Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
We are a ______-and-write family. We have burned through pads and purchased refills for Welcome To… and Three Sisters, and I believe we’ll get there with Joan of Arc, French Quarter, and Rajas of the Ganges: the Dice Charmers, among others. My gaming lifestyle is such that I am more likely to take up the abbreviated roll-and-write of a tabletop classic than I am the original, just for the sake of time. If not for my reliance on bifocals, I would probably enjoy the genre even more.
I’ve learned that reviews for games like Flip Pick Towers come with an asterisk because they reside on the shifting sands and rampant inconsistencies of player engagement. You’ve got to find the right group looking for the right experience.
Win, lose, or…
Players sit with their gridded drawing pads, staring down three possibilities during each simultaneous turn. They select their main object from a card that also provides resources to record and, eventually, tactfully harvest. Occasional, opportunistic cards interrupt the normal flow to tempt players into a somewhat different but strategically interesting decision based on randomly assigned game-specific scoring conditions. Players score their efforts at the end of the first round, again after the second round, and then someone wins.
Flip Pick Towers is a perfectly normal flip-and-write title.
This perfectly normal title’s most distinguishing feature could be classified as its greatest asset, its greatest wild card, and its greatest liability. It’s the doodling. Players spend the game drawing and accessorizing a castle, complete with moneybags, royals, and magic beanstalks.
As an asset, this whole doodling business lends the game an excess of personality. The finished sketch is quite busy, but I assure you it is of the loads-of-charm variety of busy. The royals have real names—King Llew, Queen Blodwen, and Princess Dillie. Whether the rulebook says to call them by name or not, you call them by name. (You chant Llllleeeewwwwww! It’s just what you do.) The helpers of varying magical species that pop up along the way, they have names, too. More than building a castle, it’s easy enough to convince yourself that you’re working to build a home, which is why the intrusion of a dragon devastates everyone so deeply.
As a wild card, drawings may or may not be your jam. Consider the following conundrum: you have an empty grid square and the aforementioned dragon rears its ugly mug. Do you engage all the skills gained from your community college class in comic art and attempt to squeeze a world of detail into a space half the size of a postage stamp? Do you draw the cutest little bubble-styled quasi-reptile? Or do you write a D and sit there impatiently tapping your fingers until the other artists complete their masterpieces? This is the gigantic, over-swelled maybe at the heart of Flip Pick Towers.
As a liability, then, drawings make the game box (he says with the lightest heart) a lying liar, as is often the case in this genre. In order to play Flip Pick Towers in the prescribed 30 minutes, every player at the table must adopt the third method above. Bricked tower sections? No, ma’am—plain Jane squares. Bags of gold? No time, just drop the currency symbol of your choosing. Windows styled after your favorite cathedral? Not a chance. In fact, axe the curves and just draw a square or even a triangle if you’d like to reclaim 25% of the time. My friends, the hour hand moves like a time-lapse video without pause if you care at all about the drawings.
I guess there are people out there who would play a game like this with impersonal rigor. If that’s you, you’re already clicking away. If you’re energized by the prospect of semi-skilled doodles, you probably want to know what sort of game is under the hood.
Setting the bits in order
Again, Flip Pick Towers is perfectly normal. Castle floors provide the architectural framework and must be added according to stability rules, with numbers rising in descending order as they reach for the heavens. Between each wider foundation column, a narrower garden column provides variety. Garden columns might house magic beanstalks, but they also might be spanned by a bridge for additional tower floors or adorned with hanging banners.
As the castle takes shape, the game’s points driver is really the royal family. Players add Kings, Queens, and Princesses according to the unique rules drawn for the game. Points for every bag of gold in the same row as a King. Points for rooftops in the same row as a Queen. Points for placing Princesses in floors above beanstalks. These directives demand certain features be placed in certain manners, and with good timing.
