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Flip Over Frog is a two to four player tile laying game designed by Takuya Okabe. It was brought to the European market by Hub Games. It is a tile laying area control game that, on the face of it, seems like a nice friendly. Almost kids game. But underneath the surface there is a very competitive game.
In Flip Over Frog you will secretly select the colour of a frog to represent in the game. On your turn you will place one of the three tiles in your hand on to the main 4×4 grid. The tile can either be placed face down or face up. When placed faced down another frog can be placed on top of it face up later. If you place your tile face up then you flip over any frogs that the arrows on the frog tile points to.
If it points to a stack of frogs then the frog on the bottom that is face down becomes the face up frog. After you have placed a frog you draw a new tile from the supply to replenish your hand.
There are also four snake tiles in the game that, when played on a face up frog removes it from the game.
The aim of the game is to have the most of your colour frog tiles on display at the end of the game. The game end will be triggered when no more tiles can be played or there are only face up frogs on the board. All players reveal the colour of their frog tile and the player with the most frogs in their colour is the winner.
Flipping Thoughts
Flip Over Frog is a game that on the surface looks like a kids game. It has a simple enough rule-set to be a kids game but is a game that can be played and really enjoyed by adults. With careful placement and planning and a little bit of deduction you can really mess up your opponent, at least you are thinking you are messing them up.
It sits in a sweet spot of games that have simple enough rules it can be taught in minutes, quick gameplay yet the choices you have to make and the thought process is interesting. Love these types of games and Flip Over Frog is fantastic.
There is a little bit of luck in what tiles you draw but there is also a deduction and bluffing element to it as well. Do you place tiles down that are your colour hoping that your opponent wont guess what colour you are? Or do you try and bluff it and place a mixture of colours down? Or somewhere in between by placing a frog face down and then flipping it later? There is more to this game than first meets the eye.
I have had a such a good time with Flip Over Frog. It is great at two to four players and quick enough that you can reset the game and play again. Deducing what colours your opponent is a big part of the game. I always find that people guess which colour is played by which player before the reveal. You don’t want to be placing frogs or flipping over frogs that belong to your opponents.
However, sometimes it is inevitable either due to your hand or the tiles already on the board. Using the snake tiles to remove a frog is good fun. Especially in a two player as you are hoping that the frog you remove belongs to your opponent.
For what looks like a cute, friendly kids game this can most definitely be played with both kids and adults, gamers and non gamers. Great game in a small box but one that I can see getting a lot of plays.
