See You on the Flip Side – Fliptoons Review

One of the big hits in 2025, especially when you’re looking at fun, fast, and zany card games, is Fliptoons.

This game just basically covers all the bases if you’re looking for something light but yet intensely fun (sorry, Dan).

The game was designed by Jordy Adan and Renato Simões, with beautiful artwork by Diego Sá. It was published by Thunderworks Games in, as I said above, 2025.

The game is part deckbuilder, part auto-battler (except that there is no battle) and part race.

Those seem pretty distinctive, so you might be wondering what the hell I’m talking about.

Let me explain!

Like all deckbuilders, you have a deck of starting cards.

However, you’re not playing them like a deckbuilder.

Instead, you’re playing them like an auto-battler.

Each round, you will play six cards from your deck, one after the other.

You only start with six cards, so the only variation in the first round is what order they come out in!

Then you count up your fame points.

Some will get you different amounts of fame points based on where they come out in your 2×3 tableau.

The Dragonfly, for example, gets you one fame per unique adjacent card.

If it comes out on the corner, you only have two possible fame!

And only one if both adjacent cards are the same (like above).

Count up your fame and then, in turn order, you will take two actions.

You can buy a card from the market, or you can spend 5 fame (or 3 if it’s a Caterpillar) to get rid of a card from your tableau.

Or you can do either one of those twice.

As you start adding cards to your deck, some cards will not be dealt out each round, as you are only dealing out 6 spaces.

I say “spaces” rather than “cards” because some cards can stack on top of others.

Or force other cards to stack.

You could end up with a lot of cards, and thus a lot of fame!

The cards that you buy come with interesting abilities.

They always are placed in the market in the order based on their rank number (the white number on the left side of the card).

The fame price for each card is above it, and it can change!

If somebody takes the Elephant, for example, and the next card that comes out is a 25, then both the Alligator and the Pig will become less expensive.

But you don’t refill the Market Row until you have finished your turn.

Some card abilities will cause you to flip a card that you’ve played (like the Elephant above), which means you won’t get that card’s fame. But if somebody’s given you the Pig, that may be a good thing since it’s -1 fame!

Yes, the Pig, when you buy it, you actually give it to another player.

Not only is dismissing a card a way to thin your deck and make sure the good cards come out, some cards actually benefit from that!

The Cat gets 1 fame per starting card you’ve dismissed.

Others just get you a fame per dismissed card.

You do this each round, dealing out a tableau of 6 (or possibly more) cards and totaling up your fame, then buying or dismissing cards, until somebody gets at least 30 fame in a round.

That round, whoever got the highest fame gets the Critics Choice card.

Then you play one more round, just like normal.

Whoever gets the most fame in that round (with the previous round’s winner getting the 3 fame from Critic’s Choice) wins.

That’s the very cool thing about Fliptoons.

Other than the 3 extra fame, it doesn’t matter if you triggered the endgame or not.

It’s only that final round that means anything.

If the Critic’s Choice player ends up with a crappy deal-out while yours is awesome, you’ll win!

I’ve done that before.

First, I have to say that I love the art in this one.

I’m not even sure how to describe it, other than it’s fun and unique and really fits the whole idea of this game.

Secondly, it only takes 30-40 minutes, so it’s an ideal lunchtime game.

Yes, it is incredibly lucky, though if you have some skill in deckbuilding and thinning out your deck, you will probably do pretty well.

It’s not luck if your deck is shaped so that all of the cards come out each round!

But yeah, it can be incredibly lucky.

Those of you who hate luck should stay far away from it.

But I don’t think it’s too lucky, if that makes sense?

Since you are building your deck up with cards, and you have the option of dismissing cards, it is kind of up to you how your deck is constructed.

Sure, you may not have a deck where every card comes out, but maybe you’ve shaped it so most of them will?

I would not go so far as to say that this is a pure skill game, of course.

But the randomness is mitigated by your choices, and I think that is a good thing.

I also, as mentioned above, like how the ending is essentially “play a round and whoever has the highest wins” rather than a player being so far behind that there’s no way they have a chance at all.

Ok, if you haven’t built your deck well, then you will experience that if you can’t even reach 30 fame.

But if you know that going into that final round, you have almost the same chance as the person who ended it to actually come out ahead, I think that’s really neat.

There is a slight bit of player interaction, though it’s not huge.

The Pig, as mentioned above, is given to somebody when you buy it.

However, if that somebody dismisses it, instead of being dismissed it goes to another player, which could be you.

The Camel is dependent on other players.

If somebody drafts a Camel, you can kind of screw them up by drafting two more (friendly ties, because it does say “if no other player or the market has more Camels).

For the most part, though, the only interaction is somebody taking the card you want (or taking a card that makes the one you want become more expensive when its replacement comes out).

It’s all simultaneous play when you lay your cards out, so there’s little downtime other than when players are deciding what to buy, which isn’t that tough of a decision.

Thus, it’s almost the ideal game for when you have a bit of time but not enough for Twilight Imperium!

(Ok, that could be a bit of hyperbole. Deal with it).

Overall, I highly recommend Fliptoons as long as you don’t mind a bit of luck in your game.

It’s hilarious, with great artwork, and the game mechanics are actually quite interesting.

Check this out if you get a chance.

(This review was written after 3 plays)