boop
Designed by: Scott Brady
boop is a two-player game of herding cats. The goal is to get three cats in a row: doing so, you instantly win. But you start with no cats at all, only kittens!
The game box is placed centrally with the quilt on top of it, referred to as the bed: the quilt divides the game space into squares, like a chess board. Players have 8 kittens each in their supply – no cats yet! – and will take turns placing a kitten on the bed. If you place a kitten next to any other kittens, whether your own or your opponent’s, those kittens get ‘booped’ back one space (if they fall off the bed, they is out of play and returns to their owner). The game encourages you to say ‘Boop’ out loud, and why not. But you cannot boop a kitten that has another kitten directly behind it: this blocks the boop.
If you get three kittens in a row, they ‘graduate’ into cats: remove the kittens from the game, and take three cats into your supply!
Kittens cannot boop cats, but cats can boop kittens (and other cats). If you line up a mix of cats and kittens into a row of three, the kittens graduate into cats as per normal, but any catts removed from the bed are not removed from the game – you get them back into your supply. The moment either player makes a row of three cats – orthogonally or diagonally – they win the game!
There is a newer version of the game called BOOooop which introduces an additional piece: the ghost cat, adding an extra dimension to play.
Sam says
What boop does differently from classic abstract games is cloak that traditional approach of bumping/moving pieces in a cutesy theme – cats on a bed – that genuinely makes it feel less dry and a bit sillier. But have no illusions, a fan of classic abstract games will enjoy boop for it’s feisty cleverness just as non-enthusiasts may well find that the calling of boop! every other turn makes it enjoyable for them too. You can feel the marriage here between silly and sensible, but designer Scott Brady has pulled it off: this is fun.
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Take That!
The kittens are cute, but boop is a battleground nonetheless, where the felines are not so much catfighting as sumo-wrestling each other out of the arena.
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Fidget Factor!
Fairly low, as long as nobody gets paralysed by decisions on their turn. boop is a fairly tactical experience, so there will be lulls as players react to the current game state, but usually they are relatively brief.
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Brain Burn!
It's about recognising moments of weakness from your opponent, and capitalising. And trying to keep your own positions strong!
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Again Again!
Although each game has the same components and parameters, there's plenty of variety in the play here due to the numerous options on your turn.
