Full disclosure: A review copy of FlipToons: Season 2 was provided by Thunderworks Games.

I do love a sequel. There’s always something exciting about a game you like getting an expansion or a follow-up, and I think it’s even more fun when it seems like the publisher was also a bit surprised by the game’s success? I mean, on the beat, everyone I knew was talking about FlipToons when it first came out, so another game in the series makes perfect sense to me, especially since both are on Board Game Arena. I love the try-before-you-buy model that folks use for that, and it’s still one of my favorite ways to play games with my non-local friends. But yes, unsurprisingly, FlipToons is back with Season 2! New hijinks and new characters await.

So, yes, FlipToons: Season 2! Players take on the role of talent agents auditioning a cast of toons for the next great animated show. To do so, each turn you’ll shuffle your deck and reveal six cards in a two row, three column grid. Certain characters just work better together and in certain situations, so as you play cards, you’ll gain Fame. The more Fame you have, the more impressive characters you can hire! When a player hits 30 Fame, the player with the most Fame gets the Critic’s Choice Award and starts the Final Flip. The player with the most points after the Final Flip round wins! So that’s exciting. Along the way you’ll dismiss characters that don’t quite work (who wants to watch a show about an animated Mosquito???) and replace, refresh, and shuffle folks around to try and get the perfect six-character cast you crave. How will this spinoff compare to the original? One way to find out!

Overall: 8.5 / 10

Let’s get the first thing out of the way: FlipToons: Season 2 is another winner, across the board. The format works, the cards are simple and digestible, and the amount of combinations and ways to play are fantastic. Even more so considering that you can combine it with the original for even more hijinks. Keep in mind, of course, that certain cards that depend on other cards are going to be riskier and potentially less useful, but that’s the case for the original FlipToons as well. I’d even go so far as to say that there are some genuinely novel things about Season 2 that I prefer to Season 1. I think the Starter Deck is a little more interesting and situational as some of the cards play with spatial placement a bit more than the original set. There are also new strategies that Season 2 opens up that aren’t available in Season 1, especially around having a lot of cards. Generally not encouraged in Season 1, but Capybara and Hippopotamus explicitly reward that behavior. It’s great! I love seeing a deckbuilder offer more styles of play each time.

The pertinent question in this review is “does FlipToons: Season 2 offer a meaningful difference from Season 1 in a way that would change your mind about it?”, though, and honestly? No, not really. That’s fine, all things considered. I don’t really think it needs to; I like FlipToons a lot. I do think that if FlipToons is not your speed that this set is not suddenly going to change your mind about it unless you genuinely love one of the animals that are featured, and even then, I think that’s not entirely relevant to the game itself. Granted, Season 2 feels a little tighter, as a game, upon my first impression, and I like a lot of the cards and how they work. There are are also new, interesting effects that reward large decks, as I mentioned, and also deck cycling, so that you can have less useful / lower-rank cards in your deck and just rotate through them to get to what you actually want to play. The game, on the whole, clearly (and cleanly!) demonstrates that there’s still a lot of runway left for this concept. FlipToons is also still one of the best ways to get into deckbuilding as a genre, but I think sequels in general always have the issue of, well, being sequels. They’re not necessarily intended to get new folks into the series or change people’s minds; they’re more for people who want more. One thing Season 2 does well is that if you haven’t played Season 1 at all, this is still just as good of an entry point. You do not need Season 1 to play. I do think that’s great.

So let’s recap. FlipToons: Season 2 is great! That’s good. I don’t think it’ll change your mind meaningfully about FlipToons as a series, and I don’t really expect it to? That’s fine. I don’t think that’s its goal. It’s more for people who want more, while smartly being available for people who’ve never tried it. Now, does this fit into Thunderworks Games’s brand? No, but I was confused about that with FlipToons S1 as well. Sometimes the game is good enough that you ignore some brand synergy (similar to last week’s Enchanted Ivy being Allplay’s first solo-only game). And FlipToons is good enough (though, as an aside, I do kind of wonder when we’ll see Thunderworks split their lines between a Roll Player / Ulos-specific brand and their Other Stuff). So if you’re looking for more: it’s more! It’s I wonder if we’ll see a Season 3? After all, for animated shows, that usually brings a 3.5% wage increase (and more!). If you’re a fan of small deckbuilders, though, FlipToons: Season 2 is another hit! And if you’re already a fan of FlipToons, well, it’s more.

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