Captain Flip Family Game Review

Captain Flip

WBG Score: 8

Player Count: 2-4

You’ll like this if you like: Lost Seas

Published by: PlayPunk

Designed by: Remo Conzadori, Paolo Mori

This is the reviewer’s copy. See our review policy here

By Steve Godfrey

There have been many famous pirate captains throughout history, to name but a few: Blackbeard, Sparrow, Silver, Hook, Crunch, Birdseye. All of these, however, pale in comparison to the fearsomeness of Captain Flip and his nature that can flip with the snap of a finger. Gracious one minute and hate-fuelled the next, his rage knows no bounds... what’s that?... it's just a game about flipping tiles? So he’s not angry at all?... donated to many charities, you say? Well, it doesn’t make as exciting of an intro, but it’s nice to know he runs a good ship, I suppose.

How to Flip

If it’s your first game then give each player the sheet with the A on it, you’ll be using that side. For subsequent games you can all decide which of the four possible boards you're all using, making sure that you're all playing the same one and that’s it.

On your turn you’ll take a tile from the bag making sure that you only see one side of it. Each tile is double sided with a different character and ability on the other side. You can then choose to either play the current tile as it is or choose to flip it. If you keep the side that you pulled then you place that tile on one of the columns on your board in the bottom most space. You'll then collect coins from any immediate scoring if that tile has it. If you choose to flip the tile then you must keep that side and place it on the board in the same way. Some tiles will have immediate scoring while others will score end game points. Completing some columns will net you completion bonuses and once one player has finished 4 columns the game will end. Score any end game points and the player with the most coins wins. Here’s a quick rundown of what each character does.

Cartographer - (Immediate) Take the treasure map token. You get 1 point at the end of every turn you have it.

Navigator - (Immediate) Gain 2 points per cartographer on your board.

Cook- (immediate) Gain 1 point per character in their row (including them)

Gunner - (immediate) Take 5 coins. If you have 3 gunners on your board at the end of the game you lose!

Monkey- (immediate) Gain 1 coin, plus flip an adjacent character tile and apply the revealed effects. 

Parrott - (Immediate/ Endgame) Draw and play another tile gaining the effects. Lose 1 coin at the end of the game.

Swabby - (endgame), Score increasing points for each swabby in different columns.

Carpenter - (endgame), Gain 3 points if there are no gunners in their row or column.

Lookout - (endgame) Gain 4 coins if there is no character above them in that column.

More flippin than a pinball table

If you’ve read the overview then there's a good chance that you’re thinking, “Well this is just a pure luck fest right?” and for the most part yeah, I can’t argue with that. You pull a tile from the bag and whether you choose to flip or not you pretty much take what you're given. But there’s actually more strategy here than I originally gave it credit for. So many of the tiles rely on particular positioning or would benefit with more of something on the board before playing it. In fact if you want to maximise your score on this game you certainly need to do a bit of planning. For example, the Gunners are great! 5 coins immediately? Yeah I’ll take some of that! Especially if you get a couple of them out it’s a decent chunk of points. But when you factor in the negative aspects of it, like potentially losing the game and blocking any carpenters, well then, that’s when you need to have a plan. Like placing them in a position where they can still get flipped if you manage to pull a monkey out of the bag (this was a weird sentence to write). It’s a weirdly strategic game for something so light and quick. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to have you pacing up and down on your turn trying to math out all the possible variants, but it does offer enough that you will have moments when you're genuinely fraught with answering the question, to flip, or not to flip. It’s a genuine gamble at any point in the game.

There are extra boards and each gives you enough flavour to keep the game from getting too repetitive. One adds a race element to the columns. One board has the column bonuses being rewarded for the first person to reach it. This is one of the reasons you all play with the same boards each time rather than mixing them up. Whereas another has you getting the bonus if all the characters in a column are identical. 

Don’t flip the table

Captain Flip was nominated for a spiel des jahres in 2024 and it lost out to the also excellent Sky Team. Sky Team is excellent and a worthy winner but, I’ll be honest, now that I’ve played this, if it had ended up winning, I wouldn’t have been mad. That award is all about family gaming and I think this is a game that encapsulates that completely. It’s simple, light, fun and lucky but having that luck fail you never feels offensive enough to put you in a bad mood. Everything about the game gives you that light fun feel so that if you do happen to have a bad game of it (score and luck wise) you’re more than likely to just say ‘meh, never mind’ and carry on with your day un-phased.

Captain Flip was all over Instagram when it was released and I’ve learned the hard way not to just buy everything that I see on social media no matter how good it looks. However, a couple of plays on Board Game Arena and I was sold. This is one that I can easily see me pulling out as a quick starter game, a “between the big games” game or an end of the night game. Most importantly though I can see this being played with whoever I’ve got round the table, be they seasoned gamers or just familiar with the old classics. 

Right, I’m off to get out of this pirate costume and flip my table back over. It’s possible I may have assumed something before I read the rules.