Captain Flip came out in 2024 and was promptly nominated for the coveted Spiel des Jahres award. While it didn’t win (losing out to the excellent Sky Team), it remains a staple in my collection and gets quite a bit of playtime.
At Gen Con this year, publisher Playpunk (through Luma Games) released the newest expansion, titled Isla Bomba. With new treasure maps and new boards, this one will have you equipping your submarine, freeing your crew from prison, raiding the observatory, and charting the course leading to Isla Bomba.
Expansion Overview:
Captain Flip Isla Bomba comes with 4 new adventure boards, 5 new map tokens, a blank map token for creating your own (aka, we had extra room on the punch board), and a handful of coins.
Game Experience with the Expansion:
The Isla Bomba expansion feels a bit like an extension of the core game. It includes 4 new boards and 5 map tokens, all of which add variety to the core game without really changing the core gameplay feel. That’s pretty much what I want from an expansion. Give me more variety without making me feel like I’m learning a new game.
The four adventure boards almost tell a bit of a story if you play them in order. First, there is the submarine, which focuses on extra ways to earn you coins. Then you move on to the prison, which has you starting the game with two tiles in a jail. Reach the top of a column, and you can free one, adding it to your board.
Then you move on to the observatory, which focuses heavily on the map tile. It has Sextants preprinted on it, and offers extra ways to pass the map token around. Finally, there is the titular Isla Bomba. For those who like to press your luck, this is the map for you. It has both a preprinted sextant and a bomb to get you going. One of the columns even gets you a coin 2 coins for each bomb icon showing, so you can make good money if you load up on them… as long as you can clear some out before the end of the game.
The other component of note are the 5 new map tiles. Instead of just providing a flat income bonus, these all have an additional effect. For example, the cursed map doubles your coin income to 2, but prevents you from flipping tiles. There is the gambler’s map that gives you two coins, but only if you didn’t earn any coins during your turn. For those who like player interaction, the Kraken map has you taking your one coin from the richest player. I really liked this part of the expansion as it added some really nice variety to the map component. You can even flip them over and shuffle them, so you can randomize the ones you use during the game.
Final Thoughts:
Captain Flip: Island Bomba is a win for fans of Captain Flip. It feels like a natural progression for the core game, giving some excellent variety to the game. The only downside, in my opinion, is the complete lack of new characters. I would have loved to see some new tiles. But despite that, this one is still a must-own for fans of Captain Flip.
Hits:
• Four new boards to play on
• 5 new treasure maps
• A make-your-own map, if that’s your thing
Misses:
• No new character tiles
Source: Board Game Quest
