Flipology 2-8 players • Age 6+ • Playing Time 10 or 30 minutes

Flavour Text inside the box:
You’re about to enter the Flipp Forest, a fantasy land where animals from all over the world are living. Most of them reward you with points when you discover them but a few would rather be left alone!
Your loyal dog is always keen to help you find new animals and your cat might come along for the adventure too, but she will only want to observe.
Sometimes other explorers interfere with your plans but your new animal friends can often help you get revenge. There are two ways you can explore the forest, but either way, your adventure won’t last long. So how many animals can you find and how many points can you score in the time you have?

Components:

There are 84 cards in total.

78 of them are animals or environmental elements. These cards have a point value and, usually, an active effect that is triggered when the card is flipped face up.

There are also 6 Clearing cards. Use these to replace any animals that get eliminated during the course of play.

The starting player takes the Lioness tile and puts one floral counter on it at the start of each of her turns, to keep track of the rounds of the game.

Gameplay Overview and Objective:

In both versions of Flipology, you will be dealt a number of cards which you look at and then arrange face down in a horizontal row in front of you. On your turn you must flip any one of your cards and apply its effects (if any). The goal of the game is to flip as many of your cards face up as possible. At the end of the game, you will score the points on your faceup cards (with the exception of the sleepy Sloths and Koalas, which score negative points if they are faceup at the end of play.)

Wake those sloths! The Moon card changes the winning conditions so that the lowest-scoring player wins.

If you are learning the game, we suggest leaving the Moon card out.

Nature, the basic game for 2-8 players:

Set Up
The player who most recently pet or fed any animal is the starting player (or choose randomly). Give this player the Lioness tile and the three counter tokens to place on top of the tile to mark the beginning of each round.
Remove the Clearing cards and place them within reach of all players.
Decide if you wish to remove or include the Moon card. If playing with very young or sensitive children, you may also wish to remove the two Wolves cards.
Shuffle the remaining cards. Deal each player nine cards face down.
Players look at their cards and select seven to arrange in any order in a facedown horizontal row in front of them. They discard the two leftover cards into a facedown pile.

Flipology isn’t a memory game: You can peek at any of your facedown cards whenever you like.

Overview of Play

Beginning with the starting player, each player takes a turn. Play proceeds clockwise, with the round ending when it is the starting player’s turn again. The game ends once everyone has had three turns.

Before scoring at the end of the game, anyone with a faceup Hermit Crab card decides, in player order, if they want to use it to select a card from the discard pile to add its points to their score. Then players should reveal any Sloths and Koalas in their rows that remained facedown.

Now players add up the points on their cards and compare their totals. The winner is the player with the highest score, unless the Moon is faceup in any player’s row.

Taking a Turn

1. On your turn you must flip a single card in your row (face up or face down).

2. If you have flipped a card face up and it has an effect, you must apply it. Note that any cards to the left or right of each other are considered adjacent, including the cards at the ends of the rows of two players who are sitting next to each other. (All of the rows can be construed as forming one big circle.)
Do not apply effects of cards flip face up by the Wind, Rain, or Sun cards.
The Monkey flips two cards faceup; if they both have active effects, you must choose and apply one effect only.

End of Game Scoring

Your score is the sum of the points of all faceup cards in your row minus any points from faceup Sloths and Koalas. Then add the points from any facedown Sloths or Koalas. The highest-scoring player wins, unless the Moon is in play.

Tiebreaker

If two or more players are tied at the end of the game, count the total number of different faceup animals in each player’s row. The player with the most unique types of animals wins.

Tim’s cards total 21 points. He has three unique animals: the Parrot, the Hawk (two copies) and the Cat:

Rachel’s cards also total 21 points but she wins because she has four unique animals: the Monkey, the Dog, and two different types of Frog:

The Animals:

Here are the animals you might encounter on your adventure:

Animals with active effects:

A DOG is worth 5 or 6 points and lets you flip one card adjacent (i.e. orthogonal) to it. If you use the dog to flip an opponent’s card face up, you (not the opponent) apply the effect described on that card, if any.

A FROG is worth 4 or 5 points and allows you to flip one card two spaces away. If you position the frog at the end of your row, the card it flips will likely belong to an opponent. If you use the frog to flip an opponent’s card face up, you (not your opponent) must use the effect on that card, if any.

A HAWK is worth 3 or 4 points and allows you to flip a card in an opponent’s row and take its action, if applicable. If playing the Great Tree variant, you can play the hawk on yourself, provided it is used on a card in a different one of your rows. The hawk can never be used on a card in the row it has come from.

A MOLE is worth just 1 or 2 points but when it is flipped face up, it can be exchanged for any other card in play, whether faceup or facedown. Decide which card you want, then put the mole in its place and put the card where the mole was. This does not trigger the new card’s effect. If the mole was swapped for a facedown card, the card remains facedown.

A MONKEY is worth 2 or 3 points and allows you to flip the two cards directly adjacent to it. In the Great Tree variant, you might have a choice of cards, because any card above or below the monkey is also considered adjacent. If you flip up two cards that both have active effects, you must perform one of the effects only.

