Base price: $35.
2 players.
Play time: 25 – 35 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of BOOoop. was provided by Smirk & Dagger.
It’s peak spooky season this week, so we’re going to go for two spooky games! One of them is BOOoop., the spooky sequel to boop., which I covered earlier! I do love sequel games; they’re fun. This one adds a bit more of a Halloween vibe, with new hats, new cats, and a few new techniques. I’ll get into them shortly. Beyond that, though, I also really like spooky-themed games, despite not being much of a horror fan myself. No idea why. I think I just like the creepy-adjacent vibes. Either way. Let’s see what BOOoop. has to offer!
In BOOoop., the cats want to get back on the bed, but there’s a problem this time around; the bed is haunted! Each player gets a ghost cat in addition to their cats and kittens, and that ghost can be placed at the end of the turn to slowly advance along a row or column, scaring cats and kittens alike! It actually scares them so much that they jump over other cats and kittens to get away from the ghost! The drawback is that the ghost is trapped between spaces, so it only scares two cats or kittens at a time, and it doesn’t break up any sorts of lines of cats or kittens! It’s just a spooky specter. The end goal is still the same, though! Graduate kittens to cats and get three cats in a row. Will you be able to line up your cats on the bed?
Contents
Player Count Differences
None! Two-player game.
Strategy
- Generally, you’re gonna want to do the same thing that you do for boop. At the core of the game, it’s still boop., right? That means you should be working on getting your kittens to cats and trying to build in ways to trap your opponent into letting you win. There’s just some ghosts that also show up to mix things up.
- The ghosts offer some interesting strategic options. I’m gonna expand on this a lot more since it’s the crux of the game, but there are a lot of different ways to use the new ghost cats to your advantage. Since they’re part of the game, you should be using them when you can!
- Don’t forget that the ghosts will scare your cats too! They’re not just for moving your opponent’s cats around; you can occasionally scare your own cats into position. Or, if you’re not paying enough attention since the ghosts move on their own, you can scare your ghosts out of position, which isn’t ideal.
- Similarly, they can break up a line that you were going to graduate / win with if you’re not careful. Yeah, like I said, they might mess up your plans since your ghosts move at the end of your turn and you can’t graduate or win until after your ghost has moved. So if you mess up your own setup, you can’t really blame anyone but yourself.
- Placing yourself so that a ghost scares your opponent’s cat / kitten over you and off the board can be fun. You can just place behind or near an opponent or boop their cat or kitten so that it lands between your cat and an incoming ghost! Then, the ghost moves and boops the cat or kitten and it sails over you and clean off the board. It’s hard to set up but it can happen!
- Your opponent may not necessarily notice the ghost when you first play it, so you can often use it to set up a little cat Rube Goldberg machine that ends up giving you the win. This is a bit sneaky, but placing the ghost cat so that it eventually moves into the right position for it to bounce one of your cats at the end of the turn back into a position where you can win is very satisfying! It’s also hard to notice, so your opponent may not realize that’s your play until it’s too late to stop if you have enough going on elsewhere.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- The little cat ghosts are super cute. They’re a little spooky but not in a sad way, just in a “woah that’s a cat ghost” way. I kind of love it.
- Also, the new cat and kitten tokens are very good, too. They have little hats! I love it so much. The other ones all have pumpkins, which is also extremely good.
- The whole Halloween retheme of the game I like a lot! I generally enjoy holiday rethemes of games, though; they’re neat. Holiday rethemes of games are great! They’re a bit specific, a bit over the top, and I love all of them individually and collectively. Plus, I’m always stoked for more Halloween games.
- I appreciate that the little extras don’t add a ton of extra complexity to the game. This is, all things being equal, a very easy add-on. You just have the ability to place a ghost that moves until it moves off the board, scaring cats and kittens as it goes by.
- I just like boop., and this is a nice change of pace / alternate game mode. Boop. is a little abstract that I’m quite fond of, so it’s always nice to see more being done with the game. I’d love to see if they end up adding anything else to the series afterwards!
- Plus, you can still play boop. with this game, so that’s nice if you’re only looking to have one. Sure, it’ll be spooky all the time, but just don’t use the ghosts if you don’t want to! The game plays the same as the core game without them.
Mehs
- The ghosts are just big enough to cause a bit of crowding on spaces, which is a little funny. Having two ghosts pass each other and trying to place a kitty in the middle mostly works, but they’re definitely a bit wide for pieces that are just supposed to be placed in the gaps between spaces, which is fun.
Cons
- There’s definitely a question of “is this worth a completely separate standalone game?” that really, only you can answer for yourself. As a reviewer, I try to stay away from the question of “value” a lot with games, since the overwhelming majority of the games I review these days are review copies from publishers. I’m trading time for games instead of money, I suppose, but it’s very easy to say a game is “worth it” when I’m not exchanging money for them. So I try not to say whether or not you should, since that value proposition is more yours to make. One person might argue that since there are only two “new” pieces and one new mechanic, that may not be enough to justify adding it to their collection. Another person may be a huge boop. / cat fan and wants to have every type! A third might not have boop., already, but upon seeing that BOOoop. can still play the original game, might pick that up to do a two-birds-one-stone thing. Again, these value propositions depend a lot on you and your relation to gaming, but they’re all valid decisions to make (and I think this game invites that stickier conversation more than others might).
Overall: 8.25 / 10
Overall, I think BOOop. is a delightful game for the spooky season! The major reason I’m giving it a slight bump over standard boop. is just that it can play standard boop. and it can play the new spooky version with new tokens. Plus, I like the theme. Halloween and spooky season themes are some of my favorite themes that you can add to games, as someone who hates horror but loves horror-adjacent things. The gameplay is still solid, but I’m a big fan of the new add-on ghost tokens. They just kind of meander around the board, scaring whatever they come across. It’s super cute. I can see a fun and fascinating set of boop.-adjacent seasonal games, which could be really cool! At least until we get to Arboop Day or whatever. Honestly, I’d still enjoy it, probably. This is a nice, family-friendly title with some interesting strategy to it that keeps changing up every time I play. I’m a big fan of that sort of thing! Plus, I mean, again, Halloween is just such a fun theme. If you’re looking for a great spooky game for the whole family, you’re a big cat person, or you just want to extend your boop. experience, you’ll have a great time with BOOop.! I certainly have.
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