Base price: $14.
3+ players.
Play time: ~20 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 1ish 

Full disclosure: A review copy of Flip 7 was provided by The Op.

My sleep schedule’s been a bit off, lately, so I’m writing this pretty close to my deadline and I’m substantially more tired than usual. Love the tough weeks. Oh well. Thankfully, there’s always more to do and more to try and more to play, so here we are. I’ve been meaning to cover this for a while, but finally getting a chance to play it meant that I actually had the experiences necessary to write up my thoughts. Can’t really review a game I haven’t played (no matter how much I’d like to, in certain circumstances). So let’s see what’s up with Flip 7!

In Flip 7, it’s a race to 200! That said, your cards best be unique; get even one duplicate and you bust out for the entire round! With some special actions available to you, try to tilt luck in your favor so you can score big. Will you be able to break through to 200 points?

Contents

• Setup
• Gameplay
• Player Count Differences
• Strategy
• Pros, Mehs, Cons
• Overall

Setup

Each round essentially works the same. Shuffle the deck and flip cards until each player has at least one number card in front of them. This may cause some players to bust, but more on that later.

Once you’ve done that, player turns can begin!

Gameplay

The game itself is very simple. Each turn, you can hit to take a card, or pass to score your cards and end the round for yourself. If you hit, you flip the top card of the deck. If it’s an action card, perform the action. Note that if there are no other active players (because they’ve passed or busted), you must target yourself with the action. If it’s a number, place it in your tableau. If it’s a duplicate of a number you already have, you bust! You score 0 this round. If this card is your seventh unique number, you’re out of the round, but you score your cards and 15 bonus points!

Once every player is out of the round (via passing or busting) start a new round. Leave the discarded cards aside until the deck runs out, then take all the discarded cards (not cards in player tableaus) and shuffle them to form a new deck.

If a player ever reaches 200+ points, at the end of the round the person with the most points wins!

Player Count Differences

Not a ton, here; more players largely just means more players to target with action cards and that the deck will be shuffled more frequently. If enough players are in play, though, you can always use what they have face-up to figure out what’s out of play! That’s a decent move. The game says it has no upper limit on player count, but in general, I would recommend being skeptical of that.

Strategy

• The cards’ numbers indicate how many points they’re worth and how many are in the deck. You can use that to track how many you’ve seen, though I don’t know if it’s worth trying to count cards when they get moved out of play. Instead, you can just use that as a heuristic, I suppose?
• There is a 0 card. I suppose this violates the rule of each card indicates how many there are in the deck, but that’s okay. This card is pretty useful since it’s so unique, but you’re not really getting many points from it, are you?
• Keep track of player scores! It can help you decide who you want to draw three or who you want to freeze out. You should be able to ask the scorekeeper for a score check, but going afte the person in the lead is usually pretty smart,
• I usually pass with 30+ points, but I’m risk averse. I just don’t want to lose 15% of the points I need to win, you know?
• If I kill a Second Chance card of mine, I’m usually out. Already should have busted once, after all. That’s another heuristic I use when I’m playing. You should have a zone where within that zone you’re more likely to pass than hit; that helps prevent the frustration of busting while still earning you some points.
• You can use a Flip Three card on yourself, if you’re early in the round, Still risky. Nothing saying you can’t get the same card three times, even if it’s the first three. That is frustrating,
• Getting a Flip 7 bonus is a great thing, but trying to get one leads a lot of players to busting. It’s pretty hard to do! I haven’t seen it yet, but the extra 15 points isn’t nothing. You’re just going to see a lot of players aiming for it and then failing.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

• Very classy art style. It’s pretty great.
• The promotional copy is super portable! It’s a very small deck box and I love that. Can take it just about anywhere.
• Quick to learn. Flip and don’t get the same number twice. That’s about it; everything else is scoring and action card explanations.
• Super easy to set up. I do have a soft spot for games where you just shuffle a deck of cards and you’re ready to go.
• I appreciate that there’s a little bit of interaction between players. The action cards elevate the experience, even if a couple of them are a little mean.
• I do love a push your luck game, and this is close to the platonic form of one. You’re just drawing cards and hoping for the best. Push your luck is one of my favorite genres because it’s always a bit hectic and a tiny bit goofy, as a result. Just a big fan.
• The colors are nice as well. They’re strangely soothing for how intense they are, but I’m not a graphic designer so I couldn’t tell you why.

Mehs

• I do wish games where you had to track scores over multiple rounds came with notepads or something to help. It would mess up the aesthetic of this tiny box game, but it would help. Instead, I’m just punching numbers into my phone and hoping for the best.

Cons

• It’s a luck-heavy game, so players who bust multiple consecutive rounds will likely start to get somewhat frustrated. That’s the name of the game, but it definitely doesn’t feel good to play six or so rounds in a row and not score anything after the first one. There’s something to be said for playing more conservatively if you busted in the previous round, but that’s more of a heuristic than anything else and it doesn’t necessarily help player frustration.

Overall: 7.75 / 10

Overall, I think Flip 7 is a fun little game! It’s really well-suited to be the kind of game you keep in a pocket or a bag and bring to a bar or food place to have something to do while you wait if you hate talking to each other. It’s also a solid pick for family game night or just to have some quick way to pass the time. I don’t love that it doesn’t have a two-player mode, but them’s the breaks, sometimes. I’d almost wish I could just play with two score piles in 2P and sum any surviving tableaus together or something. But oh well; that’s why the other game I’m reviewing this week is two-player only. Quick, fun, and fresh: all words I’d use to describe Flip 7. If you’re a fan of pushing your luck, you need a portable little card game, or you just like to bust when you would have scored huge, you might want to check this game out!

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