Fliptoons by Thunderworks Games is a quick and light deck-building game for 1-4 players where you’re a talent agent building a dream cast of cartoon movie stars.

Fliptoons Season 2 is effectively the same game, but with a whole new cast of characters. Each Toon has a different effect which is often impacted by or can impact other Toons in the cast, and so a new cast means completely rethinking any strategies you developed in the first season!

Keep scrolling for my full review, or click to jump to the bit you’re interested in:

How to play

Each turn everyone simultaneously flips cards from their deck until they have a 3×2 grid then tally up the total fame scored.

Characters in your starting deck will score you very little fame, so you’ll be wanting fire the old talent and hire some hot new stuff pronto!

Once the flip is complete, in turn order spend fame to hire new Toons from the shared market or dismiss the deadweight from your grid. You can take up to 2 actions (hire or fire, any combination) as long as you can afford the fame cost.

Toons in the market are ordered from strongest to weakest with 5 available at a time and cost ranging from 3 to 15 fame. Dismissing a Toon will cost you 5 fame. There are of course cards that will reduce the cost of hiring or dismissing.

Toons will all have a fame value, but this number can change. For example Goldfish is worth just 1 fame, but scores 1 additional fame for every fish card in your grid, including herself. Get a few fish in your deck and this can really add up!

Other effects including flipping cards in your grid, dismissing cards, stacking on top of the last card played etc. Some of these are good, some not so! And a lot of them can be good or bad, depending on the circumstances so careful consideration is required when hiring a new Toon!

Season 2 introduces the ‘Return’ effect which returns a card from your grid to the bottom of your deck – again this could be good or bad depending on the card in question!

Keep flipping, hiring and dismissing until the first person scores 30+ fame from their flip. The end game is triggered now, but that person isn’t the winner yet – although they do get the Critics Choice award giving them an extra 3 fame for the final flip. Play one final flip and the highest score that round takes the crown!

Solo mode

A solo game of Fliptoons works the same, except you play to achieve 30 fame before the Toon deck runs out.

Remove 20 cards from the Toon deck at the start of the game (more for a harder game, fewer for easier) and then play as normal.

At the end of each market phase (this happens in a standard game too) you’ll remove the first and last card from the market and refresh, so that Toon deck is going to deplete faster than you think!

A key difference is that you don’t have a final flip in solo – get to 30 fame and win immediately.

What’s new in Season 2

While Season 2 plays mechanically the same, there are a few key differences which may help you decide whether you need both games in your collection!

🎬 You can combine with the original game deck to play up to 8 players
🎬 it introduces a brand new starting deck line up
🎬 There’s a whole new cast of Toons with different abilities, including fish cards which reward aquatic card synergies (Goldfish is my fav)
🎬 I love (and sometimes hate) the new Return effect which moves a card from your grid back to the bottom of your deck

My thoughts

I almost wrote Fliptoons off as the art really wasn’t speaking to me, but am SO glad I’ve given it a chance as it’s been a real hit in our house. While it’s fairly luck based in terms of the cards flipped from your deck, how they’ll interact and what’s available in the market, there’s a surprising amount of strategy in this little box. Also it’s just bloomin good fun.

The rules are quick to learn and teach. You can spend time learning how all the characters synergise and perfect your game, or just casually flip away – either is going to be just as much fun.

Season 2 doesn’t change things mechanically, but the introduction of new Toons keeps things fresh and adds more strategic variety.

Do you need both? The main benefit is the ability to play with up to 8 people, so if you play with bigger groups, then absolutely! For us we’ll probably just stick to the one – although that one may well be Season 2 (I really do love Goldfish).

Disclaimer: Fliptoons Season 2 was kindly loaned to me by the publisher for review purposes but all thoughts are my own.