boop. Review

I have never been a cat person. You will probably never see me with a cat, holding a cat, nor ever owning a cat. I just have only ever really liked one cat, and he has recently passed (RIP Miles). So I have to admit that when I heard that one of my favorite abstract games, Gekitai, was being rethemed into a cat game I was a little downtrodden. However, I usually admit my wrongdoings or mistakes, and I definitely should not have written it off before playing it because boop. is where it’s at.

boop. is a sweet little abstract game about booping kitties and cats around a bed quilt until three cats have arranged themselves into a row of three. How you get there is pretty challenging, but setup is a breeze. Separate out the felineeples by color, give each player a set in their chosen color, flip the box bottom upside down and place upon it the quilt. A real quilt. Like Gramma would have made… if your Gramma made quilts. The game is now ready to begin!

I am not going to go into huge detail about gameplay, nor gush about my feelings toward it. You can check out my review of Gekitai linked above for all that. What I will do, however, is describe what changed in this retheme.

First and foremost, we have cute little felineeples instead of glass beads. I would agree that many people would be more apt to check out a game with a big cartoon kitty on the cover over a themeless abstract cover. So +1 to boop.. Am I supposed to have two periods there grammatically if the title of the game has a period at the end but I still need to complete my sentence?

Secondly, boop. features a raised 3D “board” instead of either a piece of paper or other applications. Now, I have seen some really great DIY ideas on the BGG page for Gekitai that have inspired me to consider making my own as well, but that is more for specific aficionados, not the mass market.

Thirdly, and mechanically, the kittens need to be “graduated” into cats before a player can win the game. There is no such evolution in Gekitai, but this idea is quite ingenious: it forces a second round of play without the players even noticing it. I found so often when playing Gekitai that we both wanted rematch after rematch, and while the sentiment is the same with boop., we essentially have a rematch built in. Once the kitten have made their row of three, one of them can be graduated into a cat. The player removes one of their kittens and it is replaced with a cat. Only when three cats are found in a row (or column I guess – I have just been using the word row to mean in a scoring line) will a player win. I have really enjoyed this new layer of strategy to consider.

Components. While it is somewhat unfair to compare and contrast Gekitai with boop. in terms of components and production quality, I will mention something. boop. is VERY well made. Now, I received my copy of Gekitai from the designer himself as a gift. And one that I will always treasure. I purchased my own copy of boop. and have just loved playing both. The tactile properties of playing with either copy is something that I have to be in a mood for before choosing which version I pull out. Sometimes I want to play, and feel like I’m playing, a full abstract. Sometimes I want something with a little more theme and so then I will pull out boop.. I do enjoy having that choice available to me.

So all in all, I did have to change my score from Gekitai to boop. because they are the same game to me, but boop. is just a bit more. Yes, boop. enhances Gekitai in some fashions, but I certainly will not be removing Gekitai from my collection ever. It can still hold its own with my other abstracts, even if I have certain emotional attachments to it. As we review and preview games I do have to give boop. a final score. Purple Phoenix Games gives boop. a Fancy Feast of a 17 / 18. I would be ecstatic if anyone would request to play EITHER game, and I will indeed begin work on making my own Gekitai set. Once I finish it, I will post an update for that game. But go grab your copy of boop. before they go out of stock. You will purr with glee and squee at the utter cuteness. For sure.