Flipping Heaven

Sorry to once again use the blog as a personal games-with-boys memoir, but I couldn't let this week pass without mentioning Flipships, which has been a bona fide hit in the house with all three males.

 left to right: invaders, scores, special powers

This is a co-operative cardboard version of Space Invaders. A mothership is sending tiny attackers down to Earth, and we collectively fight them off by flipping our ships. If we land on a card, we destroy it (unless it has xx on it, in which case it needs a double hit). But after every round the ships move closer to Earth, travelling at three different speeds. If they enter the atmosphere, we take punishment! Successful invaders are shuffled back into the deck, and more ships come out at the start of each new round.

ready for lift-off!

It's a blast. Joe has proclaimed it his favourite game and Stan says it's in the top-ten. As the state of the Earth worsens, more defending ships are released to you and your powers increase... but will it be too late? You can only win by destroying the Mothership - a long flip away - but you need to hold off the invaders whilst doing so. If you see off the fleet, there's a final round where you desperately flip your ships at the mothership to kill it off before it devastates the Earth with a whopping 20 point hit, completely obliterating you.

aieeeeeee

We won last night when Joe flipped a ship on the last go of the last round into the Mothership, dealing it the death blow. I subsequently discovered we had been bending a rule (helping ourselves to ships a little too easily) but what's a little cheating when the future of the world is at stake?

We played again today and were defeated with only 8 ships left to destroy!

aaarrrrrgh

It's a lovely game. It's so lovely it almost got them asking to play again instead of Playstation. But not quite.