Games for my Kids – A look at Captain Flip

Recently, Asmodee Canada sent over the game Captain Flip, and honestly I wasn’t really sure what to think when I began unboxing it and looking at the rules. With only a few pages of rules, this is a very simple game to play that younger kids would have no issues with, but still remain fun for adults as well.

In Captain Flip, players will be trying to earn coins throughout the game so that when the game ends, they have the most. We are pirates, after all, so we definitely want as much booty as possible! Across turns, players will draw pirates from a bag blindly, and then have the option of using the side of the tile that they drew, or flip the tile over and use the backside instead. Players then decide where to place them on their board – where they place the tile will depend on how many coins they will earn.

There are 4 different boards to play on and each does feel really unique. There are different bonuses for filling in complete columns with tiles, and deciding which tiles to prioritize each game will change up the strategy you decide to use. There isn’t a ton of variability from game-to-game, but multiple boards and blind choosing definitely helps keep things a bit fresh.

I do think that younger players are going to have a hard time really maximizing the coins they get during the game. Different character tiles will provide you with different things, like a certain number of end game coins if all the characters in a column are the same, or if all are different. There are ways to instantly lose if you have too many of the same character on your ship, and characters that like to be near or far from other characters.

What I do love, however, is the simplicity of it all. This is an easy game to teach, even for kids as young as 8, so setting this up for my kids to play with friends, without me interfering, would be incredibly easy. This game really doesn’t require any adult oversight once on the table and rules taught. There just isn’t enough happening to cause confusion. Essentially you pull a tile, choose a side, and place it on your board.

Some boards are a bit more complex than others, but again we are talking about levels of complexity for kids – older players will have no issue going from one board to the next.

Captain Flip is a game I’m happy to own. I’m getting tired of playing the same simple kids games day-in and day-out, so having something new to break that up is going to be fantastic. If you have kids around the ages of 8-12, I think you’ll find a lot of fun to be had here. It’s also a great way to teach your board game enthusiasts the ins and outs of tile laying games!

There is a bonus to this – it’s a pretty fun game for adults as well, so even if you are playing with your kids (and probably beating them in the process), you won’t be miserable spending that quality time with them!