Review: Boop (Smirk and Laughter)

Cats get into everything. It’s a movie trope and a reality of life. Christmas trees, bookshelves, desks, and any box you leave sitting still long enough. Cats love this stuff. But cats especially love jumping onto a the bed.

It’s that behavior that brings us to Boop, the newest entry in the Smirk and Laughter line by Smirk and Dagger Games. The box text says it’s a “thinky” game, but the box art looks cute and cuddly. It turns out that both things are true.

Let’s prowl around and pounce on the top five things you need to know about this delightful little 2-player game.

It’s Cute from the Start

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Setting up Boop only takes about a minute. The box contains two bagged sets of cats in gray and orange, a quilted square, and the game instructions. Flip over the bottom of the box and put the quilted square on top. That becomes your playing surface — or as the game says, the bed.

Each player gets 16 super-cute wooden playing pieces. Eight are playful little kittens; the other eight are larger cats. You play with a pool of eight pieces at a time, so put the cats into reserve for a moment and keep the kittens handy.

A Fresh Bed Looks Very Inviting

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The basic move in the game is exactly what you would expect it to be with a clean, soft bed and a flurry of cats around. Each turn, a player takes a kitten or cat from their pool and places it somewhere on the bed.

Of course, this landing may disturb the cats around it, which is where the game gets its name. When a kitten (or later, a cat) jumps onto the bed, it “boops” the kittens around it, making them all move one square away from the intruder either orthogonally or diagonally.

If the kitten is sitting too close to the edge of the bed, they get booped off the bed entirely, which sends them back to the owner’s pool. And yes, all eligible kittens are booped by a new arrival, regardless of which player they belong to.

Turning Kittens into Cats

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All of this bouncing and pouncing and booping is fun, but things start heating up when you promote your kittens into cats.

To do that, all you need to do is line up three kittens in a row, either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. When your kittens are in a line, you remove them from the board and move three cats into your pool.

The cats function just like kittens, with one important exception. When a cat lands on the bed, it moves both kittens and cats. Kittens only move kittens, never cats (although the kittens may earn a droll side-eye from being just a little too excitable).

Cats are how you win the game. The first player to get three of their cats in a row wins immediately.

The One Exception to Booping

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The game has a special rule if two cats or kittens (or a mixture) are sitting next to each other when another cat lands near them.

If a kitten or cat would be booped into a neighboring kitten or cat, then that kitten or cat doesn’t move. The landing might boop other cats just like normal, but two pieces can’t share the same space nor can the create a chain of boops. (This behavior has to do with cat physics, which is far beyond the scope of this review.)

Playing with Younger Cats

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Although Boop looks light and cute, it really contains a lot of strategy. Children 10 and up (or a smart 8 to 9 year-old) will pick up the game pretty quickly, but it’s visual look and the sheer fun of cats bouncing on the bed means that younger kids will want to play as well

The rules include an optional adjustment for those younger players which maintains the fun and beauty of the game while making it accessible to younger players. The adjustment is very simple: it removes the step of turning kittens into cats.

This makes the game play faster and with less intense strategy, but the experience is still delightful.

Verdict

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Boop is one of those rare games that’s fun, easy to pick up, and strategic without being brain-melting. Plus it features cats frolicking on a bed, which is an automatic win for a lot of folks.

The game’s visual presentation is a win as well. The box bottom’s side panel art looks like a bed skirt, complete with a kitten and cat peeking out. The quilted “game board” builds on the theme, creating a nice playing surface. The wooden kitten and cat pieces are easy to hold and manipulate in addition to being darned cute.

Boop earned a solid recommendation from both of us. It’s elegant and fast, with just the right amount of “thinky” parts. And cats.