Flipping ten heads in a row
So, I think the first time it was Tom Walker. He's an Australian comedian who does a bunch of Twitch streams, and he decided to do a stream where he would flip a coin and get ten heads in a row.
EXCEPT, he made it awful by adding the extra condition that if he flipped 10 tails in a row, he would change the target to 11. And so on.
It took him 8 hours and a bit to accomplish. He used the words "coin madness" repeatedly. He talked a lot about the way he was flipping. Felt uncomfortable when friends came over and flipped for him. A lot of fetishising the specific coin he was flipping with. It's inevitable, I think, when faced with random chance, to start trying to find patterns. A desire for consequence for your choices. Ways to bend fate to your will.
I was entertained and inspired by seeing that stream (after the fact). Now, I run an app which allows people to very quickly make games, including making choices with some simple random outcomes. And I always feel like I should be using it more, you know, setting a good example. So, I made my own version. But I did not add the 10 tails bit, because it is a bad idea and also it would have made the logic much more annoying to make.
You can play it here:
(ah, I love how the inline embed works...)
It was interesting making it - not least the desire to add some kind of gameplay excitement for getting multiple coins flipped consecutively. I added this by using a selection of coins, one for each flip. This starts off kind of humdrum, but when you see the 7th coin for the first time, after tens of minutes of flipping... I think it works.
The other part of it was adding to the physical labour of flipping. Each flip, for my game, takes at least two clicks. And restarting requires clicking in a new location. There's a bit of rhythm. Something you can tune into over time. I think Tom Walker got better at flipping a coin after 8 hours of doing it. If you play this, you will get better at flipping these virtual coins.
And then, about a week ago, the videogame "Unfair Flips" came out.
I mentioned that I had made a game with a similar concept to Heather Flowers, the developer. She said:
your game was very possibly one of the inspirations for this project! i remember playing it a time ago and thinking "lmao this rocks" and then only remembering i played it at this exact moment
— Heather "PLAY UNFAIR FLIPS" Flowers (@hthrflwrs.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T21:24:05.380Z
which means I think the chain of inspiration I am portraying has some validity. Enough for a blog post, anyway.
Anyway, earlier today, my new Steam Deck arrived in the post. And about an hour ago, I started using that Steam Deck to play Unfair Flips.
Now I should note that, across all of these experiences, I have never flipped ten heads in a row[^1]. I believe I will soon achieve this in Unfair Flips. I mean, eventually. I'm gonna get there[^2]
(warning for spoilers, such as they are, for Unfair Flips in the rest of this post. These are mechanical spoilers, rather than about narrative twists but... it's a game of mechanics)
The structure of Unfair Flips is that you start at 20% odds of flipping a head. And you get a little money for every head you flip. And you get power-ups. If you've played a videogame with this kind of economic engine - maybe an idle game or something with a similar kind of structure - you might be familiar with the power curve. You start by grinding out individual things. And then over time you have the money to buy upgrades, and the upgrades mean you get resources faster, and the resources mean you can buy yet more upgrades. The costs go up on a power curve, and the rewards go up on a power curve that is just a little bit steeper. The game I was playing before this, Strange Jigsaws, about jigsaws that are strange, even had a bit where it did one of these [^3]. That's how common this particular setup is.
And... Unfair Flips doesn't work that way. I mean, it starts like that. The coin gets more valuable. You can get bonus multipliers. You can reduce the flip times, you can adjust the probability. But as you get to around a 50% probability of getting heads... everything is maxed out. Well, except the one which bumps up the probability, and the price of the new upgrades is pretty steep. And the power curve that usually follows the price curve, which makes those upgrades more affordable... well, that stopped a while back. If you want to climb the big numbers, you have to do it the hard way.
So: you start with an unfair coin. You do some idle game power curve upgrade stuff. And now... you have a coin that approximates the one in your pocket. And you still have to flip it.
One other effect of the upgrades is to imbue getting a streak with even more excitement. It's not just about the possibility of succeeding getting raised... it's also that this is where the money comes from. Getting a combo. More reasons to hope, more reasons to get anxious after 6 in a row. Maybe those big prices for reducing the probability are sensible? If you get a good enough streak, I mean.
And that streak excitement is amplified by the sound design. It's got a good coin flip sound, of course. Little metallic ting wobbling away. But also there's this little guitar strum when you get a head. And a second, with the pitch just adjusted when you get a second. And a third... a chord is being built, and you want to feel it completed. And you feel the dissatisfaction when it doesn't.
Let's talk about one of the updates - the time it takes to flip. You can reduce it! Now, the particular superstition I find myself indulging... is that it is best to flip immediately as the coin lands. I mean, it is clearly better - it means you flip fractionally faster. But not such that it is actually beneficial, outside of a speedrunning scenario [^4]. Instead, mainly... I like the rhythm. I like getting better at the rhythm. It upsets me a little when I get a run of heads when I am not tapping on the rhythm - seems unfair, I'm playing badly and I still get the reward?
(It's also enjoyable how, when you are in the upgrades bit of the curve, the flip time changes and so you have to adjust your rhythm. A nice bit of actual gameplay, there.)
One feature I found myself wishing for, and I am totally not arguing for it, but instead just kind of noting that it's interesting I was wishing for it... was something that showed the distribution of outcomes that I had actually seen. A long run where my probability was around 30% where I was like... is this busted? Seems like fewer than usual. I want stats so I can be sure (if I can't trust the 30% I have been given, why would I trust the other one?)
This kind of dissatisfaction is of course why games usually don't rawdog probability. It feels unfair. Randomness is clumpy, what we expect is something with a bit of scale invariance. Poisson disc distribution seems fairer than a true random distribution. There's a reason we use other colours than white for our noises. But... it's good to be reminded what a run of independent events feels like. A good lesson.
Oh, I went back to it after writing all of that... and I ended up flipping with my eyes closed, just vibing with the rhythm and appreciating how I could track the game state with with sounds... and I won??? On 55% odds of a head each time. I opened my eyes to see a final flip ready to trigger. I flipped... and the coin never landed. End of the game, that's what victory looks like [^5]. 90 minutes of play time, apparently.
Wow, what a game.
Aaaaand... I should also mention the other coin flipping game that is set to imminently release! It's called "Q-Up", it's a satire of online multiplayer games, all big brash esports arena with a fridge of the sponsor drink in the corner. Except now you can't complain that it's unfair or whatever, the outcome is literally just a coin flip. It's led by the guy that did Universal Paperclips, and also working on it is my pal Joon. Hi Joon! Anyway, I haven't played it but there's a demo!
Oh, I came back to finish this post and actually put it up... And as I write this, Jerma is playing Unfair Flips. And Northern Lion was earlier, as well. From the stream it came, and to the stream it returns.
[1: how did i test mine? i cheated. you can cheat too! use the back button and you can redo a flip. sorry if knowing this ruins the game for you.]
[2: ok ok I don't know if I'll actually get the 10% chance of getting a real 10 heads ending. But, y'know. I will get to 9 heads and one not-tails. That's good enough for me.]
[3: I recommend the game. It's a mark of how strange the jigsaws are that this small parody idle game counts as a jigsaw]
[4: horrifyingly, it seems like there is one]
[5: again, fuck trying again for the 10% chance. I mean I appreciate the taunt, it's a good commentary on videogames, and a good joke. But also not one I feel I have to personally put myself through to appreciate it]