Fliptricks is silly but makes sense

I find it amusing and telling that the first game I taught myself after the school year started and I got back in the saddle substitute teaching was Fliptricks. It is definitely a game that you can learn while deep in brain fog.

It is a dexterity game that uses cards, which is a genre that I’ve seen more misses than hits. Honestly, FlowerFall is the only one I thought was really brilliant.

I got Fliptricks as a PnP which comes with enough cards for four players. But if you wanted to have more players, just print out the card sheet again, particularly since each player just uses one card.

Said card has a whole skate board on one side and a broken one on the other. You hang the card partially off of a table. You then use your index finger and middle finger to flip it and then use those two fingers to land the card. If it’s non-broken side up and both fingers are on the card (with being on the board as a more challenging version), you keep going. A full round is balancing the card vertical edge, horizontal edge and diagonal. See who can keep going the longest.

I initially thought that this was incredibly dumb. Then, when I tried it out since laminating four cards isn’t really that much work, I realized that this was a card adaptation of those fingerboards that I sometimes have to tell students to put away. When I came to that realization, the game made sense. 

Fliptricks isn’t just tossing cards in a hat with a theme. (I swear there was a dolphin-themed version of that from Adlung-Spiele but I can’t seem to find any evidence of that) The theme and the mechanics actually tied together and duplicate a form of play that I have seen an action.

And once I understood what was going on, I actually had fun with it. By no means is it a brilliant work of art and nor is it going to FlowerFall. However, I understand what it is trying to do and I think it succeeds.

Fliptricks is simple, silly fun. Sometimes, that’s what you want.

The best thing that came out of the Sorry franchise

While I have nothing against dexterity games, they aren't what I got into board games for. However, I do have some in my collection since they can be fun and you never know when someone might want to play one.

Sorry Sliders is one that has stayed in my collection by virtue of being fun, relatively easy to store and offering a variety of set ups.

The basic pieces of the game are four card board ramps, two double-sided center boards that give different scoring options, some plastic bumpers to modify the layouts and four sets of pawns to flick. The pawns are shaped like Sorry pawns but have rolling ball bearings on the bottom so they can really move.

Sorry Sliders has a number of variations but they all come down to flicking your pawns down the ramps to land on scoring sections and knock out your opponents' pawns. But, seriously, what else does it need to be?

Pretty much all you need to do to teach the game is set it up. Folks can take one look at it and understand exactly how to play. And people will want to play. Sorry Sliders there's definitely a lot of fun. I have never seen it failed to make a hit. And, like I said, I am not that into dexterity games but this is one that will never leave my collection.

It might have the Sorry theme but it really is a direct descendent of the wide family of table games that involve flicking things. 

Sorry Sliders in many ways fills the same niche as games like Crokinole or Carrom. It practically counts as a variant of Table Shuffleboard. And, let's be brutally honest, Sorry Sliders is definitely not as good as those games. Plastic sliders and cardboard just don't compare to wooden or even graphite components. Dexterity games are a category where quality components directly affect gameplay, as opposed to just making things pretty :P

But Sorry Sliders, which I am pretty sure it is still in print, costs literally a fraction of what a decent Crokinole board would cost. Let alone what a really good board cost. And that really goes for any table game that involves a big wooden frame and board.

For a gamer with a budget (and isn't that every gamer?), Sorry Sliders is a really good choice. It might not be perfect but it is a really good return for its price. It would be cool to own a hand-crafted Crokinole board but Sorry Sliders will work for me.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37196/sorry-sliders

Wallimoppi is all about the timer

Wallamoppi is a game that has left my collection for a number of reasons but, I have to say, it did what it set out to do very well.

It is a dexterity game for two players, where you are stacking disks that are part of a pyramid wall onto the top, making the wall grow skinnier and skinnier while the tower on top grows higher and higher.

The clever bit is that the wooden box that it comes in is also a marble ramp. At the start of the game, the marble is dropped down and the first player must make their move and catch the ball before it reaches the bottom. Then they drop it back in the top and the next player must make their move and catch the marble.

And believe me, that clever bit totally makes the game. Without the marble ramp, Wallimoppi would be a rather uninspired stacking game. With it, it has a great tension that makes playing it fun and exciting.

And every time I played Wallimoppi, a good time was had by all. A couple times, I took it to parties and it saw constant play.

So why'd I get rid of it?

Space was a factor. It's not a particularly large game but the wooden shoe box shape of it made it tough to stack on the shelf. And the marble ramp could be fiddly. You had to make sure it was set up right.

But the real reason is because it's just not a game that I will play very often. And when storage is an ongoing concern, sometimes you have to make those calls. I don't play a lot of dexterity games and one for precisely two-players is even more limiting. Elk Fest scrapes in by being small and flexible (and super cute) Wallimoppi doesn't have those same advantages,

Still, as I said before, Wallimoppi does what it does very well. I wouldn't turn down a game and I'd recommend to folks who like two-player dexterity games.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11412/wallamoppi

Our son discovers Don't Spill the Beans

Years ago, I picked up a keychain version of Don't Spill the Beans on a road trip. Technically, it was fully playable but the tiny size made that impossible. (Connect 4 is the only game I've found that still works when shrunk down that small, unless you count playing Yahtzee with teeny dice) So it just became a curio in my junk drawer.

But when our toddler found that keychain, he became obsessed with getting the real game. Since I didn't grow up with Don't Spill the Beans, I wasn't that interested until my wife pointed out that this was a game that a two-year-old would be able handle playing by the rules.

So we picked it up.

For those of you who were like me and had a deprived childhood without any idea that this game existed (I've never played Hi Ho Cherrio either but I'm sure that will change), Don't Spill the Beans consists of a plastic kettle on two pivot arms. Players take turns dropping a bean on the top heavy kettle. When it inevitably tips over, whoever caused the spill gets all the beans. Whoever gets rid of all their beans first wins.

In other words, we're talking about a very simple game. Being a dexterity game, there isn't any reading or math that you have to worry about. And, for a dexterity game, the physical skill requirements are very low.

Which makes it perfect for a two-year-old, who still working on his hand eye coordination. It is a game that he can handle the playing requirements and understand what's going on.

The lesson that I was really hoping that he would take out of Don't Spill the Beans was taking turns. Personally, I've come to the conclusion that that is one of the first important things that the child needs to learn about gaming and one of the first valuable life lessons that gaming can teach a child. Good sportsmanship is a close second, of course. Other rules like this pawn belongs to you, counting spaces, don't over bid in auctions and never start a land war is Asia will follow.

And, much to my delight, our son does understand both how the game works and that Mommy and Daddy get a turn before he gets to put another bean on the kettle. While he has played with stacking Animal Upon Animal pieces and made matches with Spot It and Memory, Don't Spill the Beans is the first game he has actually played by the rules. 

Yes, sometimes he gets too excited about the beans spilling and forgets that not spilling them is the goal. And eventually, the toy factor wins over and the game ends. We do occasionally get through an entire game before that happens, though.

Still, I think that being able to follow the rules and being able to let other people take turns are really big steps.

Father Geek has recommended weighting for the kettle with coins when kids get older and the balancing becomes more of a legitimate skill activity. The number of coins can even let you create different difficult levels. We've already discussed using real dried beans in different sizes.

Don't Spill the Beans is clearly not one of the greatest games ever made. There will be no mistaking it for Agricola, even though they both have agricultural themes. However, the bean game is going to mean Don't Spill the Beans in our household for a while instead of Bohnanza.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Spill_the_Beans

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5015/dont-spill-beans