6 minute read
Smirk & Dagger Games
hearts and minds
By Curt Covert, owner of Smirk and Dagger Games
boop.
SND 1009, $39.99, Sept 2022.
There were plenty of interesting and exciting new titles on display at this year’s GAMA Expo, but none quite so adorable – and smart – as “boop,” from Smirk and
Dagger Games.
This clever two-player strategy game features a quilted cloth playing board and 32 colorful cat and kitten playing pieces. The cloth board sits ingeniously atop the back of the box, giving it the look of a miniature bed, complete with dust ruffle and comforter. Thematically, it is a game about kittens jumping onto the bed and bouncing other cats off in the process. If I said nothing more, you’d probably have 10 customers instantly in mind who would buy it on the premise alone. But it is the compelling game play that will keep people coming back.
For all its cuteness, boop is a deceivingly challenging strategy game with a unique interaction between the pieces that tantalizes and confounds the mind. The rules themselves are simple. Each player begins the game with 8 Kittens of their color. On your turn, you can place a kitten onto any open space on the board, with the goal of lining up three kittens in a row, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally. Once you do, those Kittens are removed from the board and replaced in your pool by three adult Cats. Then just line up three Cats in a row to win – but of course it isn’t that easy.
That’s because every time you place a Kitten on the bed, it goes “boop,” and pushes every other Kitten next to it one space away. The pieces repel each other, even your own pieces, making a line-up of three incredibly difficult to achieve. Particularly with both you AND your opponent constantly “booping” kittens around. It’s like… herding cats!
Naturally, adult Cats can’t be booped by little Kittens, so there is a tactical advantage to graduating them early. But once you have them, you may not want to place all of them on the bed too early. Since Kittens can’t push them, Cats could be locked into position for a while. Careful planning, timing and keen observation will make the difference in forming a winning strategy.
This game is a very worthy follow-up to Smirk and Dagger’s successful abstract game, SHOBU, requiring a similar type of spatial reasoning. Yet, on the whole, boop is an even more approachable title. Perhaps this is the reason Scott Brady, designer of boop and Hues and Cues, chose such a light and delightful theme for the game.
But neither he nor Smirk and Dagger were entirely prepared for the reaction the game received at GAMA. “It was overwhelming,” said Curt Covert, owner of Smirk and Dagger, “The game just naturally pulls people in. Everywhere we went, we had a crowd. All our demo nights were stacked with people waiting for their chance to play – and I can’t tell you how many times we were stopped in the halls so a retailer could grab our box to show a friend. The amount of pre-orders we got was unprecedented.”
Retailers talked a lot about the broad appeal, and the game’s ability to hit so many different consumers, from cat lovers to strategy game enthusiasts, couples looking for two-player games, families, kids, and gift buyers. It checked a lot of boxes, with a box cover that invites you from across the store, the tactile nature of the components that just beg to be played with, and surprisingly deep and compelling gameplay that can be learned in moments. Their excitement to get it on shelf escalated our own (and had us increasing our print run before we got home).
So get YOUR pre-order in today so you can hear your register go, “boop. Boop, boop.”
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Play deadbeat roommates in Rest in Pieces, a no-prep dark comedy RPG inspired by the misadventures, cartoon logic, and over-the-top characters of slacker sitcoms like “Regular Show,” “Rick & Morty,” and “Invader Zim.” Plays with a Two-Color Block Tower that paces short scenarios and spotlights selfish actions. Mature themes for immature play! contact Pete@imagininggames.com for details; ACD, Diamond, Universal, or IPR for distribution. Point of Contact: Christopher Samson Root: The RPG’s Core Rulebook from Magpie Games includes the playbooks and basic movies you need to play as vagabonds of the Woodland. You will also find inside: three factions, a map creation system to procedurally generate your own Woodland, and additional tables and randomized generators to make running the game even easier! Christopher Samson christopher@magpiegames.com
With a 30-minute play time and 120 tiles to cycle through, Framework from Pegasus North America is a new 1- to 4-player game from award-winning designer Uwe Rosenburg. It has easy-to-understand rules but deep layers of strategy. Cleverly draft and place tiles to create connections with colored frames. Be the first to complete 22 tasks to win!
pegasusna.com
A unique 4-way dice tower stands at the center of The SPILL, a suspenseful cooperative game for 1 to 4 players. Players work together to contain an oil spill, remove what oil they can from the water and save the sea life. An exciting “reverse tower defense” challenge from Smirk and Dagger Games! dizneysmirkanddagger@gmail.com
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