Time Management for Fliip

(Originally posted on BoardGameGeek.)

Fliip is an interesting beast.

It’s a Yomi-style card game with Football as the backdrop. A friend who knows much more about American Football than I feels like it’s pretty accurate, down to making play-calling feel legitimate.

It’s curious how they chose to produce it, mainly. This box is pretty big but it really doesn’t need to be. The cards are enormous, and there’s a mouse-pad material representation of the field.

It could totally be done with a single deck of cards and some dice instead. A stitch counter could be used to track ball position and downs. This would make it pocket-sized, instead of backpack-sized, which I think fits the aesthetic much better. Hm. As it is, we recommend using a spare d6 (included) to track the current down instead of swapping transparent cards out after each play.

either way, it’s short enough to not overstay its welcome, and produces some great moments where your play call double-bluffed your opponent.

Variant: Time Management

One of the complaints we had was the loss of any time management mechanics. There aren’t any fake special teams plays, nor conversions or missed extra points, but these have a negligible effect on the game. Time management is a pretty big loss, though. In the base game, you just play to a certain number of possessions.

The variant needs twenty clock tokens. (Perhaps beads, or a d20.) The game starts at 16. After each play, reduce it by one unless the play stopped the clock (turnover, TD, or incomplete pass). The offense can use the no-huddle rules (an official variant) to increase the clock by one, but not past 20.

Needs playtesting, but could be interesting.