Flip City Review: Build your own town!

One can't talk about Flip City without mentioning Chih-Fan Chen - the game's designer and artist. He is basically THE most well-known boardgame designer from Taiwan.

He creates games not only for his own studio, Homosapiens Lab, but also to other publishers from Taiwan, like Mizo Games, Big Fun Games, and many others.

Since 2016, he's also been part of the Taiwan Boardgame Design (TBD) stand on the world's largest Board Game Exhibit - SPIEL, in Essen.

Let's get to know another game from him: Flip City!

Flip City is a 1 to 4-players game, age 8+, created by Chih-Fan Chen, whom is also the artist - mind you, the game is beautiful.

Flip City was released in 2014 by Homosapiens Lab. In Brazil, it was released in 2016 by Paper Games. The main game mechanics are: deck building, luck draws, hand management, and sudden turnarounds.

Let's play!

The Game

You're in charge of expanding Flip City. Some of your decisions will bring dissatisfaction to the inhabitants, and even though one can't please everyone, if they complain too much, you'll have no choice but to stop.

You must manage the city's expansion and well-being, investing on what's important, and reach your end goal - get Victory Points.

Are you ready to be constantly questioned by your people?

At the beggining of your administration - the start of the game -, you'll receive 9 specific building cards. This is your starting deck.

All cards are double-faced, so it's very important that you keep'em all to the indicated side while you shuffle. Don't flip them, because on the other side there'll be different buildings.

The 9 cards each player gets will amount to 6 different structures. The other cards available - including the expansion - will total 12 different buildings.

The remaining cards are placed each on its own deck at the center. They are available for all players to acquire once you reach the appropriate game phase.

All double-faced cards have different buildings on each side.

Let's see an example of a front-face of a card:

All cards have on their front a Building Cost on the upper right corner, except Residential Area / Apartment. There's no such thing on the back side, because any cost to acquire it will have already been paid.

In order to use the back side, and thus gain its benefits, you need to pay the Flip Fee, on the lower right corner. This Fee also appears on Residential Area / Apartment, and we'll explain it in a bit.

Now that the setup is done, let's shuffle up and play a turn, which has two phases:

- Play Cards Phase

- Building Phase

On Play Cards Phase, you play the card on top of your deck, one at a time, placing them side-by-side, and check what you played and what is on top of your deck for any effects before you play your next one.

All played cards will grant you either cash, victory points, unhappiness, and other things. After you play each card, you must decide whether to play an additional card, or stop and continue to the Building Phase. You should always check the top card of your deck before making the decision.

Be on the lookout for two things:

- if, at any moment, the cards played total 3 unhappiness icons, your turn ends and all cards played go to your discard pile;

- if the card on top of your deck is a Residential Area / Apartment, you must play it - it's a requirement of the card. If you already had 2 unhappiness icons, the Residential Area / Apartment will give you a third one, and your turn will end. It's part of the game.

In this Phase, you can also recycle cards from your discard pile. It's like paying the Flip Fee, but reverse: you receive Cash or other benefits and turn the card back to the front side. You can recycle any number of cards, and the benefits you receive could very well win you the game.

Once you stop playing cards and don't have 3 unhappiness icons, it's time to move on to the Building Phase.

In this Phase, you can use the Cash you earned on the previous Phase, by choosing one - only one - of 3 possible actions:

a player achieves an alternate Victory Condition - for example, the Convenience Store - after their Building Phase.

Strategy Tips

In Flip City, as in any game where you push your luck, knowing when to stop during the Play Cards Phase is essential. Once you have 2 unhappiness icons, be attentive, especially if you're not used to counting your cards. Playing another card and throw it to luck if another Unhappiness icon will come up is very careless.

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I strongly recommend, if you have Cash to spare, that you always recycle some cards from your discard pile, especially to get rid of an unwanted card, or to get money, or even victory points.

The Building Phase is very important, because it's in this Phase that we either get another card, flip a card, or develop. I recommend flipping your discard pile cards first, since you already own them - there's no building cost to pay.

Otherwise, be attentive to the available options, what you bought from the supply and what you've discarded already. This is a way to reduce the variance of the game.

Manage your buildings, your cash and your victory points - don’t let your population be unhappy and win in Flip City!

Rules and Gameplay Videos

Rules:

Gameplay:

Pedagogical Tips

Flip City is very nostalgic, after all, everyone at some point played with small city-building toys. It stimulates children’s logical and mathematical thinking, and strategy, and also a beautiful art visual that also captures their attention.

As you play the cards, it is necessary to use math to add up the cash, victory points and any unhappiness icons that appear. There are also decisions to make: should I play another card? Should I stop or push my luck? These questions should be encouraged in children, so they can face the consequences in their decisions. Frustration may happen, but it's part of the process!

There's a lot of strategy involved in what to do with cash: recycle cards, or save the money for the Building Phase? It's ok to help, but let the child make the final decision. It helps them mature.

Use the game's art as reference for a real place in your city, and you can even link it with geography, locations, just use your imagination and many things can be explored.

Pedagogically, Flip City stimulates, teaches and entertains!

I recommend Flip City for your collection!