Those Flipping Flags

Disclosure

A few weeks ago we went to a local trivia night with some of our board game friends. One of the subjects was flags. Specifically, current flags from countries around the world. When I was in middle school I lived in Europe, so I figured I had that part of the world covered. Unfortunately only one of the flags was from the area, the rest were from other continents.

The rest of us were as dumbfounded as I was. The most exposure any of us had to country flags in recent memory was either from watching the Olympic Games or an episode of “Fun with Flags” by Sheldon Cooper on “Big Bang Theory”. Needless to say we used quite a few of our “Free Pass” tokens on questions from that category.

What we didn’t realize is that we already had the perfect training tool in our repertoire – Flipping Flags by R&R Games! We had been saving this travel-sized card game for our next long vacation. If only we had broken it out a bit earlier we might have not had to give up on that trivia category!

Flipping Flags includes a custom deck of 60 cards, each showing the flags and names of three countries. Every flag occurs four times throughout the deck and never twice on the same card as another flag.

Cards are spread out over the table and each player takes their turns simultaneously. Turn over a card and try to match it to another card already exposed. If you see a match, call out the name of the country and collect the two cards. You do not have to match the card you just flipped, you can also search for matches on your opponents’ cards.

If a flipped card matches two other cards and both are called out, the first to call their match gets both cards, while the other player gets the lone card it matched (and not the original card).

When all of the cards are revealed and no further matches can be made, the game ends. The person with the most cards collected wins!

Flipping Flags is a perfect example of teaching/learning without realizing what is going on. Just by associating the name of the country with the actual flag design and having to search for an exact match will make you a flag expert in no time! Even better, it retails for under $10 shipped on Amazon and makes for a great birthday gift or stocking stuffer (yes, I realize this is June…never to early to plan ahead!).

Like many other games by R&R Games, this one also includes a contest printed on the back of the instructions. I’m sure the first winner has already been selected by now, but by emailing the correct answer you’ll be entered in a monthly drawing for free games and other prizes! Be sure to watch their Facebook and Twitter timelines to find out more!