A PARROT is worth 4 points and allows you to mimic the active effect of any player’s faceup animal. For example, the parrot can pretend to be a dog and flip a card adjacent to itself. If the parrot mimics a mole, you exchange it with any other card in play (do not apply the card’s effect). A parrot cannot mimic a hermit crab. If there are no other faceup animals when a parrot is flipped, it does nothing.

A SNAKE is worth 3 or 4 points and allows you to flip any other card in its row.

The WOLVES, worth 2 points, allow you to remove any card in play, including your own and including facedown cards. Put the card in the discard pile; replace it with a Clearing card.

If a HERMIT CRAB, worth 2 points, is faceup in your row at the end of the game, you may go through the discard pile, pick any animal, and adds its points to your score. Sloths and koalas can be treated as faceup or facedown depending on whether negative or positive points are desired.
• If two players have crab cards, they pick in player order.

Example of cascading effects & affecting an opponent’s row:

These are the three right-most cards of Joelle’s row. She has flipped over the Monkey at the end, which flipped over the cards to its left and right.

To the Monkey’s right is a Frog, the left-most card of Joelle’s opponent. She must choose whether to use the Frog’s or Snake’s effect.

She used the Frog to flip another card on her opponent’s row: a Sloth, which will be -6 for her opponent if it remains faceup.

Animals with Passive or No Effect:

A CAT is worth 4, 5, or 6 points and, once flipped face up, cannot be flipped face down via the effects on other cards. It can be targeted by a flip effect but remains face up. A cat can be exchanged for a mole or destroyed by the wolves.

A SLOTH is worth 6 or 7 points, and the KOALA, 8 points, but only if they are facedown at the end of the game. Any that got flipped face have those points subtracted from the player’s total score.

There are six unique animal cards including the PANDA and the KIWI. These have no effect but score 8 or 9 points if faceup at the end of the game.

Environment cards:

CLEARING cards are used to fill the empty space left when the wolves remove a card. They can be flipped up or down like any other card.

The MOON is worth 7 points. If it finishes the game faceup in a player’s row, the winner of the round will be the player with the fewest points.

These environment cards allow you to flip cards but never trigger those cards’ active effects:

RAIN, worth 3 points, allows you to flip one card in every row, including your own.

SUN, worth 3 points, allows you to peek at any three facedown cards in your opponents’ rows. Then you can choose one to flip over. You can leave all three facedown.

If you flip the WIND card, worth 3 points, you must flip all the other cards in its row.

Nature Multi-Game Variant:

Keep a running score. First to 100 points wins.
The previous rounds’ winner goes first.
The winner of a round gets an extra 10 points added to their cumulative score.
If a player wins a game with a moon in play, they earn 25 points and their opponents all score zero.

Great Tree Variant for 2-4 Players:

Set aside the Rain and Hermit Crab cards; they cannot be used in this variant. Also set aside the Clearing cards. Decide whether to remove the Moon card.

Remove the Clearning cards, putting them within reach of all players.

Determine the starting player and give them the Baobab tree tile and the baboon token to place on top of the tile in the indicated places, to mark off the two turns each player will get per round.

Shuffle the cards; deal five facedown to each player. Players look at their cards and arrange them face down in any order in a horizontal row.

Regrowth: When the cards are dealt, starting with the starting player, players may choose to discard their entire hand and draw five new cards, shuffling their discards back into the pile. Players can only do this once per game. You can use the floral tokens to remind everyone of who has taken this option.

As in Nature, on your turn you must flip one of your cards and resolve its effect, if any, then play passes to your left.

Once everyone has had two turns, the round ends and players are dealt another five cards which they arrange as they like, face down in a horizontal row above their previously played cards.

The player with the highest score showing takes the baobab tile and moves the baboon token to the third position. If the previous starting player is in a tie for the highest score, the starting player doesn’t change.

Again, the players then take two turns each, one at a time in clockwise order, flipping only cards in their current (top-most) row. Effects can cascade through previously played rows, however.

After the second round, players are dealt a final set of five cards to arrange face down above their other two rows. As above, re-determine the starting player and give them the Baobab tile and baboon token.

After all players have had two final turns, they count up the score for all three of their rows to determine the winner. As in Nature, ties are broken by comparing the number of different faceup animals.

Note that in the Great Tree, adjacency counts vertically as well as horizontally (but not diagonally) so cards from previous rows can be flipped via effects from cards such as the Dog, Frog, or Monkey. As in the basic game, the cards at the ends of your opponents’ rows are adjacent to your corresponding end cards.

Gameplay example for the Great Tree:

Nicolas’ cards at the beginning of the second round:

He adds a second row on top and, as his first turn, flips the left-most card, a Snake (1), which he uses to flip the Parrot (2), three cards over:

The cheeky Parrot pretends to be a Frog and flips over their Quokka (3) in the bottom row!

Game Credits:

Design: Rachel Reilly
Artwork: Tim Kings-Lynne
Production: Julia Schiller

Rachel wishes to thank Sarah Kasten.
Please visit cheekyparrotgames.com for a how-to-play video & other information.

© 2019 Cheeky Parrot Games, Ltd. Auckland, New Zealand