Two Rex Plays #9 - Fliptown
In this edition of Two Rex Plays we’re discussing Fliptown, a wild west themed flip & write designed by Steven Aramani and published by Write Stuff Games. Saddle up and hit the trail for a variety of period appropriate activities including cattle rustling, stagecoach robbery, mining for gold, and grave robbing!
Here are the design features we liked:
Expansive – The roll / flip & write genre is often associated with lighter game mechanics and more limited scale. Fliptown feels expansive – that starts with the Wild West themed player map artwork and continues with the wide variety of activities that the player can carry out throughout the game. Layer on a poker mechanic, bounty card objectives and optional game variants and it’s clear there is a lot more content than you’d expect from a traditional game of this type.
No dice – After a succession of roll & write games, it’s been refreshing to play a game that uses cards as the source of randomness. Fliptown uses a standard set of playing cards which is not something we’ve encountered before, and the game makes efficient use of this choice. The suit represents the broad activity (riding the trail, spending money in the local town, being an outlaw in the Badlands, and mining) and the number dictates the specific job you’ll be doing within that category.
Integrated turn counter – Another clever design feature, and one which reduces player admin, is to integrate the turn counter into the mechanisms of the game so you’re not simply ticking off another number track. For Fliptown, this is achieved through the game of poker which is part of your initial card selection. You mark off one card of your hand in each phase, and it takes 5 cards to form a hand of poker and end your turn. The strength of your hand generates additional rewards, so you’re incentivised to record these cards. It’s a smart, seamless way to mark progress.
Fantastic artwork – The artwork is by Naomi Ferrall and it superbly supports the game’s wild west theme. It can be found throughout the player maps, the customised deck of playing cards, Cowbot cards (solo player opponents) and character cards. We particularly liked the way the artwork combines with the player maps – they contain a lot of information to support the game’s variety and could have become overwhelming. The artwork acts to soften the impact.
Additional variants – In game variants including switching out traditional poker with (appropriately) Texas Hold ‘em and character cards that allow you to role play by giving you a special ability and some starting resources. These act to increase the longevity of a game already packed with content.
Solo mode – We mainly played this one solo and it really holds up – there’s always a concern that solo modes may be a last minute addition to widen the audience rather than providing a genuine solo experience. This one certainly doesn’t give that impression.
Bot cards & win conditions – The goal of the ‘standard’ solo mode is to see how many stars you can accumulate during your game, reflecting a common point-based mechanic which sees you chasing a new high score in each playthrough. I know these are hugely popular but personally I much prefer binary win-lose conditions. Fortunately, Fliptown gives you the option to play this way as well by introducing Cowbot cards, each of which comes with easy medium and hard settings. The Cowbots don’t play the game in the same way you do, instead they have their own conditions for scoring points which force you to play in a way that considers their natural point scoring abilities. Again, it’s a smart way to introduce the feeling of a living, breathing adversary.
This game is hot off the printer after the print & play files were released earlier this month for Kickstarter backers. To be strictly accurate, I’ve imported the assets into a private Tabletop Simulator session to save some physical resources and capture some more interesting screenshots. Print & play variants are a great addition to Kickstarter campaigns, giving backers an additional low-cost option to help back a project and get something back in return. I was interested to note that there were around 1,000 backers for the print & play compared to around 3,000 that opted for a physical edition – so there’s clearly significant demand for this option.
Interested in Fliptown? Find out more here:
Write Stuff Games Twitter Feed
https://twitter.com/writestuffgames?lang=en
Fliptown Kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/writestuffgames/fliptown/description
Fliptown – How to play video