Author Note: Unfair Flips is the first game to really aggravate me in quite a while. As as result, this write-up features a lot more profanity then I would usually include, but my ability to form coherent thoughts without resorting to the f-bomb have been so reduced that I can’t express how frustrated I am without it.
I was really trying to write a fair article about Unfair Flips, a incremental game by HEATHER FLOWERS. I really was.
I played the whole damn thing, even if I set up an autoclicker about an hour in. (Gods bless you, creators of AutoHotKey.) Then someone called me an idiot for being disappointed for buying a game where nothing happens, and having nothing happen, and I just sorta lost it.
Either that or the can of Bang Energy I just chugged is kicking in. Could be both!
Point is, fuck reasonable critique. Everyone now gets about 1000 words about the worst game I’ve played this year.
Maybe I’m just out of the god damn loop here, but I feel like the child in the story of the Emperor has no clothes. When I google Unfair Flips, I see endless praise. People are posting articles about how interesting it is. It’s rated very positive on Steam, with 276 reviews.
This is despite the game saying nothing, doing nothing, making no points. That might come across as the raving of a madman, so let me elaborate and clear up any uncertainty about if I’m lost my mind.
There are loosely put, two genres I could put Unfair Flips into. These are either as a rage game, or an idle/incremental game. Notably, because Unfair Flips doesn’t actually let you idle unless you set up a macro to play it, I’m going to compare it to incremental games for the purpose of discussion, but note that you can’t actually auto-play this thing.
As an incremental game, Unfair Flips is boring. The cost of upgrades is such that the “correct” choice at any given point feels to buy the cheapest upgrade available, instead of making any decisions or selecting strategic options.
This doesn’t immediately doom a game, but as a game, it’s less interesting then EVERY other entry in the genre I’ve played. This includes IdleOn, Journey to Incrementalia, Universal Paperclips, and probably others.
It also fails in the other place it could redeem itself, that is to say, making any statement about probability, chance, determination, and such. This is more the space of rage games, like the narrator in Getting Over It. There is nothing to say after all. Unlike Deep Dip, it doesn’t challenge the player to be a master of mechanics. It makes no statement, requires no skill.
So why did I play it? Well, because I saw people posting about it. Because I saw people going “My new game is out, please play it.” And I like taking chances on weird things, on strange shit.
I don’t extend this generosity to everything in my life. If I go to a bake sale, and someone is selling burnt scones, I don’t fucking pony up to shove a clearly torched pastry into my mouth. There’s nothing to learn there.
But bad games often have redeeming ideas! Mechanics, settings, perceptions! Weird ass art can give us a unique perspective on the state of what others see, it can inspire us to view the world in a different lens, it can be part of a process of improvement.
But this isn’t that. There is nothing here. There is no statement, no idea, no perception, even a wrong or bad one. It is empty.
The emperor is wearing no clothes, and people are lining up to compliment their fashion sense.
Hell, while we’re here, it’s also not well made. It has no settings, and you can only mute or unmute audio. I had to set custom unity flags to get the god damn thing to launch in a way I could play it, something I associate with developers who are either newer, or have not considered that computers other then their own exist.
Normally this is something I give the benefit of the doubt here, but the lack of anything redeeming, any single thing just makes it feel like the folks who made Unfair Flips just didn’t give a shit.
The only reasonable thing I can think of to explain Unfair Flips is that this was created as part of an experience in end to end development, a piece about the process of taking a concept, building it, publishing it to Steam, and marketing it. In which case, it almost makes sense.
It’s not about the finished product, it’s about the process.
If that’s true, then yes, it has a reason to exist, as part of the journey of it’s creators as artists, a purpose as process.
Still doesn’t explain why everyone is acting like this is good! Like it was an enjoyable experience! Like other people should experience it!
It’s not, it isn’t, and no one should play this game, unless you want to lose 2 dollars, two hours, and be irrationally angry for no reason.
Failure is part of creation. Being praised for the failure, not the effort to fail, is pointless.
Also, the dev has several other games up on Steam, both of which look interesting, so I can’t really believe it’s about process either.
If you gave this game a positive review because you honest to god like it, sure. Fine. I don’t understand it, but that’s the nature of art.
But if you’re doing it ironically, as part of a bit, as part of some sort of performative thing, go fuck yourself.