Published by: Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG)
# of Players: 1 to 4


Flip city is a small deck-builder that comes with everything you need to play it. The contents of this game are cards and a rule book, that is it. If your expecting something flashy or wooden, it is not in this package. Thankfully because of the game only being cards and rules, it is able to fit in a nice small box that is very sturdy and easy to travel with. Flip City will not take up more shelf than it needs. The cards are very thick and have colorful Sim city type art. Everything is clear and easy to understand on the cards. The rule book is not so much of a book as a giant folded page. Even though it is only 1 giant page of rules, the rule book explains everything you need to know and has colorful illustrations to help understand the finer points. Flip City provides quality cards in a small package that is perfect for the type of game it is.

Flip City has players drawing cards till they have enough money to do what they want on their turn, or have enough victory points played to win the game. Sounds easy, but if you collect more than two unhappiness points when drawing cards, you bust and your turn is over. During a player's turn, the player will draw and play one card from his deck and any conditions that may have been triggered. Cards will give money, points, unhappiness, and abilities during your turn. After the first card is played, you have to decide if you will draw and play a second card. You keep making this decision till you either get what you want out of your turn or if you reveal a third unhappiness icon. Once you get that their unhappiness icon you discard your play area and end your turn performing no actions. If you stop before you get 3 unhappiness, you can do one of 3 things. You can build, which allows you to buy a card from the money you earned that turn. Instead of building you could flip over one of the cards in your discard pile, paying the flip cost. This will change the card that is in your deck. The last option is that you can develop, which is buying and flipping that card by paying both costs.


Flip City is enjoyable as a push your luck filler game. I liked and disliked the use of both sides of a card. I thought it was a great way to do an upgrade/downgrade of a building, but you also had to take great care when discarding and shuffling to make sure everything is on their proper sides. Also you have to try and shuffle under the table or away from your vision so that you do not know where cards are while shuffling. That can be very tricky to do. The game itself plays very fast and was very easy to pick and learn. Having 6 cards with 2 different sides each made it very easy to memorize what each card did. I enjoyed playing this, but would not make it the focal point of my game night. I also worry that it could get old with the same cards each game, but TMG recently released an expansion with more cards to add variety. If you enjoy push your luck games, then Flip City will make an excellent addition to your collection. If you are expecting a city building game or your standard deck-builder then you may be disappointed. I found the deck-building aspect to be minor compared to risk taking portion of the game. Everyone I played with had fun and I will be keeping Flip City in my collection as a great game to take on the go or as a filler.
Pros:
+ Filler game that is small enough to take anywhere
+ Flipping cards to upgrade/downgrade buildings
+ Push your luck element is done very well
+ Very easy to teach and learn to play
Cons:
- Pain to shuffle due to having keep the cards on a certain side without looking
- Only 6 different cards in base game (expansion does add more variety)
- Games may feel the same after a few plays