If you read my review of boop., you know how much I love that game. Well, there’s an update and I love it even more! BOOoop. is a Halloween version (sort of) with new versions of everything, including game play! And my nephew still beat me! Most of this review is that same as the boop. review, but I’ve kept all the instructions in this one, too.
What’s in the box?
Smirk & Dagger’s Scott Brady’s BOOoop. comes with a quilted bed top, but this one is orange and Halloween-themed, 8 black cats in purple witch hats, 8 black kittens hiding under purple witch hats, 8 white cats with pumpkins, 8 white kittens sitting in pumpkins, a purple ghost cat, an orange ghost cat and the instructions. The cats and kittens (including the ghosts) are solid wooden pieces with a good heft and easy to grip for smaller fingers. The bed topper is quilted into squares with six squares along each side. It is made of fabric and, yes, it has batting. It’s firm, though, so your cats and kittens won’t roll around unless you want them to.
How to play Smirk & Dagger’s BOOoop:
The game board is the bottom of the box! Take everything out, turn it over, and cover it with the quilted bed top. The sides of the box (hidden when the box is closed) are designed to look like the edges of a bed, with a Halloween-themed bed skirt and even a couple of playful kitties peeking out from under the ruffle. Each player chooses a color (I always take purple) and takes their cats and kittens and ghost. The cats become the reserve and game play begins with the kittens.
Game play is simple (just place a kitten or cat on the quilt), but very strategic! Every time a kitten is placed next to another kitten, every kitten adjacent to the newly-added kitten (including your own!), boops one square away from the invading kitten, including on the diagonals. In order to upgrade your kittens to cats, you have to place your kittens in such a way that you can get three of your kittens in a row, so you can see why strategy is very important when every time a kitten comes near yours, they get moved one square away. If your kitten is on the edge of the bed, it gets booped right off the bed and back into your reserve to play again.
Don’t worry about not being able to line up kittens, because the booping is restricted to the kittens touching the newly-placed kitten. There are no chain reactions. And, when two kittens are already cuddled up side-by-side (even diagonally), they can’t be booped at all.
Each move, after the kittens have finished their booping, check to see if there are any rows of three kittens. If you do manage to get three of your own kittens in a row, you upgrade them to cats. The three kitten pieces get removed from play (or become a delightful tableau built by your opponent) and you then have three cats to play. This counts for both players. Kittens can be upgraded regardless of whose turn it was.
Cats are important and not just because you need to get three in a row to win. Cats do not boop away from kittens, so it’s easier to line them up if your opponent hasn’t graduated any cats yet. Cats can boop each other, though, so be mindful of the required boops on each play, especially if you have cats or kittens at the edge of the bed. For upgrading kittens to cats, the rules apply to cats, as well, so if you have two kittens and a cat or two cats and a kitten, you remove them from the board, retire the kittens and add the same number of cats to your pool.
But what are the ghosts for?
So far, the game play has been the same as boop., but what about the ghosts? The ghosts add a new element that can really challenge your strategy. They are optional unless you place yours on the board. The ghost cats, just like real ghosts, travel in the inbetween, so you place them on the stitched line between the square.
When you place the ghost on the board (at your discretion; you are not required to play with the ghosts), nothing happens on that turn. Starting with your next turn, though, the ghost begins to travel across the board, following the same stiched one square per turn, until it leaves the board. You have to wait for your next turn to place the ghost on the board again.
We all know that cats and kittens can see ghosts that we can’t see and will react accordingly. It’s the same in BOOoop. When a ghost moves next to a square that has a cat or kitten on it, that cat or kitten (or both, if there are cats and/or kittens on either side of the stitched line), the cats and/or kittens boop sideways – and only sideways – away from the ghost, regardless of whether or not there is a cat or kitten in the square they boop towards. They just continue booping until there’s an empty square to land in or until they fall off the bed if there are no empty squares in that line. So, unlike the regular boops, which are blocked if there’s a cat or kitten in the next square and which boop in all 8 directions from the booper, ghost boops only happen perpendicular to the ghost, so in just two directions, and the scaredy cats will leap over any cats in their path to get away from the ghost.
How to Win Scott Brady’s boop:
There are two ways to win. You either get three cats in a row (after all of the cats and kittens have been booped) or you get eight cats on the board at once. Sounds simple, but strategy is key when your cats and kittens are skittish and boop themselves around the bed!
Smirk & Dagger’s Scott Brady’s boop. Is a 2-player strategy game for players 10 and up. If you want your younger children to play, either play in teams, with at least one player 10 and up on each team or play it yourself a few times to see if your little can manage. The pieces are so nice, though, that even if they end up making their own game of it, they’ll enjoy it. Each piece is about 1” by 1” (accounting for the shape of the kitten/cat), so very littles probably shouldn’t play with them. If you play strictly by the rules, you can get through a game in about 20 minutes. If you’re playing with very creative people, the story-telling might push it a little longer. It’s super fun, though, so you won’t mind!
I can see a lot of potential for customization sets and a magnetic version for travel would be a great addition to your travel bag. Can’t wait!
٭٭٭٭٭Highly recommended
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