Fliptoons Season 2
- Designers: Jordy Adan and Renato Simoes
- Publisher: Thunderworks
- Players: 1-8
- Age: 10+
- Time: 20 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45HYoSt
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
It’s time to cast the next great animated show! A top talent agent like you knows a star when you see one, and the director needs you to fill six roles for the big production. Search Flip Valley for the perfect toon characters, and make sure they’re ready to work together on the silver screen! FlipToons is a quick deck-building game. You’ll begin with a deck of hopeful toon actors. Each round, flip six of these toons out from your deck into your screen grid to audition together. Each toon card in your 3-by-2 grid has different talent effects. Some are resolved as soon as they are flipped. Many will interact with one another and (hopefully) earn Fame for your studio. But they won’t all have that special on-screen chemistry you’re looking for. Some won’t work well together at all!
In this second edition of the game – which can be fully standalone as well as being combined with the original game for a larger experience, players again vie to have the best cast of Toons in their deck for the final showdown.
To set up the game, give each player an identical starting deck of 6 cards (they are grey and have a rank of 0, so they’re easy to pick out of the deck). Each player also gets a Fame card and a player reference card. In the center of the table, place the five price cards in ascending order. Shuffle the toon deck, reveal the top 5 cards, and order them under the price cards so that the lowest ranked card is on the left and the highest rank is on the right (most expensive).
To start the round, each player shuffles their deck and then reveals cards one at a time, placing them into a 3×2 grid, doing left to right in the upper row first and then left to right in the lower row. As each card is revealed, it may have an ability that is triggered upon placement. If so, resolve that action before flipping the next card. All of the actions from Season 1 are still here, but there is also a new action: Return. A Returned card is placed on the bottom of a player’s deck.
After the Flip is complete, tally up your current grid of toons’ Fame points – using your Fame Card and the arrow on your reference card to point at the right number. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, players will then spend their Fame points to hire more stars (i.e.. Purchase new toon cards from the market and add them to your deck). Alternatively, players can spend 5 Fame to dismiss a card, and get that bad actor off the stage. Sorry kid, you just don’t have what it takes to be a star in this show. That card is removed for the player’s deck forever. You must always have at least 4 cards in your deck! After each player has gone, fill the Market back up to five cards, always arranging them by rank. Any leftover fame after the market phase is lost. You never save Fame to use in a later round.
If your Flip is the first to generate 30+ Fame, you’ll earn the Critic’s Choice award (worth an extra 3 Fame points) and trigger the end of the game. After that turn’s market phase, it’s time for one Final Flip. The player who earns the most Fame during the Final Flip is declared the winner. Applause!
Once you have mastered the toons in Fliptoons Season 2, you can also combine the cards here with the original Fliptoons for a mega game. This game can handle up to 8 players. Each player gets a set of starting cards from either box. The regular price cards are set out with an additional 3 card on the left and an additional 15 card on the right. All of the toons are shuffled together to form a ginormous deck. When playing with 4 or fewer players, discard the leftmost and rightmost cards in the market each cleanup phase. Otherwise the game plays as normal, just with a wider variety of Toons in the deck.
My thoughts on the game
I actually didn’t know much about Fliptoons before Gen Con 2025, but I was immediately enamored with the game after a short demo at the stand, and the original game has become one of my go-to filler/gateway games. It is so easy to learn, and everyone I’ve showed the game to has enjoyed it. I brought my well-worn copy to the 2026 Gathering of Friends, and I’m pretty sure that I sold at least 3 copies of the game as a result of the plays there. Thus, I was quite excited when Season 2 showed up in my mailbox as I loved the first one so much..
In this quick playing game, you work to build a deck that will score you points – but you’re definitely encouraged to make your deck as efficient as possible because you often only see the top 6 cards of your deck – so you don’t want to have too many cards in there that don’t help you score points! There is certainly a bit of luck involved here, you’ll do better if you have the right cards in the right order at the top of your deck. But trust me, you can certainly try to set up high scoring combinations to try to shift things in your favor.
The toons in this new set do seem to interact with each other a bit more. First, there are a set of Fish Toons that all interact with each other, and if you can get a display full of fish, you’ll surely score a bunch of coins. It’s really interesting to see how all of the different Toon actions work with each other.
The cost of cards is dependent on the rank order of cards in the market, and there will certainly be a few moments each game where a card will be ridiculously cheap or expensive just based on the ranks of the cards on the table. While I know that my own card purchase will set the stage for the next player, I don’t try to think about it too much – I just worry about which card will benefit my deck the most. As with the first game, I do sometimes wish that the market would still slowly cycle. If the five cards available are not great, there often is very little movement and someone eventually has to fall on their sword. I have toyed with the idea of adding a house rule that says if no one buys a card at all in a round, the entire display is wiped and new cards are dealt out.
While it’s certainly possible to play defensively and take a card that I know they want, it just doesn’t seem worth it. First, I lose the chance to get a card that I need. Second, I have to then play that card and then spend more points to trash it from play. In a game that doesn’t have that many rounds, it doesn’t seem worthwhile to gum up one or more turns just to play defensively.
Additionally, given the way the game ends, even if your opponent has a great combination in their deck, it only matters if they flip up those cards in the right spots in the Final Flip. This sudden death single round showdown for the win means that most players have at least a measurable chance to win – just flip up the best hand at the end, and you win!
The art of the cards is very reminiscent of the cartoons that I watched as a kid; and more importantly, the text description of the card actions on the cards are generally clear. There are clarifications in the rulebook for some of the cards, but we found that we didn’t need it that much as the cards were generally enough.
Games play out in 15-20 minutes, and the whole thing moves quite fast. Really, the only decision that can take time is in the choosing of which card(s) to buy or trash. The flip phase pretty much plays out by itself, and once you’re played a particular card once or twice, you shouldn’t have any issues with how to resolve it.
Fliptoons Season 2 is a great filler-style game in a small package. It’s easy to teach and comes in a nice small box. This is a sure addition to my travel kit, and now I have two versions of the game to keep playing all year round. While I know it’s possible to combine the two sets to play a mega-game, thus far I’ve found that the dilution of card interactions makes that version a bit slower, and the game loses some of its appeal without the rapid fire pace of the game.
Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers
- I love it! Dale Y
- I like it.
- Neutral.
- Not for me…
Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/45HYoSt