Splitting the game into two rounds creates two unique tensions. In the first round, the tension is about the swift installation of stuff. The first scoring tally will arrive soon enough, so it’s important to build floors to receive windows (which score), moneybags (which score), banners (which score), and so on. Of course, all this must be done while considering the eventual royals and keeping an extra moneybag around to lure away any approaching dragons, which immediately cap a tower of your choosing if they must remain.
Players acquire stuff by collecting those resources and adding marks to tracker columns of varying heights below. The rule is simple: fill a column, be it one or four boxes high, and claim the item. Easy enough. Until the second tension arrives, that is.
The second and final scoring round can almost be characterized with a brake pedal. Having acquired enough features to contend on the scoreboard, the second half is all about nailing the big ticket items—specifically the royals. Of course, every card selection still comes with resources. And every filled resource column requires the placement of a feature. Later in the game, there are definitely turns where you must take a resource, but you’re trying not to build the feature because you want to put something else in that space. As a rule, if you can build it, you must. If you cannot, you lose it, and you just might have to take a penalty mark that might end the game sooner. The second-half tension is about maximizing these decisions.
Building, placing, avoiding, collecting, drawing. What’s not to love?
I’ll tell you what’s not to love
It’s the lying box. I don’t love the lying box. Flip Pick Towers is too long. And this is from a guy who is 100% predisposed to love this game. I do love this game. But it’s too long. I’ve gone over the rulebook several times begging for a rule that demands removing x cards from the deck each round, but that rule is not there. Now obviously I can do that on my own, and I will, but I am disappointed that it’s not part of the game. I will have to playtest the removal on my own until I hit the sweet spot (which is probably at least 25% less), and in the meantime I’m watching family and friends wince when it’s over because we all know something is off.
Call it a pet peeve, but I want designers and publishers to understand their titles and make concessions so that I don’t have to figure it out myself. I am thinking of the person who will buy this game expecting it to be relatively quick and walk away disappointed when it’s really not. After several plays by the book, none has taken less than 70 minutes. One pushed 90. The box motivates players to enjoy making drawings, but then delivers an experience that drags on as a result. There should be a clear path to that middle ground. For my taste, this is not a 70+ minute game.
My best guess is to remove at least 10-15 of the 63 castle cards each round to keep from overcooking. This might mean randomly removing one or both dragons in one or both rounds. So be it. This might mean removing some of the royals, which repeat anyway. So be it. This also might mean players who don’t want to spend that much time drawing might still enjoy the puzzle of assembling a fruitful castle on more of a time crunch. And hey, if you have a group that wants to sit for hours creating a masterpiece, consider my rant moot and play on.
I’ll also tell you what’s to love
The rulebook for Flip Pick Towers, like the playtime, is inflated, but in the best way. What a lovely read. Thorough, winsome, charming. This book is long but approachable and patient in making the on-ramp smooth and joyful. I celebrate the book.
The variety in the box is also worth celebrating. There are 33 scoring cards that might be assigned to the three royals in each game. There are copious combinations, and the scoring cards are marked with target scores so that, when added together, they provide yet one more goal for players to chase. I appreciate the thoughtful variability.
The artwork is whimsical and fits the sort of game that involves drawing. Rather than providing full color and highly detailed renditions, the cards feature clear lines and a limited color palette that serve to inspire the players to engage. I commend the presentation.
The gameplay loop is easy to pick up, and I’ve yet to see players skirt through a game without grumbling about dragons, begging for royals to pop up at the opportune moment, or cheering when a centaur or fairy shows up to provide a much needed special power. These are the qualities that make the game shine; they speak of investment and a worthwhile narrative arc.
Dragon fire.
I really do like Flip Pick Towers. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t worry about the length so much. I’ve hardly ever offered a half-star in a rating, but I am docking the game because it matters that much, even if I can’t take away that full star. I’ve watched big smiles turn into some sort of meh squiggle-mouth right before my eyes. Players who were excited on several turns gave mediocre feedback, all on account of time. When we settle into 30-40 minutes, we’ll have a winner.
If you want to draw, take heed of the game’s unpredictable length and know your table-mates. If you set these pieces in line, there is a lot to enjoy in Flip Pick Towers.
