flips

Start Flips to create and apply patches interactively

$ flips

$ flips --apply [patch.bps] [rom.smc] [hack.smc]

$ flips --create [rom.smc] [hack.smc] [patch.bps]

flips [-s seed]

-s seed
    Use specified integer as random seed for reproducible board generation.

Flips is an interactive computer solitaire game from the BSD games collection. The playfield is a 4x5 grid of bits (lights or tiles), randomly initialized with some bits on. The objective is to turn all bits off using a limited number of moves.

A move selects a bit position (row and column), flipping that bit and its immediate vertical neighbors (above and below, if they exist). Rows are numbered 1-4 top to bottom, columns 1-5 left to right.

The game displays the current board, move count, and score (bits off times 100 minus moves). Enter moves as row column (e.g., 2 3). Type 'q' to quit or '?' for help. A perfect game turns off all bits in 8 moves or fewer.

Scores are saved to a high-score file like /var/games/flips.score. It's a logic puzzle testing minimal moves, with random boards for replayability.

Interactive terminal game; resizes poorly on small screens. High scores require write access to score file (e.g., /var/games). No undo or hints provided.

Score = (total bits off * 100) - moves made. Perfect: all off in ≤8 moves.

Enter row col (1-4, 1-5); 'q' quits, '?' shows help, 'r' restarts.

Developed for 4.3BSD-Tahoe (1988) as part of the bsdgames suite. Ported to Linux via packages like bsdgames or bsdgames-mag. Remains popular for terminal nostalgia.

robots(6), sail(6), trek(6), boggle(6)