Overview

Captain Flip is a quick tile-drafting game where players are pirate captains recruiting crew members to fill their Adventure boards. Each turn, you draw a double-sided character tile from a bag, decide whether to keep or flip it, then place it on your board. Characters have immediate effects, end-game scoring effects, or both. The player with the most coins at the end wins — but beware the Gunners, as having 3 or more means you lose.

Components

• 72 Character tiles (double-sided, 9 unique characters, each appearing 16 times)
• 58 Coins
• 1 large Treasure Map token
• 1 cloth bag
• 10 Adventure boards (double-sided: A, B, C, D)
• 3 player aids
• 1 rulebook

Setup

1. Place all Character tiles in the bag.
2. Place Coins and Treasure Map in the center of the table.
3. Give each player a random Adventure board (side A for first game). Include the board with the Pirate Flag.
4. Place a Player Aid between each pair of players.
5. The player with the Pirate Flag board starts the game.

Turn Structure

Starting with the player holding the Pirate Flag board, take turns clockwise. On your turn, follow these 4 steps:

Step 1: Draw a Tile

Randomly draw 1 Character tile from the bag. You can only see one side.

Step 2: Keep or Flip

Choose to keep this character OR flip the tile (turn it over). If you flip, you must keep the new character.

Step 3: Place the Tile

Place the character on the lowest empty space of any column on your board.

Step 4: Apply Effects

• Apply the character’s immediate effect (yellow box), if any.
• If the tile is on the highest space of any column, apply the immediate bonus of that space, if any.

Actions

The 9 Characters

Character	Immediate (Yellow)	End-Game (Gray)
Cartographer	Take the Treasure Map	—
Monkey	Take 1 coin, then flip one adjacent tile (apply new character’s effects)	—
Parrot	Draw and play a new tile	Lose 1 coin
Navigator	Take 2 coins per Cartographer on your board	—
Gunner	Take 5 coins	If 3+ Gunners on your board, you lose the game
Cook	Take 1 coin per character in the Cook’s row (including itself)	—
Lookout	—	4 coins if no character above this tile in its column
Carpenter	—	3 coins if no Gunner in its row or column
Swabby	—	1/4/9/16/25 coins for having Swabbies in 1/2/3/4/5 columns

Treasure Map

If you have the Treasure Map at the end of your turn, take 1 coin. The Treasure Map can be stolen by another player who places a Cartographer.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

End of Game

When any player completes 4 columns on their board, finish the current round (the last player is the one to the right of the Pirate Flag player). If the last player triggers the end, the game ends immediately.

Final Scoring

1. Apply all end-game effects of your characters.
2. Score one column at a time, left to right (to avoid errors).
3. If playing board C, also apply endgame bonuses of covered spaces.

The player with the most coins wins. Tiebreaker: the tied player with the Treasure Map wins. Otherwise, shared victory.

Automatic loss: If you have 3 or more Gunners on your board, you lose regardless of coins.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• You can have empty spaces in a row; columns don’t need to start from the bottom row.
• Adjacency: Spaces must share a side (not diagonal) to be adjacent.
• Monkey can be placed without an adjacent tile — simply skip the flip effect.
• You can place a Cartographer even if you already have the Treasure Map (synergizes with Navigator).
• Board variants (A, B, C, D) add different space bonuses and restrictions. For first games, use side A.
• Board D spaces may require paying 1 coin to place a character there.

Player Reference

Turn summary: Draw → Keep or Flip → Place in lowest empty space → Apply effects

Swabby scoring table:

Columns with Swabbies	Coins
1	1
2	4
3	9
4	16
5	25

Board space bonuses (Board A examples):

• Take 3 coins
• Take 5 coins
• Take the Treasure Map
• 6 coins if all characters in column are identical (end-game)
• 4 coins if all characters in column are different (end-game)