The Meeple Guild: Flip Freighters is a budget-friendly board game for all ages

YORKTON - There are many people out there whose budgets just won’t stretch to board games – or at least that is the perception.

Certainly there are families who are just happy to keep the rent paid and food on the table, and with inflation as it has been of late that has to be more challenging for many.

But, board games are a great diversion for families, and while prowling a game store might not be in the budget, there are print and play-style games which can be a lot of fun and very low cost even if you access through a computer at the local library.

As the name implies such games are ones where the files are made available, many at no cost, others for a few dollars as designers and artist try to recoup something for their efforts. You then print the game and play.

Yes, there is a cost to printing, and some PnP games are quite elaborate, others are a few pages, and often with a low resolution, black and white print option to keep costs low.

Of course because games are so low cost, if any, quality in terms of art and game play can vary a great deal. The best of the genre are surprisingly robust offerings and even the slightly lesser offerings give a solid gaming experience especially when cost per play is factored in.

Flip Freighters is a recent creation by Wayne Koenig that has a slightly different mechanic that helps set it apart.

With this game, playing cards are flipped face up and over several turns and the numbers are used to ‘load’ a player’s truck, or to move those trucks along the ‘road’ to a delivery point where they score points.

Players need cards, a play sheet each, in plastic with a dry erase marker and it’s reusable and a few pages of instructions.

Any number of players can participate, it’s quick so replay interest is good, and with so few pages to print, even with a small purchase fee of $3 US it’s an easy recommendation.

That said it was still interesting to fire a few questions via email to the designer.

Koenig, who lives in Denver where he drives school bus was once an avid gamer.

“There was a time when I was much more avid, before a wife and kids,” he offered. That said, I still host a game night twice a month, and play three-four games on BGA, (Board Game Arena) a week, but the length of the games I enjoy has decreased considerably.

“As for my favourite game -- the ancient game of Go is my favourite, but for hobby games, I would say Race for the Galaxy. Both require a huge time investment, but have an incredible level of depth.”

But Flip Freighters is not that deep style of game.

“I enjoy designing games that people can easily play at home,” said Koenig. “I had just finished a game that used dice and a player sheet and wanted to create something that used cards instead.

“Flip Freighters pulled from a lot of ‘roll and write’ games, such as Welcome to: Qwixx, Metro X (though I still haven't played that one yet), and a lot of others that I can't think of off the top of my head.” 

For Flip Freighters Koenig said he was was looking to:

*Make a "roll and write" that used cards.

*I wanted the players to have simple, yet gut wrenching decisions throughout the game. Decisions that would leave them with the feeling of, "man, I shouldn't have done that last turn."

*I want people to be able to print it at home.

*I wanted it to be easy enough that you could teach it to your grandparents, but fun enough that you could play it with your gaming group as well.

“I think I met most of these,” he added.

So, in Koenig’s mind what is the best element of the game?

“Every turn you are met with a decision as to how you want to use all the cards,” he said. “Jokers even give you the opportunity to use them as a wild to fill in any space you want.

“What this offers from a game play perspective is a little bit of statistical analysis, and also a little bit of gambling/luck. You might really need the six of clubs, so you use a joker for that, only to get a six of clubs next turn.

“Will you move a half full truck just to get it delivered, even though the next turn might give you exactly what you need?

“These are the decisions that make keep wanting to come back to the game, and I hope that they will do the same for others.”

Koenig admitted there are not a lot of new mechanics here.

“Most of these mechanics can be found in other roll and write games,” he said adding, “that said, I don't know how many games that use a regular deck of playing cards offers multi-use cards. Will you use a card to load a truck, or will you use its value to move a truck. Loading gives you more potential points, but you won't actually score anything until you deliver it. 

“Again, not a lot of new mechanics here, but this game does offer a lot of, ‘mechanic introduction.’ Some trucks require certain suits, other require certain numbers. Some trucks score money based on total goods on a truck, and others score based on the specific numbers in the truck.

“In-addition, some trucks can be delivered to one of two locations, the first offering a shorter route, and the second offering a two-times multiplier. What this means is that players of hobby games will have lots of options to choose from, and non-hobby gamers will be introduced to a lot of ways that hobby games score, without making it too overwhelming.”

In the end though why go the PnP route?

“I started Koenig Kreations because I was sick of having all my games never see the light of day when it came to being published,” said the designer. “When COVID hit in 2019, Edo from Pencil First Games, launched a PnP contest in which he encouraged people to make games that ‘normal people’, could play at home by themselves. This led me to making quite a few games that I released on a Google drive to friends and family.

“When he launched the second year of the contest, I submitted a game called, ‘City Planner’, that ended up wining me $250. I used some of the proceeds to fund new artwork for, Vault: A Solitaire Dice Game, which later hit Kickstarter and ended up raising over $1,900 as a PnP only game.

“After that, I started looking to convert other games I have created into, ‘Premium version, Print and Plays’. While both games are available free on BGG, I wanted fans of the game to be able to get something a little nicer.

“Will I make physical versions in the future? Maybe.

“But for now, this PnP model has allowed me to make a little bit of money doing something that for a long time was just a hobby.”

You can find Flip Freights via Kickstarter.