Flippant

Flippant is a 1993 board game for the classic Macintosh by Mark Q. Maxham of Apple, distributed as $5 shareware through the Info-Mac archive. Described by its author as wildly affordable and cheaper than lunch, it pits two to four human or computer players against one another in a fast Othello-flavored contest of capture and conversion.

How It Plays

Each turn a player moves one of their pieces. Moving to an adjacent square (distance one) duplicates the piece and converts every neighboring opponent piece to the mover's color. Moving two squares performs the same conversion but without duplicating, so range trades against board presence.

Players and AI

Flippant supports two, three, or four players in any mix of human and computer opponents, making it equally suitable for solo practice and hot-seat play. The AI fills empty seats automatically.

Shareware and Distribution

Registration is just $5. The author explicitly granted permission for the virus-free binary to be included on archive CD-ROMs, and the file flippant.1.0.cpt.hqx (game/brd/flippant-10.hqx on Info-Mac) has circulated freely ever since.

Author

Mark Q. Maxham wrote Flippant while at Apple (max@apple.com), and it remains a small but well-loved entry in the early-1990s Mac board-game shareware scene.