Smirk & Dagger BOOP: Adorable 2 Player Strategy Board Game, with 32 Cat and Kitten Pieces, Makes a Great Gift for Couples, Family, Adults and Kids Ages 10 and Up

Product Information

At the end of your turn, you may choose to place your ghost cat on any of the seams pointing inwards around the edge of the bed. Each player starts with eight kitten pieces and one ghost cat piece available for use, as well as eight adult cat pieces placed to the side. Each player starts with six kittens they can place, and must 'graduate' them into cats by making lines of three. | Image credit: Smirk & Laughter Games

The Shobu connection is more than familial, too. Boop is effectively a spiritual successor to Shobu - originally considered by the publisher as a ‘Shobu 2’ and briefly known as the wonderful pun Pounce House, though I’d have personally preferred Shobuup - building on that game’s sneakily intense battle to push your opponent’s pieces off the board. By this point, I’d argue that chess is fairly well established as being a Pretty Good Game. It’s intelligent yet simple, tense yet accessible, iconic yet adaptable. But do you know what chess is missing? Adorable kitties, that’s what.In BOOoop., the cats will make the players go “aaaw!!!” while the ghosts make the cats go “aaargh!!!”. Setup I love the Halloween theming of this game. I specifically held out on getting the original boop. game because I knew the Halloween version was coming. The collection option is only available for those that are able to come to the store during our opening hours. Boop looks to rightfully throw more of the spotlight on one of tabletop gaming’s true hidden gems from the last five years.

The bed, too, is glorious. It is soft enough to feel like a tiny mattress while still firm enough that the pieces don’t fall over all the time. Where Shobu played the serious part of a traditional chess-a-like, Boop hides its diamond-hard tactical gameplay under a soft, fluffy dressing. If, on the other hand, you are looking for an abstract game of pieces moving on a grid but with even more (and changing) rules as well as a bit of story, I would recommend that you try That Time You Killed Me. Final ThoughtsAt this time delivery is only available to UK destinations: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. We DO NOT ship internationally. At the start of the game, you begin your turn by placing a kitten on any square on the bed. Then, if you placed it next to one or more other kittens (yours or your opponent’s), these get pushed (“booped”) one square away from the newly placed kitten. If a piece gets pushed off the bed, it’s returned to its player. Due to post office and/or legal restrictions, some items (eg. Aerosol Paints, Craft Knives) are only available in-store. These items are listed online only to indicate their availability/price. Thus far the rules are the same as the rules to regular boop., which you can play without issues using this Halloween edition. However, there is also a new addition to the rules, which is where you use the ghost cats: Kittens can't boop the larger cats, making later turns even more tactical. | Image credit: Smirk & Laughter Games