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A bog full of frogs? In this two-player battle across nine lily pads can you plan your movement to avoid being the one to croak. Hop on in to find out!
Introduction
This is the first in the Pack O Game series I’ve played that is specifically designed for only two players. I was a little nervous about that, but I’d heard incredibly positive things so which turned out to be true! The artwork here really shines through, with all the frogs having wonderfully expressive faces, complimented with great background art too.
The game itself sees you trying to either complete routes across lily pads, capture your opponents frogs or match up a patter, all in the name of points!
Setup
To begin, arrange the nine lily pad cards in the centre of your preferred play area in a 3x3 formation, making sure you’re sat directly opposite your opponent. Place the three fly cards vertically across the lily pads and then shuffle the remaining frog cards.
The first player gets two cards, the second gets three and then three are dealt face-up from the draw pile. And that’s it! I’ve found with most games in this series that setup and rules are pretty light but there’s a surprising amount of depth within the games themselves.
Get hopping
On your turn in BOG, you can do one of four things:
1. Place a frog from your hand onto your “shore” – the playing surface in front of you. You’re limited to two frogs on the shore at any time
2. Move a frog the next step on its journey. The top section of each card shows a four-step path around the lily pads (which will be different depending on your relative view of them) and you can move one space along each turn
3. Complete a route. If your frog makes it to the final spot on its journey, you take it off the table and place it face-down with the 2 point side oriented to the top
4. Reveal a card in hand to match a pattern. The bottom section of the card shows the nine lily pads with ticks on three of them. If all three are ever occupied by frogs in the matching configuration, you can reveal the card in hand and place it face-down to score 3 points
It gets thinky quite quickly. You have almost perfect information as all frogs in play are face-up and you can see the path your opponent’s amphibians will take so you can theoretically plan moves accordingly. But here’s the kicker… you can only draw a card into your hand if you land on a lily pad with a fly on it so once your cards are in play, you (and your opponent) are aiming for the same three spots to give yourself more options. You do get to move the fly to an empty space when you’ve landed on it so there’s a nice element of control there.
It gets even trickier because if an opponent moves into a space containing your frog, they kick them off the lily pad and place them face down for 1 point. It can almost lead to a traffic jam of sorts where you’re waiting for someone to make a move which will free everything else up.
The more you play the more you see the opportunities to either force your opponent into letting you capture one of their frogs, or keep them pinned in long enough that you can reveal a pattern for more points.
Scoring
We’ve covered most of the scoring already with frogs being worth one, two or three points depending on whether they’re captured, completing a route or being revealed to match a pattern.
The only other element is fly cards. Normally these are just placed onto a different unoccupied lily pad when you land on them, but if that’s not possible, they also go into your score pile for a point each.
The game ends when either the draw deck and face-up cards are all gone, then you tally your points to determine the winner. However if there are still cards available and one player can’t make a legal move, the game ends immediately and that player loses.
Final thoughts
I do really like this one, and it’s most often played between me and my daughter. I’ve seen some passing comparisons to chess, which I suppose I understand, but it’s a very simplified version and I’d probably say something like Onitama might be a next step if you do enjoy this one (or vice versa).
It definitely offers something different to others I’ve played in that it is for two-players only. It travels well as it doesn’t need a huge amount of space and it’s worked well for us on train journeys if you’re lucky enough to bag a table seat.
It does have the potential to feel one-sided at times, or maybe that’s just my lack of skill… let’s move on.
The art stands out for me as being head and shoulders above any other game I’ve played in this series and it does make it for a good strategic puzzle too.
About the author:
Andy is a keen amateur photographer and gamer. He plays with a regular weekly gaming group and writes reviews for both prototype and established games and you can see more of that by following him on Instagram as @boardsenseless.
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