Flip Freighters
Flip Freighters Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Needed Components
- 1 Sheet per player
- 1 Pencil or pen per player
- 1 Rulebook
- 2 Decks of Playing Cards. Use only A-6s and all four Jokers, removing all 7-K's.
Note: In this game Aces are considered to be 1's.
Setup
- Give each player one player sheet and a writing utensil.
- Shuffle all 52 cards together then deal out three piles with 15 cards each. Choose one of these piles to be the draw deck for week one, and place the other two piles off to the side. The extra 7 cards may be removed from the table as they will not be used in this game.
- Flip three cards face up from the draw deck into three separate stacks. You are now ready to begin.
Gameplay Overview
The game will take place over three weeks (rounds). Each week will consist of five days (turns). During each day, players will use the values on the three faceup cards to load or move their trucks. Once players have used all three cards, the next day will begin. A week ends when all the cards in the draw pile are exhausted. Players will use those last three cards, score points, and then move to the next week. At the end of three weeks, players will total their score and the player with the highest score wins.
Breakdown of a Day
Each day, players will flip over three cards from the deck face up, as mentioned above. All players may then use each of these three cards (Jokers can be used as 1-6, any suit) in any order of their choosing to do one of two actions: Loading or Moving.
Loading
When performing a loading action, suits represent types of goods, and the numbers represent the amount of that good. Each square on a truck that has a suit on it requires that suit. Squares that are white (free version) or have multi-suits (paid version) may be filled with any suit. The amount you can load is indicated by the clipboard to the left of each truck (symbol outside the truck for the paid version). The symbols mean:
- "=" — All the same numbers.
- "≠" — All different numbers.
- "#" — Any number.
- "6-1" — Use number on square, load front to back.
Note: The trucks with numbers inside their squares require an exact number to load and must be loaded in order from front to back. You may skip numbers but you may never fill in numbers that were skipped.
Moving
Any truck may be moved at any point as long as it has at least one square filled, by using the number on a face up card. To do so, fill in movement circles to the right of a truck (free version) or on the colored route of the truck (paid version), equal to the value on the card you have selected. Unlike when loading trucks, you do not need to have exact numbers to move a truck. Additionally, you may split the value on a card between two or more trucks. As stated above, trucks do not need to be fully loaded in order to move them, however, once a truck has started moving, you may not load anything else onto it.
Once you have filled in all the movement circles for a truck, it has reached its destination (indicated by the little pink carrot or the box at the end). Check the scoring condition on the exit sign and either write the total number value of the load inside the Interstate Shield (inside the square for the paid version), or circle the corresponding number (inside the shield or inside the rectangle). This truck is now delivered, and can no longer be accessed for the rest of the game. It is worth noting that some trucks have more than one stop location along their path, giving you more points for delivering the truck further. When you reach the first location you may choose whether to deliver that truck, or you may keep going. Once you have written a number in the Interstate Sign (square for paid version), you may not continue moving that truck.
Overtime Hours
Near the week-end scoring, you will find a section labeled "Overtime Hours." This area will let you either increase or decrease a card's value by 1. Players may choose to use multiple circles on the same card, and may even increase a number over 6 if they would like. Every hour that you do not use will give you 2 dollars at the end of the game.
Overtime Variant Rule: In addition to changing the value of a card players may also choose to use overtime hours to change the suit of a card. Please note that the player board does not list this rule, which is why it is a variant.
End of Week Scoring
When the last card of the draw deck has been flipped over, that signifies the end of the week. Players finish loading or moving, using the remaining faceup cards and then it is time to do end of week scoring. Total all the values for all the trucks that have been delivered and put the total inside the interstate shield for that week (some require you to circle a value instead, based on the total number of goods on the truck). Because points are totaled every week, this means that trucks delivered in early weeks will score more than once.
Note: We added extra boxes for the paid version on the right hand side of the player sheet. These are to make totaling your score easier.
Once all players have totaled their points, it is time to start a new week. Take all face up cards and place them off to the side. Grab another draw deck of 15 cards and start the next week by flipping over 3 new cards.
End of the Game
When you have played the 5th day of the third week the game is over. Players do one final scoring for that week and then total up their scores from each of the three weeks, adding any points that they scored from unused Overtime Hours. The player with the highest total score is the winner. If there is a tie then the player who delivered the most total trucks is the winner.
Solo Scoring
Since there is no competitive play for solo we have included a rubric to tell you how you did.
- Less than 200 = 0 stars
- 200-249 = 1 star
- 250-299 = 2 stars
- 300-349 = 3 stars
- 350-399 = 4 stars
- 400+ = 5 stars
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to those of you that playtested the game and gave feedback. Special thanks to Mark and Cindy Herb, Brian and Karen Hudson, Shaun Elliot, Cam Faulks, Scott Gleason, Little Dungeons BG, and Gottfried Bartjes. Lorenzo, thank you for the art, it was more than I could have ever imagined.
Translators: Polish: Marek Szumny. Spanish: Sergi Sanchez Labrador. German: Oliver Kautz.
And to all of the Kickstarter backers, thank you for making this game a reality. This game wouldn't be at this point without your help.
Koenig Kreations is a one man design studio dedicated to bringing easy to play games into households around the world. A majority of what they offer is free to print games that are available on their Google Drive, while some of their games have been uploaded to Board Game Geek.