Flip is a completely free simple puzzle game with over 1700 levels across four modes. The only mechanic involves rotating or “flipping” sections of the puzzle until they match the desired arrangement. Puzzles increase in difficulty from 3 to 10 required flips.

Release Date: February 15th, 2016
Developer: Perro Electrico
Publisher: Perro Electrico
Format: PC Game
Playtime so far: 5 hours

Rotations involve grabbing a piece and rotating everything either to the right or left of it

Major Pros:

• Tons of levels
• Simple mechanic

Minor Pros:

• Four modes
• Nice music

Image puzzles have a different image per difficulty

Major Cons:

• Repetitive if played for too long
• Hint button is useless

Minor Cons:

• Can’t return to imperfect levels until the pack is complete

Both image and sided puzzles have non-symmetrical pieces

Flip offers over 1700 levels. Levels are divided into four modes: regular, sided, wired, and image. In regular and wired, individual pieces are symmetrical, however in sided and image the pieces are not, which adds additional challenge to these levels. My favorite were the wired levels. I found the crossing wire arrangements easier to recognize for what moves to use. Although the images were somewhat more satisfying to complete. The mechanic of flipping sections of the puzzle is the same for all modes.

The main puzzle mode features symmetrical pieces with simple colors

I played 265 of the easiest levels out of more than 1700 levels, which took me about 5 hours. I estimate it would take over 35 hours to beat all of them with a perfect score. Unfortunately with the introduction of no new mechanics the game feels repetitive and it’s hard to play for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. The hint system is also useless. There’s no challenge to completing without obeying the move limit since every level can be completed by working from one side to the other if players have unlimited moves.

Completing puzzle packs unlocks progressively harder puzzles of the same type

Some other minor notes:

• I was annoyed that if I accidentally completed a level in more than the minimum moves, it was required for me to complete the rest of the level pack before I could go back to fix it. Packs can be up to 100 levels, which can make the wait long. Especially if players are trying to hold in their head the correct move sequence.
• I enjoyed the music of Flip. It was reasonably relaxing and fitting for a simple game. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it, it was simply nice.
• Flip was originally a paid game and was made free in May of 2018. It has been out for two years at that point. As such it has a lot more polish than a typical free game, but since there was no announcement or advertising around it becoming free, its player base is non-existent.

After mastering a puzzle pack, players can randomly generate additional puzzles of the same type and difficulty

Overall I found Flip to be a good time waster for short sessions. Maybe someone with a background in Rubik’s cubes would be able to come up with move combos to breeze through it, but I enjoyed the vast number of levels. With its background as a paid game, it has a lot of content, polish, and depth missing from many free games. I would recommend Flip to any puzzle aficionados looking for something simple with a good length of play time.

Find this game at the publisher’s website or on Steam.