You've Been Booped

On the way back from our Ramona/Julian weekend, we checked our local Barnes & Noble for the 30% off sale people had been talking about on Facebook.  Nope.  Full price.  We could not resist Boop, because it sounded so simple.  And it had cats.  And booping.

It turns out that it really is that simple, on the surface.  The game board is just a piece of fabric with puffy squares, but you can flip over the box bottom so the whole thing looks like a bed.  So, it's just cats fighting over space on a bed.

Each player has 8 kittens and 8 cats.  You start by placing one kitten on any space, which boops all neighboring pieces one block away from the piece you placed.  Except if there's another piece blocking the boop.  And kittens cannot push adult cats.   When you get three cats or kittens in a line, remove those kittens and promote them to cats by setting aside the kittens and moving an equal number of cats into your pile of playable pieces.   That's about it for rules.

It's pretty funny when you boop cats right off the bed.  What could be more catlike than knocking things onto the floor? 

I didn't feel like this was going to be a great tactical game.  We played three games to get the feel of it.  It was amusing at least.  Maybe after playing more games, some kind of strategy might be felt.

We do see that if one player gets three in a row and gets those three adult cats, you better get yours promoted quickly, otherwise your kittens will be powerless to move the adults.  

When I got home after work, I looked for some playthroughs and found this delightful couple: Before You Play.  Here is their video about Boop.

Monique's final comments reflected what I was feeling: that your first few games will probably be short and silly, but as you get used to seeing the moves (and blocking them), the games will get longer and probably only end when one player misses something.

Apparently, there's a Halloween version of the game called "BOOoop!" which adds ghost cats with some additional funny rules.  Here's a video about both games, over at Meeple University.  Cheers.

21 Sep 2025 update: we were at On Board Gaming today and saw a third game is the series: Boop the Halls.  This had a Christmas theme and a different board layout.  Here is it on BGG.