that’s very tough to win. That’s pretty much the ideal game (“easy to learn, hard to master”), which is why I’m happy I made this.

Of course, as the introduction shows, there are still some extra rules needed (besides “flip a tile on your turn”). But those rules are about consequences or scoring. The actual action you take, every turn, without exception, is always just “flip a tile”.

And when it comes down to it, most players struggle to remember all the actions they can take—the thing they’re allowed to do each turn—which is why I’m always in search of ways to simplify that. (Any consequences or scoring rules can simply be asked about when you need a reminder, after taking the action.)