Who’s ready for some fruity fun?
Fast Flip, from Blue Orange Games, is the fruit salad-styled game that puts young minds to the test. Designed for two to eight players ages 7 and up, Fast Flip forces kids to utilize visual recognition and awareness skills in an effort to beat their opponents.
Contained in a compact aluminum tin that’s ideal for on-the-go fun, Fast Flip contains 54 cards, ten tokens, and a set of illustrated rules. The cards sport illustrations on both sides, and they’re deliciously cute. One side features a single fruit or number illustration, while the other side shows an assortment of different fruits, each one with its own cheeky little smile.
Once the deck is shuffled and shaken like a fruit salad, the pile is placed in the center of the table with the assorted fruit side facing down. There are a few ways to play Fast Flip, but I’ll go ahead and describe my favorite, known as Token Grab.
When all players are ready and all tokens are arranged next to the card pile, the top card in the deck is flipped over to reveal a medley of fruits. This exposes a new top card with a single fruit or number on it. If the new top card in the pile shows a fruit, players must quickly identify how many of that fruit appear on the new face up card and grab the number token to match. If the new top card shows a number, players must quickly determine which fruit appears that many times on the face up card and grab the fruit token to match. Each round requires some pretty quick thinking and reflexes to come out on top, but the added pressure only adds to the excitement.
The player who snags a token before his or her opponents get to keep it. Consider it a reward for maximum effort. But in Token Grab, stealing is both encouraged and necessary. You see, just because a player has earned a token (and a point), doesn’t mean it’s out of play. If an opponent’s token is the answer to any other card flip, all players are free to grab it if they have the chance. Depending on the awareness of the token owner, this can be quite the challenge or like taking candy from a baby. The first person to gather four tokens first wins, but with looters in close proximity, it’s not as easy as it might seem.
Other variations of the game feature the same premise, but have players call out the correct answer instead of reaching for a token. These versions were fun too, but for players with lots of competitve spirit, the Token Grab is the way to go.
Fast Flip is fruity fun, but it’s quite challenging at times. The fruits, which consist of a banana, a strawberry, a raspberry, an orange, and a pineapple, are relatively similar in color. Don’t get me wrong – they’re easily identifiable when time allows for it, but in the heat of the competition, yellow bananas sometimes get mistaken for yellow pineapples and I can’t help but wonder how I made it through preschool.
Overall, Fast Flip is a great way to teach kids math, logic, and spatial skills. Its compact design makes it great for travel, and it’s quick gameplay makes it easy to start and finish a game in no more than 15 minutes.
