I’m the kind of friend that brings a board game to every social gathering. Meeting at a pal’s house? Board games. Meeting in the park, or at a bar? Also board games. That means I’m always on the hunt for small, budget-friendly titles that can be snuck into a handbag or a large pocket – that way, I can surprise my friends with a sudden party game. Flip 7, a new push-your-luck game released in 2024, is perfect for these situations. It might even be my new favorite budget card game.
At just eight dollars, Flip 7 is an easy card game to pick up, in terms of both rules and money. Simply shuffle the deck, deal everyone a single card, and assign a dealer, who asks everyone in turn (including themselves) whether they want to ‘hit’ or ‘stick’, Blackjack-style.
A hit draws that player a card, which they add to their personal supply, while sticking banks their current points and eliminating them from the round. Each numbered card adds to a player’s point pool, and there are special cards that add to or multiply the sum. The overall goal is to be the first to reach 200 points, so gathering as many cards as you can is a solid strategy.
There’s a catch, of course. Flip 7 is a push-your-luck game, so it’s possible to go ‘bust’ and lose your points for a round. This happens any time a player draws a number that they’ve already collected for their personal pool. The probability of this happening goes up with the value of the cards. There are 12 of the 12 cards, 11 of the 11s, 10 of the 10s, and so on, all the way down to a single one and zero card.
To further stir the pot, a few action cards are sprinkled into the deck. These might freeze a player, knocking them out of the round early, or they might protect you by allowing you to discard a drawn double. Plus, if you manage to ‘Flip 7’ by collecting 7 different cards, you gain a points bonus and end the round immediately.
It’s simple, but many of the best card games are. Flip 7 is quick to learn, fast to play, and gloriously chaotic. The innate thrill of risking ‘just one more hit’, combined with the short play time, makes Flip 7 addictive and endlessly replayable.
The ‘race to the finish line’ win condition throws an extra dose of tactics in, as players can freeze their biggest rivals or force them to draw three cards in a row. Even with these powers, the luck of the draw can always betray you – that enemy player could draw three fantastic cards in a row rather than going bust, for example – but that’s part of the excitement.
I recently tested Flip 7 at a board game convention, and the results were noisy. Noisy because we would goad each other as we played, urging everyone to take one more risk in the hopes that they would crash and burn. We would cheer when one player, unable to score for most of the game, caught up with our scores in a single round.
Our scores would rubberband back and forth, with each round changing the landscape. After the final scores were in, we’d immediately want to play again. When the board game convention finally closed, our group had bought at least three copies, and we migrated to a nearby pub where we could Flip 7 all over again.
I recently lamented that The Gang, another great party game from 2024, didn’t get much attention at recent awards for the best board games. It was actually a runner-up to Flip 7 in the Golden Geeks party game category – and having now played said push-your-luck game, I can see why it was so well esteemed.
What’s your favorite cheap board game? We’re always looking for recommendations in the Wargamer Discord. If you’d like us to recommend you some games, though, here are the couples’ board games we love.
Source: Wargamer
