If you remember the earliest days of console games waaaay back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, you’ll almost certainly remember a genre of game in which a fleet of alien ships marched or swooped down the screen towards your city at the bottom of the screen. The goal was to blow them all away before they got to the bottom, and you’d be shooting them with various special ammos while they dropped bombs and seeking missiles on you. Renegade Game Studios brings that gameplay to your tabletop with Flipships, a cooperative game testing your manual dexterity and strategic planning skills.
You’ll line up the enemy ship cards on one end of the table and then flick your ship tokens at them. If your token lands on an enemy, that enemy card will (usually) be removed from the board. The ships of each player will have special abilities determined by a random draw of the cards. Some special abilities let you get extra flips or attack enemies near where your token landed, even if it didn’t actually land on an enemy ship.
But the enemy ships have special abilities as well. Some need to be hit multiple times to be destroyed. Others project defensive shields that protect the ships adjacent to them. And after all the players have gone, the enemy ships move downward towards you, some faster than others. If they enter the atmosphere, they’ll do damage to your city. If they do enough damage, you lose!
However, as they do damage to your city, you get stronger ship types with more powerful special abilities. These abilities will change your best strategy for victory. Eventually, you’ll have to destroy the enemy mother ship. If you destroy all the enemy ship cards but then fail to destroy the mother ship, she’ll crush your city and you lose.
Flipships is game that can be played solo or with up to 4 players. There are four difficulty levels as well, so you can easily tailor the game to your group. Games usually last between a half-hour and 45 minutes, so if you get wiped out the first time you can usually challenge the mothership to another fight. Look for the Flipships box with its distinctive Kwanchai Moriya art at your local Dragon’s Lair Comics and Fantasy®.
