Flip: The Cartoon Strategy Game

Flip: The Cartoon Strategy Game is an action game that was released by Icon on the BBC Micro in 1985; the players must match cartoons and music on a forty-square grid to gradually reveal a hidden word of up to five letters. On the game's start screen, there are five options: scramble words (which is selected by default when the game is loaded, and if the game is started with it in effect, the hidden words will be anagrams of the actual words), normal words (which, if the players choose to select it, will cause the hidden words to not be scrambled upon starting the game), computer word (which is, again, selected by default when the game is loaded, and if the game gets started with it in effect, the hidden word shall be chosen by the computer), user words (which, if the players choose to select it, shall let the second player enter a word for the first player to guess in a one-player game), and start game - and the players will have to use * and / to move the arrow on the screen's right side up and down, along with Enter to confirm each of their choices (in B-Em, * gets replicated by ').

Once you have selected start game, the text "Enter name player 1:" shall appear on the screen with two square brackets beneath it; the first player must now enter a name of up to six letters, then push Enter to confirm it. Once he or she has done so, the text "Enter name player 2:", two more square brackets and the text "RETURN for Practice" will appear on the screen - and the second player must now either also enter a name of up to six letters and press Enter to confirm it or press Enter for a one-player game. If you selected user words on the start screen the texts of "Player 2 enter word" and "Player 1 look away" will then appear on the screen with two square brackets beneath them; the second player must now enter a word of up to five letters for the first player to try to guess and press Enter to confirm it. In a two-player game, the texts "Player 1 enter word" and "Player 2 look away" will now appear on the screen with two square brackets beneath them, and the first player must also enter a word of up to five letters for the second player to try to guess and push Enter to confirm it.

Once the forty-square grid has appeared on the screen, the first (or only) player must use Z, X, * and / to move the arrow around the grid, and press Enter to reveal the square it is currently over; once he or she has done so the cartoon behind the square shall be shown as the first half of its associated musical phrase gets heard (it's also possible to toggle the audio on and off with F0 and F1, but in B-Em, these keys are replicated by F1 and F2, while in !BeebIt, F0 is replicated by F10). He or she must then try to find and reveal the square which has a 100% identical cartoon behind it - and if successful, the second half of the cartoon's associated musical phrase will be heard. The text "Enter Guess:" will then appear above the grid with two square brackets to its right, as part of a hidden word gets shown through the matched squares, and the player will have ten seconds to type in their guess and push Enter to confirm it; if incorrect, the text of "NO WAY, SUCKER" shall appear above the grid and the cartoons shall reappear in the matched squares. In a two-player game, play will then pass to the second player - and if either player reveals one of the four "WILD CARD" cartoons on the grid, either the next square they reveal or the "WILD CARD" cartoon itself will count as a match. However, if either player reveals two consecutive squares with non-matching cartoons behind them (and neither of them is a "WILD CARD" one), the first half of that second cartoon's associated musical phrase will be heard and both cartoons shall be hidden again; once either (or the only) player has guessed the (or their own, if you selected user words on the title screen and had decided to play a two-player game) hidden word, the text "OK PUNK, YOU GOT IT" will appear above the grid as the word is revealed, followed by all the cartoons (and if you had selected user words on the start screen and decided to play a two-player game, the other player's word followed by all the cartoons for a second time). The game will also end if neither (or the only) player has guessed the (or their own) hidden word by the time as many squares as possible have been revealed on the grid - but either way, you'll have to press Esc and return to the game's start screen.