Quick Reviews: Flipping, Fishing, and Glamping

Another batch of reviews this month, as I've been digging into some games that have their own takes onto some fairly specific activities (it's a loose connection, but I'm going to make it work). So this time we're talking about two roguelites, Unfair Flips and Fish Fear Me, and the investigation game The Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping.

Unfair Flips

I suspect I may have seen it on Steam at some point, but really the thing that got Unfair Flips on my radar was hearing it talked about on the Overthinking Games podcast multiple times and the more I heard about it, the idea of a roguelite that's just flipping a coin that you can power up really started getting me intrigued. I think for me it's because this may be the best example I've played of stripping down a roguelite to the most essential pieces.

You start off flipping a penny with a 20% chance of coming up heads, and over time one can power up the probability, the speed, the coin's value, and a point multiplier. It's a whole lot of clicking, and I actually really enjoyed the additional decision to have the game address the player a bit in some discussion of what probability really means. It caters to the math nerd in me.

The goal of it is to eventually get 10 heads in a row, and it's entirely possible to just do that the first time playing. By my quick math, I think if we get about 10 million people to try this out, one of them should win in their first ten flips. Since this is basically a clicker game, there is a bit of a question of what is the right order of upgrades, and it has taken moderate restraint on my part to not start trying to model this to figure out the ideal order of power-ups to be most likely to win in the shortest time.

The game throws one final wrench in this, which is that once you get to the tenth flip, even if you flip anther heads, there's then multiple endings and it's anther probability to determine that. The end result of that is that this game took me nearly 6 hours to get all the achievements, but that may vary.

This game seems like it really has no substance to it... and I guess that's probably technically true, but the statistics-laid-bare part of this made Unfair Flips a lot more enjoyable than I think I would've expected at first glance. A surprisingly fun time filler and it was really satisfying to complete this game.

Fish Fear Me

The only reason that I even have this game was that it was bundled with Unfair Flips, and I don't have as much time in this as I'd have liked, but this has been a pleasant surprise. Right off the bat, the Fish Fear Me theme song for this game is one of my favorite bits of music from a video game this decade. I'm not sure the game matches that tone, per se, but it does feel like it captures the sense of humour even if I don't think about the rest of the game as being quite this rocking. It is fun each time I get to see a new fish, though, particularly the fish that are parts of puns.

With a ship that has several attacks that are pretty automatic and then choosing how to add and upgrade weapons, I certainly can see why some people have compared this to Vampire Survivors, though this differentiates itself with things like bait being needed to try to summon certain fish, bounties on particular fish, and the individual days that feel pretty short.

It has felt like the upgrade process is a lot slower here, so I've been doing runs and trying to build up overall strength but it feels like it is slow going. One thing that has been making this a bit more frustrating is that I'm not thrilled with how the boats handle.... but it's hard to fault the game for the boats handling like boats. I also don't think this implements biomes in the most effective way.... partially because I think the map isn't well-executed and partially because it feels a bit like something that only exists to up the number of fish but not in a way that really makes playing more fun directly.

The graphics are very basic, but I don't mind that. Though I can see that being a dealbreaker for some people. And while I like the jokes with the fish, it really quickly hits a point where I feel like I've seen all the fish I'm going to see easily, and now it's a lot more work to reach new ones. It's the same thing of how it feels a really slow growth towards additional unlocks and there's some stuff I think I need to be more powerful for and I'm nowhere close to that.

I know I'm going to keep coming back to this, as it's easy to put time into this with a quick run or two, but I'm not sure how long I'll keep doing that. I may well hit a point where the return of investment drops enough that I don't keep pushing to see new things. I'm not there yet, though, so my desire to see new fish and new ships is still outweighing the parts of gameplay I'm less taken with.

The Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping

I've previously talked about Duck Detective: The Secret Salami, the first game in what is shaping up to be a franchise, on a LiteSwitch episode at the start of last year, and later in 2025 one of the games I was happy to see come out was The Ghost of Glamping, a sequel to The Secret Salami. Both feature the titular Duck Detective, a hardboiled duck detective solving some mysteries that at least start off pretty low stakes. In the first game, it was missing food in an office and this time around it starts off trying to figure out a surprise trip. All wrapped in sort of a paper cut-out visual style.

One of the things that I think is a shining point with these is the writing and voice acting (which is of course why I've screenshotted the least interesting dialogue possible). There's a comic tone to this that I really dig, and all the dialogue also has voice acting I really dig; part of that is that they cast the Duck Detective to feel more appropriate to a pulpy detective story rather than what most people would think with "we need someone to voice a duck". Of course, adding to that also is how both the last game and this one have the Duck Detective dealing with his fallen-apart life and failed marriage due to his crippling bread habit.

The gameplay itself is pretty straight-forward (and in a way that I find relaxing) where this is a series of 'Deducktions' that need to be made, and often solving one of those is what's needed to move on to the next area so it's a gradual sort of exploration in that sense. And there's none of that "secret pixel" sort of stuff, so it's exploring the environment then drawing conclusions to advance the game. The whole thing is just a couple hours, but I think it's a really enjoyable way to spend a couple hours because it has a strong narrative component.

One of the things I think this game does that is pretty cool is that at the end when the mystery is solved, there's some questions that try to explore moral grayness and who should be culpable for what. It's not done as well in this game as in the first game, I think, but what is neat is that when you make your decisions, the game then lets you know the overall stats for what users have picked, so you can see how your decisions compared to the rest of the players.

I've not seen anything about it yet (truth be told, I've also not been looking for it), but I'm hoping that we see more Duck Detective adventures in the future.

Recap

Unfair Flips is very straightforward, but I like math so it feels right up my alley. And this makes for a great game to play while also watching something else and looking for something that I only sort of need to pay attention to but feels like I'm kind of keeping busy. Unfair Flips is available on Steam.

Fish Fear Me feels like it runs the risk of getting old before I get everything completed, but so far I'm still enjoying it and the theme song crushes it. From the same developer as Unfair Flips, this is also on Steam and bundled with Unfair Flips.

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is another really satisfying entry in the saga of the Duck Detective and feels absolutely worth it, just like the first game was. Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is available on Steam and the Nintendo Store, as well as Xbox and Playstation.